CBC Ombudsman: What to call Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Using “dictator” is not bias
The complainant objected to one reference to Bashar al-Assad as “dictator” in a panel discussion on The National.
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‘Nationalize’ Postmedia? That’s just the first step
By Crawford Kilian, for The Tyee Canadian newspapers have gone through convulsive changes since the 1990s, largely thanks to the Internet. Their corporate owners appear to have shifted business plans. First they tried to save their papers by cutting costs, without success. Then they decided to gut their papers, and wring out the last few…
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Peter Mansbridge: Debating his legacy
By Charmaine Millaire for The Signal On the crisp winter morning of February 17, 2009, Peter Mansbridge walked off the elevator towards the main doors of the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. Before reaching the doors he noticed his reflection in a full body mirror, and realized he had paired the wrong coloured pants with…
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Globe and Mail Public Editor: Public Editor: With headlines, the details matter
By Sylvia Stead for the Globe and Mail In these times of political spin, contradictions, obfuscation and, at times, outright lies, readers expect to see not only the articles, but also the headlines, reflect the truth as best they can. A British Columbia reader wrote to me this week calling on The Globe to pay…
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CBC Ombudsman: As always, context is queen
By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman The complainant, William Heavenor, was concerned about the qualifying phrase “even so” in a paragraph about the makeup of the federal firearms advisory committee. Its placement made him suspicious that the writer was implying that the presence of white people on the committee was somehow wrong. In fact, the context…
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Globe and Mail Public Editor: Journalism needs to focus on accuracy, fairness and independence
By Sylvia Stead for the Globe and Mail Words matter, accuracy matters, fairness matters, independence matters. With journalism under attack these days south of the border, journalists need to focus on the basics of the craft and not become defensive to the swirling charges from Donald Trump that they produce “fake news” and are the…
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News for all
By Megan Fraser for The Signal In the last three years, administrative clerk Jennifer Gibson has answered more than 5,000 phone calls. She sits in a cubicle on the sixth floor of a downtown Halifax office building, facing two computer screens. And she faces a daily challenge – she is hard of hearing. Gibson took…
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A manifesto for the newspaper revival
By Pat Reddick for Media Are Plural Enter panic mode, it’s time to seriously worry about things. Or, better yet, get your thinking cap on and come up with some ideas for how to save an industry. For the past few months, we’ve seen an outpouring of ideas in Canada about how to save the…
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Toronto Star Public Editor: We need to stand together to fight ugly online abuse
By Kathy English for the Toronto Star What if all the women who have faced bullying and harassment in online spaces stood together and decided we will not take it any more? What if all the women — and men — who know that this “cyber misogyny” is wrong stood with them in protest and…
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CBC Ombudsman: Two Twitter Accounts, One Reporter – It’s dangerous.
By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman William McDowell, legal counsel to J.D. Irving Limited (JDI), wrote to complain about the Twitter activity of the provincial affairs correspondent in New Brunswick, Jacques Poitras. He was concerned that the activity on both the reporter’s CBC Twitter account and the one he uses to promote his books put him…