The ethics board issued decisions in June on four complaints, all of which were dismissed or found to have been appropriately addressed. They included dismissal of complaints that a Toronto Star column showed “bias against white people,” the accuracy of a term used in a Toronto Sun opinion column and two against two respective newspapers in Kamloops, B.C. Continue Reading Here’s what the National NewsMedia Council decided in June
Journalists agree that they have to avoid glorifying perpetrators in news reporting. But gaps in best practices continue to appear in coverage Continue Reading There’s still something missing in debates around covering mass violence in Canada
Narratives about the Women’s March and anti-Trump protests gave voice to protesters and significantly explored their grievances. Protests about anti-Black racism and Indigenous people’s rights received the least legitimizing coverage, with them more often seen as threatening and violent Continue Reading Riot or resistance? How media frames unrest in Minneapolis will shape public’s view of protest
Countries around the world value the public’s right to know. But that principle can look very different place to place Continue Reading Challenging our conventions around naming mass shooters
Complaints about the accuracy of claims about colony collapse disorder in bees and allegations of racism in coronavirus reporting weighed and dismissed by the ethics body Continue Reading Here’s what the National NewsMedia Council decided in February
Toronto Sun missed chance to tell readers it had re-edited a story; County Weekly News put wrong byline on National Post column Continue Reading Here’s what the National NewsMedia Council decided in December and January
Journalists on the challenges of holding the youth justice system to account Continue Reading Balancing privacy and transparency when reporting on minors
Journalists are still conflating sex work with exploitation. Here’s why we have to turn the page Continue Reading Stop spreading the sex trafficking myths derailing news coverage
(Disclosure: I’m the full-time paid publisher of Briarpatch Magazine, a volunteer board member of the Media Co-op, CEO of the currently inactive environmental consulting company Porpoise B Consulting, and freelance journalist. My partner is a designer for the CBC, not involved in content.) Derek Burney has been writing op-eds for the Globe and Mail since…
I regularly advocate for journalists to tell stories they see as newsworthy in the manner they see fit, because a key element of the journalistic skill set is the ability to determine news value. Making principled decisions about what is or isn’t news is a vital public service, and news value should be assessed by…