Category / Read / Commentary

The mystery of the photograph identified in the Star as Great War soldier Pte. Thomas Lawless has now been solved.

While the staff articles showed restraint and said only that Robin Williams died of asphyxia or hanging, unfortunately a Reuters wire story posted by The Globe online included far too much unnecessary detail about his death, writes public editor Sylvia Stead.

In the case of Robin Williams’s suicide, it is a very wide tragedy because so many people loved his humour and sense of fun, but also a very wide opportunity for the media to talk about this public health issue.

If we believe that newspapers should reflect their communities, it is fair to say Brunswick News could do better when it comes to female representation in the pages of its publications, writes ombudswoman Patricia Graham.

Like more than 650 others who recently lost their jobs at the public broadcaster, associate producer Josh Lynn was shown the door. But the effects in Thunder Bay, Ont., go beyond the loss of a couple positions, he says. The impact there is immediate and dramatic: by losing Voyage North, the city’s locally produced programming…

Some people are good at counting numbers of people in a grid and then extrapolating that to the larger size crowd. If you try that, you will often find a smaller number than your initial estimate, says public editor of The Globe and Mail. 

Al Jazeera English journalist Mohamed Fahmy released the following statement to Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) through his family. Facing the difficult decision of whether to appeal his guilty verdict to the same corrupt judiciary that unjustly convicted him in the first place, Fahmy addresses the plight that he and his colleagues are facing.

Susan Fennell, who has been mayor of Brampton since 2000 and is now facing a tough race in her bid for re-election, undoubtedly has strong interest in publicly challenging the Toronto Star’s reporting and accusing the reporter who has doggedly held her to account of “bias,” writes public editor Kathy English.

From grieving family members to facts that cannot be easily checked and suppressing scandalous news, writing obituaries can be a challenge.

A complainant thought CBC News Thunder Bay was irresponsible in its coverage of community reaction to a controversial Ontario election newspaper ad placed by a local Libertarian Party candidate. He also questioned the use of a child’s response.