Most Hill reporters don’t see merit of bringing White House-style press briefings to Canada
PARLIAMENT HILL—White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s daily press briefings may capture global attention, including Saturday Night Live’s, but many parliamentary press gallery reporters say they don’t see a need for similar daily PMO briefings here on Parliament Hill. Parliamentary press gallery president Tonda MacCharles, a veteran Hill reporter for The Toronto Star, said the […]
Jimmy Breslin: not an enemy of the people
MONTREAL—I was reminded Sunday of an applause line Joe Biden used during the 2012 presidential campaign to sum up the state of America: “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” Pondering the news coming across my Twitter feed, it seemed the line required updating. “Jimmy Breslin is dead and Donald Trump is […]
Norm! Gagnon leaving Parliamentary Press Gallery after 30 years
Normand Gagnon, coordinator of technical services for the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is retiring this week after 30 years with the office. His last day on the job is March 23, one day after the federal budget comes down. “I was hoping for a smooth week before I left; it’s not going to happen with the budget,” […]
Canadians trust science, CBC, media, government, though Conservatives less trusting: survey
Canadians put a lot of faith in scientific experts, and most have at least some trust in things like the CBC, the news media, and the federal government, according to a new survey conducted by Campaign Research. However, it found those identifying as Conservatives were less trusting of all these institutions. Results shared exclusively with […]
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. […]
