Category / Policy

Public editor: Why the Star published secret Conservative party documents

An anonymous email to the Toronto Star's newsroom led to several exclusive stories about the inner workings of Canada's Conservative party. Public editor Kathy English explains why the newspaper published this confidential…
Live blog: Q&A with Robyn Doolittle

Robyn Doolittle, one of three reporters to view the video of Mayor Ford allegedly smoking crack cocaine, will be giving a talk followed by a Q & A. Doolittle is a Toronto…
The Unknowable Country: What Postmedia’s torching of its parliamentary bureau means for the future of investigative reporting on the Hill

Journalists on the politics beat have been known to become government staffers and lobbyists eventually. So it's reasonable to assume, Sean Holman writes, that given the instability of the news industry, some…
Simply reporting, or reporting simply? How do you cover Rob Ford’s lies?

If you just report what a politician says, you get called nothing more than a lackey or a mindless stenographer. Report on whether the politician got the facts right, and you’ll likely…
Updated: Postmedia eliminates parliamentary bureau

Postmedia Network has laid off five parliamentary bureau staff and the remaining four staff members and manager Christina Spencer will join the Ottawa Citizen’s national political desk. Meanwhile, the Citizen is offering…
Budget lockups: a journalist’s survival guide

With the federal budget upon us next week, Ellen Russell, a journalism professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and former senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa, offers her…
Newfoundland and Labrador to review controversial access-to-information law

Tom Marshall, interim premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, has announced that three independent experts will review the province’s controversial access-to-information law, The Canadian Press reported.
Live blog: Toronto Star columnist Tim Harper on politicians and the media

Toronto Star columnist Tim Harper talks about access to information and the evolving relationship between politicians and the media in the latest installment of Wilfrid Laurier University's Journalism Symposium in Brantford, Ont.…
The Unknowable Country: Why aren’t more Canadians reading about politics?

When a cougar swimming in the ocean bests news about the political future of an entire province, something is amiss in the newsrooms, living rooms and legislatures of this nation, writes columnist…
The Mayor and the Media: How Toronto’s news gave j-students a crash course in media law and journalism ethics

When Ryerson professors Ivor Shapiro and Brian MacLeod Rogers sat down to plan their annual graduate seminar in ethics and law for last fall, they quickly realized that they wouldn’t need to…