Halifax mayor stars in spoof video in bid to win his town a makeover.
by Stephen Kimber
The good news — for all concerned — is that Mike Savage is not Brad Pitt. The better news is that he isn’t Bruce Banman either.
Jun 092013
Uncategorized
Apr 162013
SGNews is In Your Corner
Thanks again for your support of independent journalism in Canada.
Here's the link to In Your Corner, a private briefing room for SGNews supporters.
Your user name is: inyour
and your password is: corner
Enjoy!
Apr 142013
I support credible, progressive online Canadian journalism and want to stay connected!
Straight Goods News
In partnership with
Is asking you to give. And we're doing all we can to make it easy and rewarding.
What's in it for you?
- A chance to make the world a better place. That doesn't happen as often as we'd like.
- In depth coverage of the important, progressive stories that interest you.
- Free Stuff that you can really use!
Here are the options.
1. Donate any amount and you get instant access to In Your Corner, an exclusive site that offers strategic advice from our panel of progressive experts. Read the articles and advise to others or submit questions of your own.
Click the Donate Button to make a donation using PayPal or a credit card.
2. Become a paid subscriber and we'll send you one of three great books written by the speakers at our next Reviving Labour's Image workshop.
- The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture by Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant
- The Trouble with Billionaires by Linda McQuaig
- Polling For Dummies by Marc Zwelling
You also get to choose which subscription plan, Bronze, Silver, or Gold.
Use the drop down boxes to tell us your choices then click Subscribe. By the way, if you don't want a book, you can choose that option as well.
Mar 152013
You're almost there.
In Your Corner is a members only site. If you already have a user name and password, proceed to the site.
If you'd like to take advantage of all the benefits of having SGNews In Your Corner, you can become member by making a donation using PayPal.
Feb 122013
In Your Corner is a private briefing room for SGNews supporters. Recent donors can access this unique service that offers timely, strategic advice on progressive issues.
In Your Corner is a place where the best strategic thinkers in North America help unravel your problems.
They will give you straightforward advice on persuading people, using the new, better way to talk back to the radical Right.
Your In Your Corner password lets you read advice from our panel of professional communication experts. And you can ask the panel questions yourself.
Straight Goods News will then round up recommendations and add a crisply written summary of the experts' advice. It's like having your own agency of writers and strategists on retainer.
What kind of problems will the In Your Corner panel tackle? Anything!
- Which headline would be better on this ad?
- Is this message a good way of going after our opponents?
- How should we respond to this attack on our members?
- Is there a better, new way to say public health care is better than private?
- Which of these leaflets do you think would work better?
Dozens of experienced people in advertising, political campaigns, union organizing, lobby, polling are on the panel. And we are adding new writers all the time.
To make sure the panel's advice is frank and uninhibited, In Your Corner won't identify the expert giving the advice. Your password gives access to the advice the team of experts gives on all the questions, not just your own..
Donate to Straight Goods News and start using In Your Corner right away.
In Your Corner was launched with support from the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.
Jan 242013
Defragging can speed up your PC
In the same way that your home can become un-manageable with things scattered all over, your home computer hard drive can also get disorganized. When the Lego blocks are spread all over the house, it takes longer to build that plastic castle. Sometimes pieces even get lost.
Jan 212013
Straight Goods News production tasks and timelines, January 2013
Newsblog, Hill Reports and the Video Gallery are updated daily or as often as
possible. Ish edits all these sections except Newsblog, which he co-edits with
Penney.
All other sections are edited by Penney, who posts new editions on Monday and
Thursday evenings for publication on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Penney needs PublicValues pieces in hand by 11 a.m., MT on Mondays and
Thursdays. At this point, they need to be fully edited with headlines and
Featured Images.
Ish should submit editorials by 3 p.m. ET ( 1 p.m. MT).
Penney will submit a list of image requests to Kenzie by 2:30 p.m. MT for
placement by 4:30 p.m. MT.
Penney will submit RPS recommendations to Dylan by 7 p.m. MT.
Dylan will change the RPS by 8 p.m. ET, by which time all new pieces will be Published.
Images. With RSS-email, we would benefit from having all stories include Featured Images, which will appear in email bulletins. In many cases, the images could be the authors. This is a something we'll have to discuss, but I have always wanted our new site to have images connected with all articles. RSS-email is another reason to have them. Can we assign Kenzie to this? – Ish
Proofing schedule: ????
(Please note there are volunteers who have offered to help proof).
Until the RSS-email utility is in place, Dylan will hand-compose the bulletin,
usually by 8 p.m. ET the night before publication. Once RSS-email is working,
with will automatically send out notification of new articles to readers on
Tuesdays and Fridays, or possibly more often if they choose to be so informed.
Dec 192012
Oct 262012
Here's a quick and easy way to see posts from your favorite SGNews regular contributors. Just click on the picture to see all their posts.
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Don't see your favourite? Tell us who you'd like to see.
Navigation tips
Use the SGNews by category menu in the sidebar on the right to find articles.
Use the Search box in the upper right hand corner of this page to find anything at all: title, content, or author.
Hint: you can also see all of an author's posts by clicking the link in their bio at the bottom of every post.
The box at the top of the Home page is a called a Slider. No, you can't eat it. But you can click on the Headline, the …Read more link, or the 
to read the story.
The Red boxes are called Tabs. The tabs at the very top of the page link to useful general information about the site. They never change The tabs in the body of the page display all the recent stories about a particular news category: Canadian politics, Workplaces, etc
We cover a lot of categories so, for the sake of clarity, these tabs show only the contents of the current edition.
Want to comment on a story? Register with SGnews.
Do you have suggestions or questions for or about the new site? Let us know.
And please, share SGNews with your friends and family.
Oct 262012
Contributor's guidelines, October 2012
Straight Goods is an online news magazine with particular focus on protecting human rights, untangling media spin, and deciphering Canadian politics. We're looking for newsy articles in journalistic style. Studies show that each story has about 14 seconds to capture the attention of an online reader. Please give readers the 5 W’s (Who, What, When, Where, and Why) in the first paragraph.
Rather than commentary, we prefer a journalistic approach: fact-heavy, third person, past tense, active voice. The best articles tell a story fast and clearly. We look for added value such as interviews, research sources, a timely news angle, or a political tie-in. SGN’s website uses WordPress, so if your text includes links, we can post the text and links directly to SGN story pages. Or we can embed the links ourselves. No worries. We also welcome original videos or suggestions about Youtube videos to add to our Video Gallery.
Please avoid whenever possible:
– sweeping generalizations (especially as the lead);
– footnotes;
– polemic – telling people what to do – words like “should” and “ought” are tipoffs;
– rude language;
– academic language or any other kind of jargon;
– hate speech, sexism, racism, homophobia or other forms of prejudice.
SGN style is to use Canadian spellings. We appreciate manuscripts that arrive that way. We expect writers to be able to substantiate their statements and interview quotes. We celebrate Canada’s diversity and welcome fresh viewpoints and voices to the conversation; we also work with emerging writers. We try to respond to all queries, but we don’t always succeed.
Please email all unsolicited queries or manuscripts to Penney Kome, Editor at penney@straightgoods.com. We prefer to receive stories as text, copied and pasted into the body of the email. Please do NOT send any manuscripts as attachments, as we’re likely not to read them.
You may have noticed that there’s a short biography and a headshot photo of the author at the bottom of most SGN story page. If we use your story, we’ll need that information from you. A good quality digital photo of the author (head and shoulders) is an asset for anyone who works online anyway.
At this point, Straight Goods cannot pay writers for their work, but we can offer subscriptions, promotion, and other incentives. Regarding promotion, we also consider book excerpts and reprints of insightful work that has appeared elsewhere.
Writers retain all rights to their contributions and are free to submit stories published by Straight Goods, elsewhere. Straight Goods will refer all requests for reprints to the writer.
For more information, please contact penney@straightgoods.com.