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Are Canadians really falling for fake news?

By Christopher Waddell, Publisher I have been a grocery shopper for about 40 years. During that time in checkout lines I have read about cars that can run on water that the oil industry keeps secret from us, the pregnancies and affairs of hundreds of politicians and celebrities, regular UFO invasions of the earth hushed…
Journalism, public relations and the author in between

By Erin Leite Game Face: The Media Training Playbook - 19 Cautionary Tales, a self-published book by Toronto public relations consultant and former journalist Bodine Williams, brings two seemingly similar but often clashing professions together. It lays out the dos and don’ts of interviewing for the people answering the questions, and has a lot…
CBC Ombudsman: Beware of generalizations

By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman The complainant, Mr. Marco Mura, objected to the characterization of the government of Turkey as “fundamentalist.” I agree that the term is too broad to be accurate in this context. Adjectives are seldom a news writer’s friend. COMPLAINT On December 7, 2016, The World at Six ran a feature about…
Toronto Public Health investigating possible transmission of tuberculosis at Postmedia Place

By H.G. Watson, Managing Editor Toronto Public Health officials are investigating three cases of tuberculosis at an office tower in Toronto that houses National Post and Postmedia staff. Dr. Elizabeth Rea, an associate medical officer of health with the tuberculosis program at Toronto Public Health, confirmed to J-Source that there had been three infections since…
The problem with Canadian access to information in six tweets

By H.G. Watson, Managing Editor [<a href="//storify.com/jsource/why-canadian-journalists-are-fighting-for-better-a" target="_blank">View the story "The problem with Canadian access to information in six tweets" on Storify</a>]
Why freedom of the press should apply in Indigenous communities

By Wawmeesh Hamilton Freedom of the press enables citizens to know about the things that public bodies do that impact them. It’s what enabled me to report on civic affairs for a community newspaper for seven years. I reported about city taxes, school board decisions and regional district swearings in of new First Nations members.…
How to scale our understanding of local news health

The economics of local news are no small challenge, but soon we may be able to anticipate significant causes of unhealthy news ecosystems in different U.S. cities. Philip Napoli, the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy at Duke University, says he thinks it’s time to “get past the broad generalization that local journalism is…
CBC Ombudsman: What do reporters need to reveal upfront -The case of Marketplace’s Weddings Inc.

By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman The complainant, Catherine Lash, said she would never have let a Marketplace crew into her wedding show if she had known who they were. The crew should have been more intentional in identifying itself. She was concerned that her company is tarnished because shots of the event are in the…
After living abroad, I can’t find a journalism job in Canada

This story was funded by the J-Source Patreon campaign. By Shelley Pascual When I completed my International Journalism MA degree in the U.K. last year, I had no idea that of all the countries in the world to land a journalism job, it’d prove trickiest in the country that I’m from, Canada. And I’m not just referring…
Journalism students can play a key part in building sustainable journalism models

By Magda Konieczna Missing from the Shattered Mirror report’s recommendations for Canadian journalism were insights about journalism education. A panel discussion at last week’s Canadian Communication Association conference in Toronto aimed to fill that gap. It also reflected the challenges inherent in teaching journalism against the backdrop of an evolving and struggling industry, something that…