CRAIG SILVERMAN

About Me

Hello. I’m a journalist and author based in Montreal, Canada. I work primarily in online journalism and am currently obsessed with things such as crowdsourced verification, content aggregation and curation, collaborative journalism, news startups, accuracy checklists, data visualization, Kindle Singles, tablets, and real-time information. I apologize for all the buzzwords.

You can contact me at craig at craigsilverman.ca, follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my updates on Facebook.

Work

I am founder and editor of Regret the Error, an award-winning site that tracks and reports on accuracy and media corrections. In December 2011, I announced Regret the Error was moving to the Poynter Institute, and that I have joined the organization as a member of its adjunct faculty. As of December 19, all new Regret the Error posts are available here, and the URL is being redirected in early 2012.

In addition to my role with Poynter, I continue to work with OpenFile, an online news startup that delivers community-driven reporting in six Canadian cities. I helped launch OpenFile in 2010. I advise another Canadian news startup, Spundge. It’s in private beta and is building tools to enable journalists to discover and manage real-time news and information. I help with product development as the company’s journalist in residence. I also write a weekly column for the Toronto Star.

My first book, Regret The Error: How media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, was published by Penguin Group (Canada) and Union Square Press in fall 2007. Read an excerpt and some reviews here. It won an award from the U.S. National Press Club.

My second book, co-written with Michael Calce, is Mafiaboy. It won the Arthur Ellis Award for Non-Fiction from the Crime Writers of Canada. I’m represented by Don Sedgwick and Shaun Bradley of the Transatlantic Literary Agency

I’m the former managing editor of PBS MediaShift and Idea Lab. I was a columnist and blogger for The Globe And Mail, and a weekly columnist for Columbia Journalism Review, BusinessJournalism.org, and Hour, a weekly in Montreal. My writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Montreal Gazette, Report On Business magazine, Maisonneuve, Harvard’s Nieman Reports, The Coast, and the Sunday Herald, among others. I spent close to a decade as a full-time freelance journalist, and have been lucky to win some awards for my work.

Volunteer and Board Service

I serve as President of the Professional Writers Association of Canada and am a former member of the Board of Directors of the Concordia Journalism Alumni Association. I’ve delivered many workshops and speeches about media accuracy and corrections, and online journalism, to a variety of journalism schools, professional associations and news organizations.

I’m an unpaid advisor to MediaBugs, a Knight Foundation-funded project, and I’m a co-organizer of the Toronto and Montreal chapters of Hacks/Hackers.