In 1994, at 28 years old, Jim Rankin got his big career break and joined the Toronto Star’s city section as a reporter and photographer. He quickly discovered the newspaper was also the region’s unofficial police complaints bureau. A significant number of Black Torontonians told him they’d been stopped by police engaging in “racial profiling,” the targeting of people based simply on the colour of their skin. Still, Rankin would hear only a small fraction of these stories that haunted the city for decades, terrifying one segment of the population as another denied that they could be real.

There was the teacher who counted down from 10, waiting for the inevitable flashing lights, every time he saw a police cruiser pull up beside him; the law student stopped so often he began to feel South African-style apartheid was alive and well in Toronto; the young journalist approached by officers for walking down streets he “didn’t belong” on, in a city he had come to call home.

Rankin was struck by the fear and anger associated with these stories. So, he spent years trying to understand why the relationship between cops and Black citizens was so clearly troubled. After many interviews with police representatives and members of Black communities, he’d gathered hundreds of anecdotes and countless accusations from both sides. But he didn’t have enough data to comprehensively report on the sense of injustice.

That began to change early in 1999, his fifth year at the Star. Rankin was at his desk, looking through a run-of-the-mill press release from the Toronto Police Service (TPS) about a male robbery suspect.

As he read it, he noticed a bizarre reference, just one word, an adjective that would prove crucial to understanding the tense relationship between Black Torontonians and the city’s cops. That word was “yellow.” Rankin wondered: how could a suspect be described as yellow? Did he have jaundice?

The surprising answer led to more than a decade of groundbreaking reporting that has exposed “carding,” the nationwide police practice of stopping, questioning and documenting people, even without suspicion of criminal offence. Many believe it is racial profiling.

The Star’s coverage of carding has been the result of a combination of persistent reporters, committed editors and supportive publishers willing to take on serious financial risks. Together, they make a strong case for how a healthy newspaper industry can amplify the voices of marginalized populations that democracies haven’t done nearly enough to serve.

One of the voices the paper helped magnify was that of Chris Williams, an academic and activist. “Investigative journalism, from the standpoint of a lot of people, is dying, primarily for fiscal reasons. This series,” he says, referring to the Star’s carding coverage, “shows how indispensable such journalism is for public education, for holding public institutions accountable and for fostering critical consciousness generally.”

The hunt for the meaning of “yellow” began when Rankin and then-colleague John Duncanson, who died in 2009, embarked on a year-long process of piecing together snippets of information from trusted police sources they’d built up throughout their careers. The first major breakthrough was the discovery of a fingerprinting program, the Repository for Integrated Criminalistic Imaging (RICI). One of the database’s headings, “colour,” allowed users to choose from white, brown, black, red or yellow when identifying suspects. These colour codes were converted into ethnicities before appearing in press releases. “Yellow” should have appeared as “Oriental” in the release—though police now use “Asian”—but a clerk at police headquarters had forgotten to make the change.

The journalists pressed police contacts to discover what else the force was tracking. “John Duncanson was a terrific cop reporter and could get almost anyone to talk and say things that they really shouldn’t be talking about with a reporter,” Rankin says. Digging deep through police contacts eventually yielded more gold, as Rankin acquired the name of two additional databases. After filing a Freedom of Information (FOI) request through the TPS, he learned that both contained race fields. This was the first hard evidence that Toronto cops were recording racial characteristics. These steps were crucial to putting together the information required for a specific enough FOI request to get the databases, which Rankin submitted in March 2000 after consulting his editors.

For two years, the Star negotiated with the police through the municipal FOI act. They reached a compromise in the summer of 2002: the TPS gave the Star access to the Criminal Information Processing System (CIPS), which allowed analysts to search for racial disparities in the way police treat people after arrests. “We knew more about what was in CIPS, and we had ideas about what we could look for in terms of differences that might speak to potential racial bias,” Rankin says. “We also had to be pragmatic. Police had never before had a request like this, and we knew it was eating up their resources—and ours.”

The Star’s “Race and Crime” series in October 2002 found that in cases of simple drug possession, Black people were taken into police stations more often than white people, and they were held overnight for a bail hearing at twice the rate. “The Toronto crime data also shows a disproportionate number of black motorists are ticketed for violations that only surface following a traffic stop,” wrote Rankin. “This difference, say civil libertarians, community leaders and criminologists, suggests police use racial profiling in deciding whom to pull over.”

The series had a huge impact according to Frances Henry, a retired York University professor and leading racism expert: “The fact that the Star and all those very good journalists they had at the time decided to do that piece of research and that series was a milestone, I would say, in journalism on race and racism in this country.” Henry and co-author Carol Tator, an instructor and consultant who has worked in the anti-racism movement for decades, cited “Race and Crime” in Racial Profiling in Canada: Challenging The Myth of “a Few Bad Apples,” their 2006 book. “The series in the Star provoked a discursive crisis that continues to reverberate,” they write. “The concept of a ‘discursive crisis’ refers to a set of conditions that has a profound impact upon society and, more specifically, the state of minority/majority relations.”

But cops weren’t as impressed with “Race and Crime.” The Toronto Police Association (TPA), the union representing the city’s law enforcement, launched a lawsuit against the Star in January 2003, alleging the series labelled every officer in the force as racist. The TPA sought $2.7 billion in damages ($375,000 for each of its 7,200 members). “It’s cartoonish, the amount they were seeking,” says Rankin. “It’s hard to take it seriously, but at the same time, you go to bed at night and you think, what if we didn’t do it right? We all lost a lot of sleep.” Throwing out the case in June 2003, the judge concluded, “The allegedly defamatory comments and innuendoes in the articles cannot reasonably be understood as intended to apply to every officer in the TPS.”

“Race and Crime” was a success, and the Star had dodged a massive lawsuit. But Rankin wasn’t satisfied. As the years went on, he kept in touch with his police contacts to develop a better understanding of the database the paper had failed to acquire with the 2000 FOI request. He desperately wanted access to the Master Name Index (Manix). The information on hundreds of thousands of people in the database included their race, which officers marked on a contact card after stopping them. He filed another FOI request, but the TPS quickly denied it.

After the drama of “Race and Crime,” Rankin wasn’t surprised by the rejection. But he wasn’t about to back down. He went to his editors, and despite the likely challenges ahead, they were willing to take the TPS to court for information contained in the carding database. He was thrilled, remembering exactly why he loved working at the Star. Knowing that his colleagues, all the way up to the publisher, were committed to the story gave him the confidence to slug through a seven-year legal battle while continuing to report on allegations of police brutality and racial profiling.

In early 2009, the Star won the case, and the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered the TPS to reimburse the newspaper’s legal fees. Rankin taped a copy of the $40,000 cheque, along with another for $35,319.49 from the TPA’s earlier failed class action lawsuit, to the side of his desk. They were souvenirs of the battles he fought in the name of good journalism.

By January 2010, he was looking over a breakdown of carding stops in Toronto from 2003 to 2008. The data he had used in “Race and Crime” was complex, but Manix was straightforward. “Within a day or two of looking at the carding database, we could see a pattern,” Rankin says. There was a shocking racial disparity: Black people made up 8.4 percent of Toronto’s population at the time, but a staggering 22.6 percent of contact cards. He recruited help from the Star’s investigative reporters, as most of his original team from “Race and Crime” had moved on. Over the next month, they put together a new series.

“Race Matters,” published in February 2010, reported that Black people were three times more likely to be stopped than white people; Black males aged 15 to 24 were carded 2.5 more times than white males of the same age; and Black people were carded at significantly higher rates than their overall census population in each of the city’s 74 police patrol zones. The series included interviews with Rohan Robinson, a teacher who became the first face of carding. He described being stopped by police 30 times since 2001 without being ticketed.

Black communities in Toronto already suspected they were disproportionately stopped by police and had discussed it for decades, according to Anthony Morgan, a policy and research lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic. “Unfortunately, that’s part of the Black experience,” he says. Yet data confirming the systemic nature of carding, and its extent, was new. “It helped me recognize this isn’t just a feeling that something is wrong with these interactions,” Morgan says. “These things were actually wrong, and I was being targeted. Up until then, it was difficult to feel comfortable saying that.”

John Sewell, coordinator of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and former mayor, says the story made his group realize this wasn’t happening randomly or from an individual officer. “This was a real strategy of the police force, and was something that was requiring all police officers to stop random people and record data about them.”

Despite interest from civil liberty groups, Rankin was underwhelmed by the public’s reaction to the series. He expected outrage from Torontonians. Instead, he says, it didn’t spark the city-wide conversation on carding that he’d hoped would occur. Rankin and the other reporters had taken only a month to put together the story, eager to publicize the racial disparity in carding stops, especially after waiting seven years for the data. The rush to release the series meant there wasn’t enough in-depth analysis. “What I didn’t think of at the time was other comparisons we could have done there,” Rankin says. Those included breaking the analysis down to a neighbourhood level and comparing the results. “We didn’t frame some of the questions the right way.” He believes they could have exposed the racial disparity in a more provocative manner.

The series also lacked the sort of wide-ranging personal experiences that would have conveyed the pain of being disproportionately carded. This was a significant flaw since many supporters of the practice saw it as a relatively harmless way of gathering information. The people who typically came to the Star to discuss encounters with police were often involved in legal disputes with the TPS. But the carding sources were everyday people affected by the practice and scared of the potential backlash of stepping into the spotlight, according to Patty Winsa, a general assignment reporter who worked on the series. “It was very difficult to get people to speak out,” she says. “So we didn’t personalize it enough.”

Eager to tackle the story with a new angle, Rankin filed another FOI request in 2011 to acquire updated carding data, as “Race Matters” included data only up until 2008. The March 2012 “Known to Police” series that came out of this FOI request finally brought carding the attention Rankin felt it deserved and forced politicians and police to address the practice. Rankin, Winsa and several multimedia journalists used the new information to present a provocative question: was it possible every young Black man in Toronto had been carded?

“A Star analysis of Toronto police stop data from 2008 to mid-2011 shows that the number of young black and brown males aged 15 to 24 documented in each of the city’s 72 patrol zones is greater than the actual number of young men of colour living in those areas,” the series noted. The ratio of Black men who were carded increased in predominantly white, affluent zones.

Rankin and Winsa also explored what carding meant to people in patrol zone 121, located in the Weston-Mt. Dennis neighbourhood, an impoverished area of Toronto with a particularly high rate of carding. The series included interviews with Black youth and community workers from this area, immersing Star readers in the grim realities of carding, something Rankin felt past series had failed to do.

One of the officials he’d hoped would consider his reporting was Alok Mukherjee, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB) from 2005 to 2015. After the 2010 series, Mukherjee told Rankin, “I can’t explain to you why you see the pattern you see today, but come back to me in two years, and if we have not seen a change, then there will be some questions that we will need to answer.” Mukherjee was shocked to hear the disparity had increased and began pressing the TPS for change.

The Star, meanwhile, continued pushing carding as a story, although the most important addition to the next series came from two men outside of the publication. Williams filed an FOI request for his own carding data in June 2012. After receiving the data, he contacted his friend Knia Singh, a student at Osgoode Hall Law School, and urged him to do the same

Singh filed his request in December 2012, and then the two men contacted the Star. Williams believed working with the paper would be “beneficial to the community because the experiences of me and Knia intersect with the experiences of hundreds of thousands of other people.”

“Known to Police 2013,” published in September, told their stories and included powerful video interviews. The series stressed that both men are young, Black, without criminal records and active in their communities, and they still had been carded. Singh says the reaction to their front-page photos illustrates how important their stories were for shattering stereotypes about carding. “It looked like Chris and I were suspects in a crime, because you usually don’t see two Black people on the front cover unless they’ve committed a crime, right?” He adds, “Some friends of mine thought I had either committed a crime or was a victim of a crime until they read it.”

Just under a month later, the TPS released the Police And Community Engagement Review (PACER) report, suggesting substantive methods to work toward bias-free policing. Many of these suggestions were incorporated into a progressive carding policy reform the police board voted for in April 2014, and the number of contact cards issued had begun to drop the year before. A few months later, Rankin asked TPA president Mike McCormack what had caused the reduction. The union head responded, “There’s definitely a sense out there amongst my members that they don’t want to be the one that’s, quite frankly, on the cover of the Toronto Star.”

Civil rights organizations used the Star’s data analysis as ammunition to put pressure on the police. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor in criminal justice at Indiana University who’s studying the views of Toronto police officers on race, says the Star had done a good job of reporting on anti-Black racism for years. Yet he also notes personal stories, common in the paper’s reporting before it obtained the databases, were typically ignored by police officials. “This type of data is often dismissed as being anecdotal because it’s individuals relaying their experiences.” But the databases provided quantitative evidence that was more difficult to dismiss, says Owusu-Bempah. “If it weren’t for the work of journalists, we would be much further behind in what we know now than we do.”

Shadya Yasin, a coordinator with the York Youth Coalition who works in the Weston-Mt. Dennis neighbourhood, believes the reporting helped transform attitudes toward carding. “When the Black community speaks about carding, it’s just like, ‘Oh, look at those people, it’s just their issue,’” Yasin says. “But when the Star’s reporting came out, it actually gave proof and made it real to other people who think it’s always just Black people complaining about race issues.” Singh adds, “The reality is, if the journalists didn’t cover it, it would be a dead issue. It would be very easy for the police to just trample our rights, and we’d never have any recourse.”

These investigative series also opened the door for Black journalists, personally affected by carding, to vigorously report on the practice with the aid of quantitative evidence. The Star’s Royson James has tackled carding in his columns, especially starting in 2014, and helped put pressure on politicians to address the problem. In April 2014, the TPSB passed what many believed to be a progressive policy. A year later, the TPSB reversed many of these changes when it passed a new carding policy.

In June 2015, James argued that the dismantling of the 2014 reform was “beyond disturbing.” Noting citizens’ lack of trust in the political system, James wrote, “They do not want to hear from Mayor Tory on the issue. He symbolizes the problem.”

Singh says James’s reputation played a role in mobilizing Black Torontonians against carding. Williams agrees the columnist’s attacks on carding were crucial. “Royson James plays an important role in terms of conveying the deep-seated sentiments of large segments of the Black population in particular and marginalized populations more generally.”

Few other columnists discuss carding on a routine basis, according to James, who says, “He who feels it, knows it.” He believed he was the only one able to give Black communities in Toronto a voice they lacked in Canadian journalism. “I decided I was going to have to be that voice,” James says, noting a sense of personal responsibility.

James’s writing over the years inspired Desmond Cole, a freelance journalist who began reporting on carding after reading “Known to Police.” His personal essay in the May 2015 edition of Toronto Life left a mark on the city. Cole believes his piece was especially influential because of the magazine’s audience. “This was really not in their mode, so it really, really grabbed people’s attention,” he says. “It was sent into the homes of people who aren’t used to reading about these kinds of issues on a regular basis, or maybe never have.”

Cole’s view on the lack of public knowledge of carding, which others share, raises a serious question: stories about biased policing have existed for decades, so why did it take so long for mainstream journalists to cover the issue?

Owusu-Bempah doesn’t blame the Star for the delay, claiming the fault lies with police since they don’t regularly release carding data. And that information was of the utmost importance, according to Sewell: “It was that data that just blew things apart.” The Star’s coverage is invaluable, says Williams. “Any time you have journalistic work that disrupts the privilege of such a powerful public institution, I think that’s vitally important.”

Public discussion about carding reached new levels last October, when the province of Ontario proposed draft regulations to regulate carding and, many hope, to eventually ban random stops. Rankin is eager to see what will come of these regulations, though he believes systemic bias in policing will continue and, therefore, the reporting will as well.

Despite these concerns, the announcement marked the beginning of a happy few days for Rankin. Current and former colleagues emailed and called to congratulate him for his dedication to reporting on carding throughout the years. “It took a lot of Star resources and a really dogged team of journalists, editors, data gurus and bosses to keep on this issue,” Rankin says. “Because I am the only one still on it from our 2002 series, it feels extra special to be able to see it through to where we are today.”

One message particularly stood out. Rankin left work the day after the announcement, walked his dog and came home to a phone call. It was Scott Simmie, one of five journalists who worked on “Race and Crime.” Simmie told his former colleague that his reporting was a legacy. “It hadn’t hit me until that,” Rankin says. “You’re lucky in this job if you can look back and say there’s something that we did that made a difference. That’s definitely one of them.”

As they chatted, people around Toronto picked up copies of the Star with a front page filled with an article from Rankin, a photo of Singh and a column from Cole. The headline blazed across the page in large, capitalized print and announced just how significant their work had been: “Random Carding: The End.”

White men effectively control Canadian journalism. But recent events have shown that’s not enough: any challenge to their dominance must be condemned.

On February 18, BuzzFeed senior writer Scaachi Koul tweeted a call for longform writers, particularly those who aren’t white or male. This was a commendable step toward breaking down barriers preventing people from entering, and then overhauling, the white journalism enclave.

Unsurprisingly, those who benefit from the status quo reacted swiftly and with venom. Koul was continuously harassed as news of her effort to make newsrooms look a little less like a country club spread through social media, Reddit and right-wing blogs. The backlash wasn’t limited to egg avatars, either—prominent figures at bastions of privilege jumped in as well.

Buzzfeed Cda is hiring, White Males Need Not Apply (so, can I finally ban left-handed Albanians from the office?)

— Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore) February 20, 2016

This legal analysis lists all the Cdn human rights & labour laws violated by @Scaachi's look-at-me-I'm-edgy job ad:

— Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore) February 20, 2016

On Saturday night, Koul deleted or deactivated her Twitter account. Koul, a woman of colour who writes critically about racism and sexism, was forced off social media for giving an ear to those who often go unheard. This should disturb any journalist, regardless of whether or not Koul returns to Twitter.

But the implications of the incident go beyond Koul, perfectly encapsulating a dangerous deficiency in understandings of racism.

Koul’s call for non-white writers and her characteristically snarky tweets that followed were instantly deemed blatantly racist. Meanwhile, Canadian journalism is almost entirely white-owned. Leading editors across the country are overwhelmingly white, as are staff lists—including columnists, who help craft national conversation. For decades, people of colour have been telling stories about how they feel boxed-out of the industry or harassed if they attempt to carve out a spot for themselves.

And yet the reaction to these facts and countless lived experiences is always something like, “There isn’t a problem. No one is barred from applying for any job. Journalism is merit-based. People of colour just aren’t doing enough to get into the industry.”

The logical deficiency here is that the general public, as well as many journalists, conceive of racism solely as something explicit and direct. So, Koul encouraging non-white writers to pitch to BuzzFeed gets read as a segregation-era-style job ad. Meanwhile, the shameful state of Canadian journalism is portrayed as the product of an ideal meritocracy or just merely a coincidence, as if it fell into place by chance.

Koul’s post, of course, is not racist, or illegal.

@Scott_Gilmore @Scaachi it's clearly not a job ad, and it violates no laws to encourage women & poc to pitch. But yeah thx for the link.

— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) February 20, 2016

Yet this doesn’t matter for the online mob who feel challenged by Koul’s search for writers. If these people fought actual racism even a fraction of how much they complain about “reverse racism,” there’d be substantial change.

But, as the harassment Koul faces illustrates, those who benefit from the current system don’t actually want change. BuzzFeed focusing on writers of colour would mean a white writer may miss out on “his” job.

For all the dudes who cried when BBC introduced its "minimum 1 woman per panel show" rule. Meet Dr. Michael Kimmel: pic.twitter.com/do5MazSiNx

— Bec Hill (@bechillcomedian) January 16, 2016

Nevermind the fact that BuzzFeed’s hiring is an iota of the overall Canadian market, where white writers are still disproportionately employed. A white man would still miss out on an opportunity, and that is unacceptable in their eyes.

This is exactly why people need to call bullshit on the countless editors and journalists who agree there is a problem, spout off about how lovely a more diverse journalism landscape would be and then do absolutely nothing to make it happen.

Changing the face of journalism means actually shifting where the money goes and who gets to decide its destination. Those unwilling to accept that don’t actually want change, and it’s time to stop relying on them to lead the way.

Canadian journalists have spent the last couple days shooting fish in a barrel and congratulating themselves for it.

On Tuesday, The Rebel reported that its journalists were barred from several government events between January 29 and February 3 because Alberta’s department of justice ruled that the publication — started by Ezra Levant — does not produce journalism, and as such its reporters “are not entitled to access media lock-ups or other such events.” The government has now reversed its decision.

The 48-hour-long pat on the back began shortly after The Rebel‘s initial report, as journalists rushed to condemn the decision, claiming the government shouldn’t decide who is a journalist.

Their argument, of course, is accurate: you don’t need a degree to be a journalist, and working for an alternative publication does not mean you should be barred from events mainstream reporters can access.

The issue is that journalists made this point in the most self-aggrandizing manner, depicting it as if it was the beginning of a totalitarian crackdown on the press, and they were the only ones capable of stopping it.

The Globe and Mail published an editorial on the matter, writing, “This is beyond deplorable. It is not the place of a government to decide what constitutes a journalist or a media outlet. This is not Russia, not Egypt, not Iran – countries where government controls the media through bogus licensing regimes or outright censorship.”

In the Edmonton Sun, Lorne Gunter wrote, “Outrageous is an overused word in politics, but this is truly outrageous.”

Meanwhile on Twitter, journalists were trying to channel Voltaire.

Ezra Levant is a garbage human being and The Rebel is a garbage website but both still deserve journalist status & all that entails.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) February 16, 2016

@bruceanderson I can't say I've really ever appreciated what Ezra's contributed to the conversation, but I don't think it's for gov't… 3/n

— Alex Boutilier (@alexboutilier) February 16, 2016

@bruceanderson to stop his employees or contributors from attending press conferences. If the gallery allows it to stand for him … 4/n

— Alex Boutilier (@alexboutilier) February 16, 2016

With pretty much every reporter in Canada rallying to his defence I guess all there is to say is welcome, @ezralevant, to the media party.

— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) February 17, 2016

These articles and tweets perpetuate the myth that journalists are all in it together. In reality, Levant’s case is an easy one for reporters to congregate around, expressing outrage without any serious consequences or thought.

Meanwhile, earlier this year RCMP officers entered Vice Canada’s office in Toronto and Montreal to seize documents and notes, and there was very little outrage from journalists: no Globe editorial, no columns and few reporters coming to Vice’s defence on Twitter.

In 2015 I wrote that, “The executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Tom Henheffer, defended Vice’s decision to fight the RCMP’s production order. ‘Journalists are not lackies for the police and to use us that way is a totally unjustifiable violation of free expression and privacy rights,’ Henheffer said, adding that ‘this sets a dangerous precedent for the free press in Canada that must not be repeated.’”

As such, the invasive methods used against Vice should be regarded as a serious threat to the future of adversarial journalism, especially in post Bill C-51 Canada. Journalists don’t deserve a pat on the back until these limits to the freedom of the press are challenged head on.

Three established figures in Canadian journalism debated the role of objectivity for over an hour at Ryerson University on Monday, and they managed to completely avoid the most important points.

The panel, moderated by distinguished Ryerson professor Bernie Lucht, featured Jim Turk, a distinguished Ryerson professor, Ivor Shapiro, chair of Ryerson’s school of journalism and Lee-Anne Goodman, senior editor at Canadian Press.  Their conversation focused largely on the distinction between material and intellectual neutrality. Material neutrality was defined as journalists remaining free of financial ties that might influence their reporting. Intellectual neutrality, meanwhile, was defined as journalists not allowing their political stances and ideologies to affect their reporting.

Turk, Shapiro and Goodman agreed journalists must be materially neutral; they disputed the notion of intellectual neutrality as a journalistic ideal.

Turk said intellectual views can appear in an article as long as the methods used in the reporting are neutral. Shapiro said no one can ever be neutral, and a lack of intellectual neutrality is not as much of an issue as a lack of material neutrality. Goodman said neutrality is important in all regards, though noting that journalists can discount certain viewpoints, such as climate change denial, without compromising their objectivity.

One thing all three agreed on, however, was that it’s unwise for reporters to display their opinions; they could antagonize those in power, such as police sources, whom journalists rely on for their reporting.

This is concerning, as journalists’ very purpose is to hold those in power accountable. News organizations should not determine their stance on objectivity based on a fear of losing access to powerful institutions as sources. This is especially true since police forces and government figures have used the possibility of limited access as “incentive” for journalists to keep their thoughts and reporting to themselves.

Adversarial journalism is especially valuable because, at its best, it mostly transgresses the self-censorship common in mainstream journalism and holds exposing injustice as the absolute ideal. Any debate on objectivity must discuss this, but the speakers at the event on Monday avoided it during their presentations.

The speakers at the event also underplayed another significant element of any worthwhile debate on neutrality: the role identity plays in determining objectivity.

Turk said journalists must separate themselves from their partisan identity in order to report fairly. Yet the reality is that many journalists can’t do this because the very elements of their identity are treated as partisan. For example, Black journalists writing on police brutality are often attacked as being unable to report fairly because of the perceived connection between their race and subject matter. Goodman hinted at this when she noted specifically that CP has a woman covering the Jian Ghomeshi trial, as if women reporting on the case inherently have more to overcome in achieving objectivity.

A few months ago, I wrote, “Minelle Mahtani, a professor in human geography at the University of Toronto who has done extensive research into race and representation, says whiteness is often mistaken for expertise.” Whiteness, along with other demographic identifiers, is also often mistaken for objectivity.

The speakers did not address this reality in their presentations, and yet, in many ways, this is the most common issue in debates about objectivity among readers and in the experience of journalists barred from reporting on certain topics because their identities are politicized.

The role of objectivity in journalism is a topic worthy of discussion, but the debate must be significantly wider in scope–and more subversive–than the dialogue was at this event.

February 9, 2016- The original version of this post did not list Jim Turk as a panelist. It also listed Bernie Lucht as a panelist, when he was, in fact, the moderator. The Review regrets the errors.

A woman stood before court on Monday to give testimony regarding the alleged sexual assault she survived 13 years ago. She faced an infamous lawyer ready to tear her words apart; unprecedented amounts of media attention, both in and out of the courtroom; and Jian Ghomeshi, the man she accused of punching her in the head and throwing her out “like trash.”

This, no doubt, must have been a daunting day for the woman, regardless of how much she, or her lawyer, prepared herself. Nevertheless, Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno felt the need to critique this woman as if she were an actor reading from a script, instead of a complainant sharing a traumatic experience with the world.

The problems started before the article did, with the disturbing headline, “First Ghomeshi witness suffers self-inflicted cuts.” DiManno begins her column by calling the woman “burnt toast,” claiming her credibility has gone up in flames. Later in the article, she points out that the woman only came forward with her story after the Star published its report on the sexual assault accusations, and that she went to the Star first instead of the police. DiManno ends by noting that the woman turned down a publicist’s request to represent her, and then says, “Doing just fine on her own, she was. Not so fine now.”

The implications in this article are very clear: it’s her fault. She isn’t credible and just wanted attention. These implications are obvious not only because of how blatantly DiManno’s writing transgresses any sense of decency (she seems to find a perverse sense of pleasure in the woman’s difficulties on the stand), but also because they are common. Far too common, in fact, as they seem to come up every time a powerful man is accused of a sexual crime.

But the trend extends beyond the Ghomeshis of the world, as 78 percent of sexual assaults in Canada aren’t reported to the police. The reasons vary, but they tend to focus on the survivor thinking no one will believe them, that they will be blown off or that they will be blamed for what they suffered. This is called re-victimization, and DiManno has been angered by it in the past, according to her column.

In the present, however, DiManno avoids the reality survivors face when she sneers at the fact that it took the woman 13 years to come forward. DiManno ignores the difficulties police present to survivors when she acts surprised the woman didn’t go to them first. And, when DiManno says she has “fumed over the re-victimization of victims” in the past, she ignores how journalists often lead the charge.

Why did it take the woman 13 years to come forward? I wonder.

#BellLetsTalk is an annual event intended to combat stigma surrounding mental illness. Today, social media will be flooded with the hashtag, and Bell will donate 5 cents to initiatives supporting mental health for every tweet, Facebook share, text and call made. You will also undoubtedly see news articles discussing the event and the challenges facing those seeking help to maintain their mental health.

One thing you likely will not see, however, is journalists talking about the detrimental effects our profession can have on our own mental health. As journalists, it is our duty to bring attention to the injustices in the world, but in the process we often forget that our newsrooms aren’t insulated; that we aren’t solely observers but also actors in our own drama.

One of these injustices is the lack of support in the newsroom for journalists dealing with mental illness. News organizations have a double standard when it comes to mental health: we call out the lack of mental health support in other industries and strive to make our mental health reporting better while simultaneously failing to establish welcoming and supportive environments for our peers.

This is unacceptable. Many journalists come into their jobs already dealing with mental illness, but our high-stress, sometimes traumatic, profession can exacerbate these conditions and also tear away the mental health of those who previously never struggled with maintaining it.

So, it is with all this in mind that the Ryerson Review of Journalism presents this mental health first aid kit. Included you will find a self-care tip from every RRJ staff member, a list of past articles from the RRJ discussing mental health and resources to be used if you are experiencing mental health issues.

This kit is meant to assist and educate, but ultimately, the onus should not solely be on journalists struggling to maintain their mental health.Instead, our workplaces must work to create a supportive environment to support us as we deal with these issues. This means in-house counselors, better insurance programs to help mitigate the cost of psychology and medication, back-to-work transition programs for those who need to take time off and an environment where employees don’t feel ashamed for taking this time to get well in the first place.

End mental health stigma.

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We’ve shared some of our methods of self-care here at the RRJ. Share yours with us on Twitter using #JournalistSelfCare and we will retweet to get a conversation going among journalists.

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Former RRJ staff members have written powerfully on mental health in the past. Here are a few articles that are must-reads for journalists, especially today.

Mental health: why journalists don’t get help in the workplace by Megan Jones
Reporters are finally telling empathetic stories about depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, but newsroom culture keeps journalists’ own struggles in the dark.

Suicide Notes by Liam Casey
I contemplated killing myself five years ago. Now, to help others, I call on all journalists to break the silence on our final taboo.

The War Inside by Nina Boccia
War correspondents can be “Totally fucked up. They can’t face reality. They can’t face the down of not having the adrenaline pump.” An in-depth look at the hidden aftershocks of covering bloody conflicts up close.

Lost in Translation by Soraya Roberts
Reporters have written thousands of words about people with mental illness. Too few of them get inside their heads.

Hard to Swallow by Nataliya Schafer
Should there be media guidelines in Canada for reporting on and discussing eating disorders?

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We all need help sometimes. If you’re in urgent need of support, please use this resource to find your local crisis centre or hotline.

2016 has been a dismal year for Canadian journalists thus far.

Every day seems to bring about a new announcement of massive job cuts.

I’ve put together a timeline of all of these cuts so far, just in case you’ve managed to forget (or haven’t been able to keep up). This timeline will (unfortunately) be updated as more cuts are announced.

I don’t want to bring you down too much though, so in good news, I’ll have a master’s degree in journalism in a few short months!

On Friday night, #JournalismSoWhite trended across the United States and Toronto. The hashtag, a spinoff of #OscarsSoWhite, takes aim at demographic uniformity in journalism. This is a much needed discussion, and one that I tried to add to with my November 2015 article, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Canadian Columnists.”

There is more to come from the Ryerson Review of Journalism on the lack of diversity, of all sorts, in Canadian journalism. Until then, here are a few of the best tweets from #JournalismSoWhite.

If news media is examining diversity of Hollywood, Silicon Valley, etc, then we must also examine our own industry. #JournalismSoWhite

— Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) January 22, 2016

It'd be nice if media/schools/etc were interested in opinions & expertise of journalists of color beyond race & racism. #JournalismSoWhite

— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) January 23, 2016

#JournalismSoWhite that only two black print columnists exist in Canada's most diverse city. Writing for one paper. pic.twitter.com/zHKTfNYm5b

— Andray (@AndrayDomise) January 23, 2016

when White journalists report on race, it's "reporting"; when journalists of color do it, it's "having an agenda" #journalismsowhite

— Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) January 22, 2016

@jaeahjlee Journalism is a relationship biz, not true meritocracy. Newsroom cultures often create invisible barriers. #JournalismSoWhite

— Jeff Chu (@jeffchu) January 22, 2016

@joseiswriting 7 afghan journalists were just killed by a suicide bomber, but since they aren't French no one cares #journalismsowhite

— ariana delawari (@arianadelawari) January 22, 2016

Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day is meant to commemorate the life and achievements of the famous civil rights leader. This day often provokes intense debate regarding what King actually stood for, as well as how much (or little) progress has been made in the fight against racism since King was assassinated. These debates often act as a catalyst for worthwhile reflections and reporting on racism and King’s legacy from journalists across the world.

Canadian newspapers, however, had other ideas on what was relevant on the holiday this year, focusing their reporting on the very important and nuanced issue of Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau’s vocal performance at a (problematic) MLK Day event in Ottawa. On a holiday designed to celebrate one of the most influential black radicals of all time, Canadian newspapers decided to report on a powerful white woman’s theatrics.

The Toronto Star found it appropriate to have three articles on Grégoire-Trudeau’s performance, including a column from Emma Teitel. Seriously, look at this headline.

The National Post and The Globe and Mail also published articles and videos about her performance. The only other article from the three publications on MLK Day discussed how South Carolina would be celebrating.

Some may say that MLK Day is an American holiday, so it’s not relevant for Canadian publications to discuss the holiday. This is drastically misleading, however, as events commemorating the holiday are held throughout the world. Moreover, King’s message was always universal, and the racism he condemned is still present everywhere today, including Canada.

As such, Canadian publications could have reported on the thousands of people who protested throughout the nation in the past year, fighting the same issues King faced 50 years ago. There was the Black Lives Matter movement, protests against carding and marches against police brutality.

These publications could have also used the various MLK Day events around Canada as a hook to discuss systemic racism and inequalities, and the individuals and organizations working to shatter them. Instead, Canadian publications decided to publish articles calling for praise for Grégoire-Trudeau, the wife of a prime minister, simply for singing a song. Not praise for those tirelessly fighting against racism, reflecting King’s life and ambitions.

This lacklustre reporting is another symptom of the unbearable whiteness of Canadian journalism, as well as the prioritization of clicks over content. The ailing industry will continue to suffer until this two-pronged infection is cured.

A husband and wife who lived in downtown Toronto both died on December 20, but a CBC article told only one of their stories.

A significant chunk of the article described the husband, Robert Giblin:

Giblin had served with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, Department of National Defence officials have confirmed.

In a statement, the DND said Giblin was a sergeant and served with the Joint Task Force Central (JTFC) based out of Denison Armoury in Toronto.

The federal department said Giblin joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1997. He deployed on HMCS Regina in 2003 and to Afghanistan in 2005 and 2007, and was an intelligence operator.

‘The loss of any soldier is devastating to the military community and our thoughts and condolences go out to Sgt. Robert Giblin’s family and friends,’ read the statement.

…

‘Rob my Brother. We were just chatting when you down in Halifax. Joking how us two old dogs were finally getting promoted. You kept me sane on our 6As and the SDIAC,’ one man wrote on Giblin’s Facebook page. ‘Thanks for all the good times Bro. I’m devastated.’

The CBC article allocated far less space to Precious Charbonneau, Giblin’s wife. The only details offered about Charbonneau were a police estimate that she was nine weeks pregnant and a brief mention of a friend writing “Rest in Peace Presha” on her Facebook wall.

This article leaves a lot of questions about Charbonneau. Who was she? What would friends say about her? Was she more than just a wife and mother robbed of a chance to raise her child?

Unfortunately, the cause of death only makes the lopsided story worse. According to police reports, the couple were not killed in any sort of tragic accident. Instead, police said Giblin stabbed Charbonneau several times before throwing her off the balcony of their 21st-floor apartment. Giblin then jumped to his death.

At best, the story turned out this way because Giblin’s details were easier to find than Charbonneau’s, though this is no excuse given reporters’ duty to dig, especially in cases like this.

The head of public affairs at CBC, Chuck Thompson, told the RRJ, “On the day that this story was written (and subsequent days thereafter), CBC News made several attempts to speak with family and friends of Precious Charbonneau. Unfortunately, attempts to contact and speak to friends and family on the record were unsuccessful.”

At worst, however, this article is an example of a systemic bias in Canadian journalism, where soldiers and veterans receive unwarranted respect or admiration simply by virtue of holding that position. This bias is by no means limited to an individual reporter, or the CBC at large, but the article certainly seems to exhibit the bias.

In response to a question regarding this potential bias, Thompson replied “I can assure you that CBC News makes every effort to ensure all of our stories are fair and balanced.”

Regardless, the fact remains that the military career of a man accused of killing his wife received far more space in the CBC article than details of the incident, the wife’s life or relevant background issues.

The praising quotes about Giblin in the article made it seem as if the two had just mistakenly fallen to their death, even though the causes of death were clearly stated. I had to read the article several times before I was sure police had actually reported that Giblin killed Charbonneau. Thompson says, “What we reported with respect to Robert Giblin’s character was how he was described to us by his friends and family.”

The CBC published a follow up article on December 22, 2015. This article reported some issues that should have been explored in the first article, including violence against women and the potential that Giblin had post-traumatic stress disorder. This article has only been shared 107 times, according to the CBC website, while the earlier article has been shared 1905 times.

The CBC should have done a much better job reporting on this incident from the start.