Are we newspapers dead yet?
Suppose they gave an anniversary and nobody came? A recent media milestone passed without comment, the publication of the first Canadian newspaper, the Halifax Gazette, in 1752. It was a concise summary of shipping news and foreign headlines. As print journalists we ought to celebrate 255 years of deadlines, but have our hands full with […]
Vimy Ridge observance edging into weirdness
Vimy observances are edging into weirdness. In a bid to outdo Remembrance Day, the government organized a mock blackout at the National War Memorial. Guests at nearby hotels were told to close their curtains–or else, presumably. The Ottawa Citizen told readers that Adolf Hitler had admired the “shining white walls” of the Vimy monument. A […]
Prime Minister now gets his angriest press in the West
Stephen Harper once told Edmonton-based Report magazine, “I, too am one of these angry westerners.” Now the Prime Minister gets his angriest press in the West. This will probably end badly. The West, like the elephant, never forgets. Many journalists seemingly oblivious to Harper’s contradictions last week portrayed the Quebec election result as a triumph […]
Media mistakenly compare our prime ministerial traditions to U.S. ex-presidential traditions
Everyone wants to be Queen for a day. Some recent moaning in the media over treatment given Canada’s ex-prime ministers reminds me of my last visit to Rideau Hall, disguised as a tourist. While escorted through the Governor General’s residence with a tour bus group, a man next to me murmured, “Some palace.” The tour […]
What’s up with media fascination and Justin Trudeau, ‘the country’s fave son,’ ‘the man who would be king’?
The Trudeau Show, the longest-running daytime drama in Canadian politics, is in its final season. It was a TV creation–a “fetish,” the National Post once called it–from the day 23 years ago that Pierre Trudeau left town a step ahead of an enraged public. Voters had enough of Trudeaus, but TV could never get its […]
No one in media asked why Harper and Conservatives changed their minds on Anti-Terrorism Act’s sunset clauses, either
Scatter bread crumbs and some reporter is bound to follow your trail. On Feb. 16, the Prime Minister said, “We have a leader of the opposition who is soft on terrorism.” On Feb. 21, CTV NewsNet’s Mike Duffy said, “Isn’t there a danger after what we saw in the House this afternoon that the conventional […]
Filling female quotas in politics doesn’t promote diversity
Ottawa turns every day, yet the path of its orbit is often narrow. In a turn for diversity, most national parties in the next election will enforce quotas on the demographic profile of candidates. It’s about time. No one should run for Parliament who has not lived in at least two time zones, owned a […]
No, journalists are not obliged to set an etiquette standard
Must journalists set a standard of good behaviour? The question follows the resignation of a British Columbia Cabinet minister for rudeness. In seeking answers I contacted Warren Kinsella, National Post media critic, and a monthly columnist for The Hill Times, the only journalist I know of to recently lecture media on the need for moral […]
Media’s hard sell on global warming, heavy on patronizing
I own an $8,600 magic suitcase. Somebody in Ottawa wants you to invest in a magic suitcase, too, but that is in the fine print of the media’s hard sell on global warming. “Journalism is about asking the questions and debating the answers,” Globe and Mail editor Edward Greenspon wrote. Yet newsrooms, including the Globe’s, […]
Neither O’Neill nor Citizen has uttered a correction or an apology
Long before codes of ethics and media seminars, most newsrooms had one rule. It was so straightforward, and consequences of breaking it were so fearful, the greenest cub reporter committed it to memory. The rule was: nothing else matters if the story is wrong. Not pride or justification for misspent time and expense, not the […]
