Category / Read / Commentary

A reader wrote to us this week confused about the star rating system used in The Globe and Mail.

Generally, Canada’s courts have been in favour of openness and have ruled in favour of the media’s social and moral duty to report openly on matters of public interest. So why is it that the media must continue to do battle?

The complainant, Kathleen Ruff, felt very strongly that by leaving out key details about the treatment of Omar Khadr CBC was “hate-mongering” and biased in its coverage.

The complainant questioned the use of the husband of a reporter in a story about problems with the renewal of New Brunswick health care cards.

Journalists covering and writing about these events have an obligation to provide as much information and as many relevant perspectives as possible to help citizens come to their own conclusions about a complex and complicated long-running story.

There is, in fact, a very real appetite for negative content. Audiences read it, which is why there’s so much of it. But the exponential increase in the volume of content available to us, coupled with the hall-of-mirrors repetition of the worst sorts of news, requires us to be discerning news consumers.

Support for a national council to be launched in 2015 appears to be consolidating across Canada, writes Toronto Star public editor Kathy English.

The Globe’s questions are not online polls, but surveys of readers’ views.

The Star is right to take seriously its responsibility to tell you who it supports for public office, writes public editor Kathy English.

Sylvia Stead responds to readers’ questions about newspaper endorsements.