I couldn't help but wonder what kind of individual downloads a photo of a cute little girl running a race, then, with the full knowledge that what they're doing is fraud, fobs it off as the victim of a heinous attack? Was it not tragic enough that we knew three people had died, dozens were seriously injured and thousands profoundly affected? It made me angry.

Within milliseconds of the explosions, #BostonMarathon and #PrayForBoston were trending topics on Twitter. This is today's reality when it comes to tragedy. We live in a day and age where news finds us, we don't need to even look for it. Online, in the midst of tragedy, it's easy to spot those who care... those who don't... and those who would and do dare to make some sort of joke or cast blame before all of the facts have been sorted. While this online always-connected life exposes us to tragedy faster and with more detail and impact than ever before... it also allows us to feel connected, to reach out and support one another like never before.

This isn't a newsflash when I publicly declare that we're constantly bombarded by the noise of politicos professing their strategic talking points, su...

It's one thing to be a parent talking to your kids about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting -- it's quite another to be a journalist writing a news story about it for them. My audience is five- to 12-year-olds and somehow I had to write a story that wouldn't be too scary or grown-up. While I don't get to choose the news, I still get to choose how I report on it.

When a reporter approaches me about a column I wrote on the lack of storytelling in T.V. journalism, I have some explaining to do. "Want to know why broadcast news still starts so many stories at the end ... tells you effect before cause ... is so hard to understand ... to remember?" "Sure," she says. "Let me tell you a story ..."

It's not often that I get to publicly tell three of the big bosses of Canada's main TV news networks that too many of their journalists are lousy storytellers. And have the bosses listen. And even (more or less) agree.

The way a news story is structured or what goes in the headline may have a profound effect on what people think they know about current events. For the casual news consumer, many of whom stopped reading this after the first few paragraphs, it is a good idea to carefully read the entire story when it comes to important issues.

A man I taught to write for TV wins a Pulitzer Prize a while back. This man wins the Pulitzer because be writes about ordinary women and men -- people like you and me -- as if we are the most important people in all the world. The man's name is Jimmy Breslin. He writes a column for the New York Daily News and is all of 82 years old this week.

Slowly, slowly, the dwindling band of journalists who survive all the cuts are being acclimatized to the notion that their job is no longer to serve the people in our democracy -- a tradition proudly built up over the past couple of hundred years, often at great cost -- but to serve their employer. So why don't we, the people, take over -- subsidize our precious democratic journalism ourselves? Here's the plan.

Once upon a time when the world was young and had hope, and global warming, the one per cent and social media hadn't yet been invented, there truly was a golden age for TV news in North America. Could Microsoft bring that golden age back since its split from MSNBC?

Innoversity is a not-for-profit organization that has spent the past 13 years struggling with some success "to create opportunities for cultural minority, Aboriginal and disabled Canadians to actively engage with, and be reflected within, key social sectors and institutions." That's institution-speak for fighting racism and all the other isms that still stain our society, particularly our media.