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New poll finds Canadians still think they’ll get the news even if their local newspaper disappears

By H.G. Watson, Managing Editor Canadians don’t seem too worried about our troubled local media landscape — at least according to a new poll released last Friday. In a survey released on June 16, Abacus Data, a Canadian polling and market research firm, found that 86 per cent of Canadians feel they would still get…
Muslim communities are telling new stories to break old stereotypes, say panelists

By Angela Long for the Local News Conference If you want to learn about the Muslim community, don’t read the news, says the associate editor of The Islamic Monthly. Steven Zhou, who converted to Islam six years ago, said writing about a community takes time and resources. As a result, too many publications produce “surface-level” stories fulfilling…
Postmedia axes Monday print edition of the National Post

By H.G. Watson, Managing Editor You have just one more week to pick up a Monday print edition of the National Post — and then it is gone for good. On June 19, Postmedia announced that it is eliminating the Monday print edition of the national paper, and replacing it with an online ePaper. The…
Globe and Mail Public Editor: Overuse of term ‘populism’ can be misleading

By Sylvia Stead, Globe and Mail Public Editor Here’s a word that has surged in popularity in the last year. It has been used to describe Donald Trump’s ascendancy, the majority vote on Brexit and the second-place showing of Marine Le Pen in this month’s French presidential election. I’ve seen business articles in The Globe…
Researchers urge journalists to examine who gets quoted in news stories

By Abby Plener for the Local News Conference While the value of different sources can be subjective, newsrooms have a responsibility to interrogate their choices surrounding which voices get the most coverage, researchers agreed at a recent conference on local news. Asmaa Malik, assistant professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism, emphasized that in a fast-paced newsroom,…
Trudeau rejects call for five per cent tax on broadband Internet services

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is swiftly shooting down a parliamentary committee’s recommendation that Ottawa impose a five per cent tax on broadband Internet.
Listening to community members essential, say Indigenous journalists sharing industry experiences at local news conference

By Abby Plener for the Local News Conference While working in community news, Wawmeesh Hamilton heard a story from a reporter at a rival paper that he found concerning. The journalist told him that their publisher said that First Nations stories did not warrant enough interest to earn a spot on the front page. Hamilton recalls being…
How 80-year-old Radio-Canada, the French-language arm of the CBC, is driving innovation from within

By Tracey Lindeman for Nieman Lab Up in the tower of Radio-Canada‘s Montreal headquarters, overlooking the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and the old Molson brewery, is the nervous system of the 80-year-old national public broadcaster’s digital shift. This particular meeting is centered on chatbots — namely, the chatbots being built by a small team of engineers at Radio-Canada, the…
Live Blog: Is Fake News the New Propaganda?
Toronto Star Public Editor: Reader trust and responsible reporting with anonymous sources

By Kathy English, Toronto Star Public Editor An important reader question about trust in the Star: “I am curious what steps a journalist might take to verify what they are told by a confidential source. I can understand the need for confidential sources in the media, but, as a reader I generally put a little less faith…