By Robert Liwanag Neutrality in journalism limits the civil liberties of reporters and should be abandoned, said the director of Ryerson University’s Centre for Free Expression during a recent panel discussion. Citing CNN’s two-week suspension of global affairs correspondent Elise Labott over a tweet last November, James Turk said neutrality fails to distinguish an institution’s…
By Patricia Graham, Brunswick News ombudswoman Now that the new year is well underway, I’ll share with you some of my personal journalistic vexations—things I hope not to see, or to see less of, in 2016. Errors in names, dates, phone numbers, venues, etc. I cringe every time I see a correction for the date…
By Christopher Johnson Want to own Canada’s largest newspaper chain? Maybe you can. If over 5,000 former and current Postmedia journalists each invested $7,750, they could own the company’s market capitalization of $41 million on the Toronto Stock Exchange. That’s at a share price of 24 cents, a fraction of its $15 value four years…
By Sylvia Stead for the Globe and Mail The Zika virus and the health fears have grabbed the attention of the public and the media. While the interest is there, there have also been calls to use caution in the coverage of the virus and its link to serious birth defects such as microcephaly (babies…
By Esther Enkin, for the CBC The complainant, Nicholas Doyle, said he was disgusted by the lack of journalistic integrity when reporters went into the home of the perpetrators of the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. He said it added little insight and was an invasion of privacy. I found that CBC reporters were…
By Errol Salamon for CWA Canada Journalism students and recent graduates are well placed to support Chronicle Herald newsroom workers in Halifax, who have been on strike since Jan. 23. They can collaborate with newspaper workers as Ontario students did during the Peterborough Examiner strike from November 1968 to April 1969. The Peterborough Newspaper Guild (now CWA Canada Local…
By John Delva Blacks make up Montreal’s largest visible minority. According to the 2011 census, 147,100 live in the city. Why, then, are there so few in our media? As far back as the 1930s, black journalists in Montreal have been creating and fighting for space for their voices. Dorothy Williams, strategic development director at…
By Marc Edge And so the Great Canadian Newspaper Roll-up has begun. This was predictable once the Competition Bureau rubber-stamped Postmedia Network’s $316-million takeover of Sun Media last year. As a result, Postmedia now publishes 37.4 per cent of Canadian daily newspaper circulation, accor ding to my calculations. It is in the three westernmost provinces,…
By Sylvia Stead for the Globe and Mail It has been a bad week for journalism: 200 jobs lost in the broadcast and publishing wings of Rogers Media, and the closing of one of the nation’s oldest daily newspapers. The Guelph Mercury would have celebrated its 150th anniversary along with Canada next year, and its…