For about a decade, King’s professor Fred Vallance-Jones has been writing a column on CAR for the CAJ’s Media Magazine. Some of the columns are archived here. Naturally, the opinions expressed are those of the author, not necessarily those of the University of King’s College.

Click here to download the first spreadsheet mentioned in the column. Click here to download the second spreadsheet mentioned in the column.
So, here’s a question: Did the Conservatives win the 2008 federal election, or did the Liberals lose? Of course, it would be perfectly right to say “all of the above.” But as some [...]

An expanded version of the column published in Media Magazine, Winter 2008
The courts in Ontario are busy taking away with one hand, and giving with the other.
The cause of computer-assisted reporting in the province has been dealt a blow by a decision from the Divisional Court that essentially says if an institution has to write [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Winter 2007
It’s a standard complaint among software users that subsequent versions of programs are often just incremental improvements over the last. At times, it seems they’re nothing more than thinly-veiled attempts to slip more money from our pockets.
Microsoft’s Office 2007 package may be the exception that proves the rule. It [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Winter 2006 
I recently had one of those dreadful experiences that sometimes befall Canadian  reporters talking CAR with an American colleague.
Brad Heath of the  Detroit News and I were sharing beer and a sandwich before our presentation at the Crossing the 49th conference in Windsor on the weekend of Oct. 22. [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Spring 2005 
The spring of 2005 hasn’t been a good time to be a Liberal in Canada.
Testimony at the Gomery inquiry has set off a political scandal that at press time was being compared to the great Pacific Scandal that toppled the government of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A.Macdonald.
Comments by former [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Fall 2004 
The last time I wrote in this space I was about a case in Ontario’s Divisional Court with important implications for data access in Canada. A Toronto collection agency was fighting with MPAC, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, for access to an electronic copy of the assessment roll for [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Spring 2004 
See follow up column in Fall 2004.
A little-noticed court battle in Ontario has profound implications for anyone doing computer-assisted reporting in Canada.
On it hangs a basic question that has been tossed around for years but never quite resolved: is information about individuals that is by law public in paper form, [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Winter 2003 
Journalism schools have always been viewed with skepticism in a craft where being a skeptic is a basic job requirement
And it’s easy to write them off. After all, a good liberal education rounded off with a dose of life experience is a pretty good way to get started, and [...]

This corner of Media magazine isn’t feeling quite as lonely as it once did. In fact, it’s getting downright crowded
The last year has been something of a blur in the world of computer-assisted reporting in Canada
Natalie Clancy of CBC-TV in Vancouver built a database to probe a string of gangland murders (Please see the Winter [...]

Originally published in Media magazine, Winter 2002
(Eds note: For an up-to-date list of links to pdf extraction programs, please see the pdf extraction entry under our software category). 
I love them. I love them not
That just about sums up my relationship with Adobe Acrobat files
PDF files, as they are also known, have popped up everywhere on the [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Winter 2001
Alright.  You’ve interviewed  your data till you’re blue in the face. You know what all the fields are and what all the codes mean.  You’ve cleaned up your tables so Smith Street isn’t spelled six different ways.  In fact, you probably know more about that government database and its [...]

Originally published in Media Magazine, Fall 1998
One-seventy Langside Street is a white and green, two storey house in the West Broadway neighbourhood in Winnipeg’s inner city.
Today, workers are renovating it to provide housing for a low income family. Last November, there were so many cockroaches in the place that the city health department shut it [...]