By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman The complainant, Kamran Moghbel, thought a reporter should not have used the colloquial phrase “kick out” to describe an incident in which a student was told to leave an exam for refusing to remove her hijab. He said colloquialisms don’t belong in the news and in this case it distorted…
By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman CBC News in Montreal published a story about SNC-Lavalin and illegal political contributions they had given to the Liberal and Conservative parties over a 7-year period. The complainant, Beverly Akerman, thought the headline featuring Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre made it sound like he knew about the payment to his riding…
By H.G. Watson, Associate Editor A memo sent to National Post staff on Nov. 18 by editor-in-chief Anne Marie Owens details 20 newsroom departures, most the result of a round of buyouts aimed at reducing salary costs at Postmedia by 20 per cent. In the memo obtained by J-Source, Owens writes, “We are losing a…
By The Canadian Press Unions representing Canadian journalists want five Postmedia executives to reject bonuses totalling $2.275 million as the struggling newspaper chain continues staff reductions. The company awarded Postmedia president and CEO Paul Godfrey $900,000, CFO Doug Lamb $450,000, COO Andrew MacLeod $425,000, legal and general counsel Jeffrey Haar $300,000, and National Post president…
By H.G. Watson, Associate Editor Postmedia editors across Canada have announced plans to move most local coverage to the A section of the print editions in similar editors’ notes that ran in four newspapers on Monday. The move comes just as the Globe and Mail broke news that five Postmedia executives were paid $2.3 million…
By John Sandham for The Signal Kathy English is a busy person. As public editor of the Toronto Star for almost 10 years, she deals with dozens of issues every week relating to errors, omissions, or content. Of course, she doesn’t remember small details of stories that have produced complaints. Nevertheless, she remembers the public outcry over…
By Sylvia Stead for The Globe and Mail Earlier this week, a reader complained about an article published online about a diamond mine in Northern Ontario. She works in the North in resources and said she knows communities are divided on the subject of development in general and its impact on indigenous people. The article…
The following memo was sent to Regina Leader-Post staff on Nov. 22, 2016. Effective January 14, 2017, inserting operations at the Regina Leader-Post will cease and the mailroom facilities will be closed. Postmedia representatives communicated this organizational change to mailroom employees earlier today. After the closure, inserting and final packaging of all Regina Leader-Post products…
By Amanda Ghazale Aziz When Carleton University asked reporter Judy Trinh to give a talk on diversity in the journalism industry to students in the journalism and communications program, she said yes. She suspected why the university had asked her: She works full-time for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and she’s not white. Even with some reservations,…
By Esther Enkin, CBC Ombudsman The complainant, Gregory Duffell, thought a story on The National about Liberal cabinet minister Maryam Monsef was a journalistic failure. He considered it a “cover-up” to counter criticism of the minister and the entire Liberal government. He asked why details of Ms. Monsef’s life story were reported as fact when…