Biography:

Associate Professor Ivor Shapiro teaches ethics and feature reporting and conducts research into aspects of ethics and excellence in journalism. He chairs the ethics advisory committee of the Canadian Association of Journalism, and is the founding editor and current ethics editor of the Canadian Journalism Project (J-Source.ca), a national website providing information, commentary and resources related to the achievement of, and challenges to, journalistic excellence.

Born and raised in South Africa, Shapiro immigrated to Canada in 1985. He is a former contributing editor of Saturday Night magazine and managing editor of Chatelaine magazine. He has written feature articles for those magazines as well as Toronto Life, The Walrus, Maclean's, Today's Parent and The Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine, among others. Ivor has been honoured six times at the National Magazine Awards and has been a finalist for a Canadian Association of Journalists award for investigative journalism. His first book of literary journalism, What God Allows: The Crisis of Faith and Conscience in One Catholic Church (Doubleday, New York: 1996), was praised by critics in Canada as well as the U.S. Shapiro's magazine writing has been chosen for several anthologies, and he is the editor of The The Bigger Picture: Elements of Feature Writing (Emond Montgomery Press, 2008). His academic research has been published in Journalism Practice, Canadian Journal of Communication, and Newspaper Research Journal. 

Research Interests:

• Defining quality, standards of excellence, competencies and best practices in journalism
• Interviewing and sourcing issues in journalism

• Standards of care and ethics in journalism

Current Courses:

JRN 123, "Ethics and Law in the Practice of Journalism"

Professional Affiliations:

• Founding Editor and Ethics Editor, the Canadian Journalism Project (J-Source.ca)
• Chair, Ethics Advisory Committee, Canadian Association of Journalists
• Member: Writer’s Union of Canada
• Member: Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communications
• Member: International Communications Association.

Selected Publications & Presentations:

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Ivor Shapiro
Associate Professor, School of Journalism
Ryerson University,
October 25, 2011

Books authored

Shapiro, Ivor: What God Allows: The Crisis of Faith and Conscience in One Catholic Church (Doubleday, New York, April 1996)

Books edited

Shapiro, Ivor: The Bigger Picture: Elements of Feature Writing. (Emond Montgomery Publications, Toronto, August 2009)

Chapters in books

Shapiro, Ivor: “What’s a good story? Recognizing quality in journalists’ work.” In The New Journalist: Roles, Skills, and Critical Thinking ed. Paul Benedetti, Tim Currie & Kim Kierans (Emond Montgomery, Toronto, 2010)

Papers in refereed journals

[R] Shapiro, Ivor: "Evaluating Journalism: Towards an assessment framework for the practice of journalism." Journalism Practice 4/2 (April 2010).

Shapiro, Ivor: "Synthesis Essay: The Ethical Textbook"  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 87/2 (Summer 2010)  p. 416-420.

 [R] Gladney, George Albert; Shapiro, Ivor; Castaldo, Joseph: 2006, “Online News People’s Ratings of 38 Criteria of Quality of News Web Sites.” Newspaper Research Journal 28/1 (Winter 2007).

Shapiro, Ivor: “Why They Lie: Probing The Explanations For Journalistic Cheating.” [Review Essay] Canadian Journal of Communication 31/1 (January 2006).

[R] Shapiro, Ivor; Albanese, Patrizia; Doyle, Leigh: “What makes journalism ‘excellent’? Criteria identified by judges in two leading awards programs.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31/2 (June 2006)

Book review:

Shapiro, Ivor: "The Big Picture: Why Democracies Need Journalistic Excellence" (book review), Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 445-447 (2008)

Papers in refereed conference proceedings

[R] Maguire, Miles; Shapiro, Ivor: “Journalists’ values and customers’ needs: Who defines quality?” Proceedings of the Journalism Interest Group of the Canadian Communication Association. Fredericton , June 2011. http://cca.kingsjournalism.com/?p=117

[R] Bédard-Brûlé, Isabelle; Mychajlowycz, Kasia; Brin, Colette; Shapiro, Ivor: “Discours et pratiques de vérification chez les journalistes primes.” Proceedings of the Journalism Interest Group of the Canadian Communication Association. Fredericton , June 2011. http://cca.kingsjournalism.com/?p=121 

Major invited contributions and/or technical reports

Presentation on “Who is a journalist? Who decides?” Conference, “In the Public Interest: The Law and Ethics of Investigative Journalism.” Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, October 14, 2011.

Shapiro, Ivor: “Where do journalism scholars belong?” Paper for Canadian Communication Association (panel on formation of journalism studies group), June 4, 2008. 

Shapiro, Ivor: “Journalists don’t cheat, except when they do.” Panel presentation to Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco, August 2, 2006. 

Shapiro, Ivor: “The Judges Speak: Highlights From A Survey Of Judges In Journalism Awards Programs.” Presentation to Canadian Magazine Publishers Association “Magazines University” conference, Toronto, Ontario, June 8, 2005.

Shapiro, Ivor: “What Is “Best” In Journalism? How Excellence Is Defined By Judges In National Journalism Awards Programs: Preliminary Findings From A Canadian Survey.” Paper for Best Australian Journalism of the 20^th Century Conference, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, November 26, 2004.

Abstracts and/or papers read

[R] Maguire, Miles and Shapiro, Ivor:  Journalists' values and customers' needs: Who defines quality? Paper for Canadian Communication Association, Fredericton, N.B. June 2, 2011

[R] Shapiro, Ivor and Maguire, Miles: The rhetoric of quality: comparing the evaluative discourse of journalists and manufacturers. Paper for Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, Fredericton, May 30, 2011.

[R] Shapiro, Ivor and Brin, Colette: "The essence of journalism 
is a discipline of verification..." 
or is it? 
A preliminary report on quantitative content analysis 
as an approach to identifying journalists' practices 
in assuring accuracy. Paper for Canadian Communication Association. Montreal: June 2^nd, 2010.

[R] Shapiro, Ivor: "Good Story"—But How Good? Notes Toward a Rhetoric of Journalism. Paper for Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Media Ethics Division. Chicago: August 7, 2008

 [R] Gladney, George Albert; Shapiro, Ivor; Castaldo, Joseph:  2006, “New Media, Familiar Standards: How Online News People Rate 38 Criteria of Quality for News Web Sites.” Paper for Association for  Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco, August 5, 2006.

 [R] Shapiro, Ivor; Albanese, Patrizia; Doyle, Leigh: “Judging Journalism: What criteria affect the determination of excellence by judges in journalism awards programs?” Paper for Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, Texas, August 11, 2005.

Others

Works of journalism and commentary (selected)

Shapiro, Ivor: “A guide, not a cop: the CAJ's new ethics "code" (and why it's not called that).” J Source.ca (http://j-source.ca/article/guide-not-cop-cajs-new-ethics-code-and-why-its-not-called) published September 20, 2011

Shapiro, Ivor: “Commenting on the dead: all in the timing?” J-Source.ca (http://j-source.ca/article/commenting-dead-all-timing), published Aug. 24, 2011

Shapiro, Ivor: "Memo to j-boomers: times change." J-Source.ca  (http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=4563, published December 8, 2009)

Shapiro, Ivor: "So, how’d we do this time?" (Coverage of the Canadian federal election, 2008) J-Source.ca (http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=2888, published October 14, 2008)

Shapiro, Ivor: " Where's that pesky free-speech line?" J-Source.ca (http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=2146, published February 15, 2008)

Shapiro, Ivor: “Life, At What Price?” The Walrus, November 2004

Other:

Twitter: @ivorshap