Journalists entering political work not new, but can impact perceptions of bias: experts
A number of former Hill journalists have been scooped up to work for the Liberal government since it took power, with some making the switch in a span of weeks. While journalism experts say it’s far from a new phenomenon or unique to the political sphere, it can risk perceptions, if not the reality, of […]
Fake news isn’t going away, so here’s how you handle it
OTTAWA—On Dec. 28, 1917, readers of the New York Evening Mail learned a salacious new piece of American history. Writer H. L. Mencken claimed Dec. 20, a date that had passed a few days earlier, was an important but overlooked anniversary—the birth of the bathtub in the U.S. The country’s first tub, he explained, had […]
Trump is a disappointment to Canada, for reasons you might not think
TORONTO—What a disappointment. Donald Trump looked almost … normal. I mean, as normal a politician can be. Last week, the new president of the United States, during his first address to Congress, looked (almost) like a conventional politician. But the speech was most disappointing for most of the Canadian conventional media. Trump, the xenophobic, even […]
Manning Conference featured red-carpet style soirée, while Senators get social … media, that is
Picture this: nearly 600 suited-up students, MPs, and industry leaders exchanging ideas, discussing policy issues and nibbling on appetizers, all with the chance of networking with one of the 14 candidates for the federal Conservative Party leadership. I’d be lying if I said the Trillium Room at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa didn’t look like […]
Fake news not new, not easy to define
TORONTO—What is fake news? The question is dominating political debates after Donald Trump’s extravagant use of the term. The problem is an old one, though it was never raised before because the news, fake or otherwise, were handled only and exclusively by what we call “conventional media.” Debating impartiality of the conventional media in the […]
‘Yelling into an echo chamber doesn’t get you anywhere,’ Clark tells Conservatives ‘to engage’ broadly in the age of social media
OTTAWA—In a time of traditional media concentration and the proliferation of online digital news, the Conservative Party’s best bet for success will be to move beyond communicating with “friendly” publications and engage broadly, said former veteran journalist Tom Clark at the Manning Conference’s panel on political communications in the age of social media on Saturday. […]
#cdnpoli: social media like Twitter can polarize voters and over-simplify issues
The effective use of social media may at one time have given a politician an edge over their opponent. But in a world where President of the United States Donald Trump uses 140-character tweets to address and announce policy issues, and Justin Trudeau is known as the ‘selfie prime minister,’ having at least a bare-minimum presence on […]
Trump isn’t going to be impeached anytime soon, numbers just aren’t there
TORONTO—Donald Trump isn’t going to be impeached. Not anytime soon, anyway. The numbers just aren’t there. Impeachment is about overturning the will of the people. Impeachment shouldn’t ever be easy. In the United States, impeachment has been designed to require a supermajority of legislative votes—and is reserved for what the U.S. Constitution calls “high […]
Did someone say Joe Trudeau? Trudeau-Trump meeting went smoothly, almost
They almost got through it without incident, Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump, in the meeting between the two leaders in Washington, D.C., last week. Mr. Trudeau didn’t get preachy, Mr. Trump didn’t say anything too crazy. There was a photograph that showed Mr. Trudeau looking at an outreached hand of the U.S. president with what […]
What is happening to the Conservative Party of Canada?
GATINEAU, QUE.—The once-mainstream Conservative Party of Canada is in danger of turning into something ugly—a vehicle for intolerance, anger, harsh economic and social remedies, coloured by a sour mistrust of anyone who sees life differently. The question is whether moderate Conservatives, traditional Conservatives, red Tories—even those labels have become sneer-worthy—will intervene before its too late. […]
