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It’s time for journalists to quit making jokes about Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s weight, writes John Lorinc in today’s  Toronto Standard column.

Don’t look to the parliamentary media for guidance on most NDP-related matters, says Chantal Hébert. Or at least, don’t look any time soon. “Not since Bob Rae took power at Queen’s Park two decades ago have so many combed their Rolodexes for solid NDP contacts,” she quips in a recent Toronto Star column.

The Onion made big news yesterday when it announced its first-ever foray into a city outside the U.S. In case you missed it, the satirical magazine, and its pop-culture sister pub, the  A.V. club, have teamed up with the Toronto Star to bring a print edition to Toronto, starting this fall. 

Today’s Globe and Mail editorial on the death of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad calls on democratic countries, including Canada, to stand up for freedom of the press by first standing up to Pakistan. 

While dissident journalists are silenced or jailed, Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has a lot to say to those in the West who still entertain the fantasy that Cuba and Castroism are models of social organization.

Toronto city councillor Doug Ford spoke on AM640’s the John Oakley Show today about Canada Day, Pride, his time at the cottage, and, what else, the Toronto Star. Needless to say, after the Toronto Star showed up on his cottage doorstep, Ford isn’t any more impressed with the paper than he ever was. 

When reporter Mac McClelland went to Haiti on assignment for Mother Jones magazine, she met a woman who told a harrowing story of gang rape. That experience, and what happened to the woman subsequently, had a powerful effect on McClelland. “I was undone,” she writes. What McClelland did to deal with her PTSD is a…

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has issued a plea on their website: Please no more complaints about Krista Erickson’s interview with Margie Gillis on Sun News.

Forget the ol’ industry doom and gloom, say panelists at the RTNDA conference in Halifax: Morning news is on a roll. David Thurton tells us why news shows at the start of the day are rising like the sun.

Read our round-up for the highlight presentation and discussion on journalism and academic cross-dressing; what banned U.S. academic Bill Ayers had to say; plus what happens when academic research hits the media in a social world.