Leaving The National after 28 years won’t be easy—but Mark Harrison is ready for a new challenge.

Harrison, now the former executive producer of The National, is taking over the health unit and the growing science and technology unit at CBC. He says the decision to leave CBC’s flagship nightly program was a personal one, but it also aligned with the broadcaster’s increasing focus on digital. Harrison says Jennifer McGuire, editor-in-chief of CBC News, is also interested in “raising the profile and building technology and science coverage up,” so his interest in switching jobs came at the right time.

His first day at The National was also Peter Mansbridge’s first day. “I’ve been here a long time. I’ve done a lot of jobs,” he says. “I started as a writer, a senior writer, and I’ve been executive producer for seven years and for some time now, probably a few years. I’ve been wondering when I would stop doing it.”

“I mean, I love the job, but it’s not something that I wanted to keep doing forever. It does take a toll. It’s a seven-day-a-week job…so it’s a bit unrelenting in that sense.” Harrison says he felt comfortable leaving the show because it was in “a good spot. Peter’s on top of his game, the people I’m working with here all seemed to be doing really well.”

The National’s new executive producer is Don Spandier, who’s moving back to the program—he used to be the senior current affairs producer—from his spot as the senior producer at World at Six. Harrison says he and Spandier will “be exchanging lots of smiles” when they see each other around the CBC building. “The program is constantly changing. The way we do what we do is changing, evolving, and it’ll be interesting to see Don’s perspective on how it’s changed since he was last here and his ideas on how to take it in to the future.”

Harrison says he’s excited to work more on health stories—which he’s been interested in since he was at school—and has wanted to develop more digital skills. The content units at CBC provide stories for TV, radio and online, “so it’s going to stretch me in different ways,” Harrison says.

“I’m really excited about the move, but it’s very much with mixed emotions and mixed feelings,” he says. “I love The National. I mean, people who work at The National, it really gets under our skin…we end up feeling very strongly about the people we do The National with too.” Although he likes the program and the team, Harrison says he also believes that it’s important not to get too comfortable.

“I do believe it’s good to try different things and stretch things differently into all aspects of the work we do.”

Feeling sleepy? In case you couldn’t tell from your Twitter feeds or small-talk interactions this week, it’s daylight saving time again. It’s a yearly ritual each spring: set your clocks forward an hour, complain about how tired you are and, for journalists, write yet another story on the subject.

For the past few days, outlets have been pumping out articles about the missing hour—1,625 show up in a quick Google News search—including service-y reminders to make the switch, fun facts about the practice (did you know that certain communities in Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Nunavut, as well as all of Saskatchewan, don’t use it?) and summaries of the research on its health effects. If you take the coverage seriously, there’s a long list of things you should be worried about this week: heart attacks, strokes and car accidents.

While I’m not saying the time change has no effect—it takes a few days for your circadian rhythm to adjust to the mini-jetlag and get back to a regular sleep schedule—the aggregate of stories presents a body of inconclusive evidence as something more ominous.

One of the studies most cited by journalists about car accidents in the days following daylight saving time was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1996, and it found a small (8 percent) increase in traffic accidents after the spring shift. That study was based on two years of data. But there are other studies that used larger sample sizes. A 2001 study in the journal Sleep Medicine based on 21 years of data found no effect in the spring and an increase in the fall, which the researchers attributed to people using the extra hour to stay up late and drink. A 2007 study from The B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy was based on 28 years of information and found no short-term effect on car accidents in the spring, as well as a decrease in the long term.

When it comes to heart attacks, many reporters cite a 2014 study from Open Heart, an online journal co-owned by The British Medical Journal, that did indeed find an increase in the number of people admitted for an acute myocardial infarction in Michigan hospitals after springing their clocks forward. But the number of people who received treatment in the surrounding weeks stayed constant. The same number of people had heart attacks overall; daylight saving time just influenced when they had one. Daylight saving time, the researchers wrote, “does not influence the overall incidence of this disease.”

Instead of writing about dramatic health problems, it’s more useful to focus on advice for getting back on track with a regular sleep schedule. But an even better conversation—which some journalists contributed to—would be why we even change the clocks in the first place. The official answer is to “save energy,” but there’s little evidence that this works, and it may even waste it as people drive around and keep their air conditioners on during their longer daylight hours. It seems like it’s mostly just tradition at this point, plus getting more enjoyable and bright summer evenings.

You’ve probably read these stories before too, though. Like the others, they get written year after year, even though nothing about the subject really changes. You might be better off taking a power nap.

Seriously though, we need to make the day after #DaylightSavingTime a national holiday.

— Norm Kelly (@norm) March 14, 2016

Politics is about perception (and always has been). Official messages are carefully constructed to paint a specific type of picture. It’s the journalist’s job, theoretically at least, to find the flaws and the hidden distortions in that image.

But what if the picture is perfect and makes everyone happy? A hot prime minister meets a cool president, and they become instant BFFs. Their wives become new-found “soulmates.” It’s all jokes and smiles, glitz and glamour, flowers and champagne.

I get it–such coverage is the charm of a state dinner. It’s a story journalists have to write because it’s a change of pace from all the phobias and deaths front pages are too often filled with. And readers love it, as proven by the most popular lists on Canadian news outlets yesterday and today. It makes them happy. It makes me happy, for a little while at least.

The problem, though, is that such clickbait political coverage always gets taken too far. Newsrooms forget that even state dinners have foreign policy implications, which, if not obvious, need to be deciphered. While some of that was talked about, it was brief. Something about methane and the environment. A rumor about border control policies. Some announcement about Arctic goals.

Instead, in true BuzzFeed fashion, the Toronto Star gave us a play-by-play of how Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau saved new “soulmate” Michelle Obama from a nasty tumble off of the stage, seconds-apart pictures included. “Who needs the Secret Service with friends like this?” read the opening line of the article that would have worked better with GIFs. 

Maclean’s decided a special photo gallery was needed to document the youngest Trudeau child’s visit. “Hadrien goes to Washington,” it was called in Hollywood-movie fashion.  In fact, only 30 percent of the articles posted under a special heading on the Maclean’s website actually talked about policy discussion. The rest were photo galleries, fashion and decor coverage and transcribed speeches (see screenshot below), similar categories as coverage be the Star and others.

The problem isn’t new. This is what news dictated by clicks looks like, for the most part. It doesn’t have to be, and has been proven not to be, but it’s the easiest method of coverage, and difficult not to do when words like “bromance” are involved.

Having said that, caution needs to be advised and heeded. Pictures can be perfect, but politics isn’t. Canadian journalists need to get over how hot their new prime minister and his family are. Trudeau hugging pandas doesn’t warrant asking “Are the Trudeaus the cuddliest Canadian family of all time?” And do we really need additional widespread coverage of his attendance at the pride parade five months before it’s due to take place, when it was already announced at the end of last year? Maclean’s 60-second interviews were fun to watch, but where are the investigations on fiscal policy, or follow-ups on MMIW and other campaign announcements?

At some point the celebration of our picture-perfect prime minister and his government needs to end, and journalists have to go back to basics. Make us happy, but keep us informed.

There’s an increasing trend of writers speaking out against publications that don’t pay their writers. Freelance writers are exploited, they say. Putting in countless hours of research, interviewing and sometimes painful writing sessions filled with self-doubt and lack of sleep can lead to very little in return—sometimes nothing at all. Huffington Post UK editor Stephen Hull is proud to say he doesn’t pay his writers, because it makes their work more authentic. Sadly, he’s not alone. The industry is filled with people who believe writing doesn’t need to be paid for.

Something has shifted along the way, and people have stopped seeing writing as work. But it is hard work; writing takes serious brainpower and dedication, with constant generation of ideas and a huge amount of research. So why are we not getting paid? (Especially when this is a reality for anyone going into journalism today.)

Many writers are fighting this, and I want to stand with them. I want to be able to proclaim that I will never write for free. I want to say that I will turn down jobs if I’m not getting paid. But it’s hard to say that with vigour when I’m a young writer who is itching for experience.

Freelancing seems to be getting more accessible to writers like me. It was recently announced that freelance writers will soon be able to get paid for Instant Articles. An Instant Article shared on Facebook would give the writer around 70 percent of ad revenue attached to the story. This is good news for anyone who is tired of writing simply for the sake of getting her name “out there.”

But getting exposure is an essential part of the freelance job. A good circle of contacts is imperative if you want to make it in the industry, according to freelancer Robert Osborne, and a good way of making these connections is through unpaid work. On March 3, 2016, Osborne gave a workshop on freelancing at Ryerson University. He says he will often shoot his stories to The Huffington Post, knowing very well he won’t be paid, just to get his story on the radar. Then he’ll rework the piece into a different medium for a different audience, and this time, he will get actual money for it. He also stresses the importance of making industry friends. These are the kind of people you will at some point need to ask to do something that you may not be able to pay them for. So when they ask you for a favour, you’re happy to help them out for nothing. It’s a give-and-take relationship. You don’t always have to stand your ground and refuse to work for free.

From here, inside the security of post-secondary school walls, the freelance world looks terrifying. It’s tricky to balance that pressing need for exposure and the need for the money—money for, you know, food. It’s important to remember that writing is work, and work should be compensated. Publications should pay their writers. But sometimes, it’s okay to do a little free work, whether it’s for a friend or for making your own reputation. Only sometimes.

“Is it Fateeema?” asked two editors interviewing me in a boardroom much too big for a three-person meeting. I tried to impress them with three story ideas: something about transit, something about local politics and something about immigration. They asked follow-up questions about the third one—How did I think of the story? What are the main issues? How would the story come together?—even though I thought the second was better developed and delivered.

To read more, please visit our online special.

Follow the conversation #whydiversity. 

A StatsCan report released on February 15, 2016 shows how different age groups in Canada consume news and current affairs, and I don’t believe it’s fully accurate.

If it is to be believed, then the most popular medium to consume news by those over 35 years is television, who are also leading in newspaper and magazine consumption, as shown in the graph below. The main source of news, according to the data collected in 2013, for young Canadians is the internet and, surprisingly, television. 

Yes, apparently, reality television hosted by the Peter Mansbridges of the country is still something we all watch, including those of us who have grown up with a phone in our hands and a computer screen not too far away. Also, who listens to news radio outside of a car? And if the approximately 45 percent of young Canadians who listen to radio news have cars, where can I get one?

The statistics don’t make sense.

Other reports claim that television news is dying, while this one says it’s thriving. Part of the problem is that we’re not aware of the way the questions were framed in this survey. Does television include video news found on social media? Are podcasts part of the radio category of this survey? Does it count if you’re reading the “newspapers” online? (Because, seriously, who gets newspapers? I saw one in the Review office a week ago. It was weird.)

The survey also found that 21 percent of young Canadians “rarely or never followed the news,” up from 11 percent in 2003. The reality this statement doesn’t capture is that the act of “following the news” has changed significantly from reading one paper or watching one broadcast channel to reading news in bits and pieces via shared links and trends. It might not “feel” like news, but “21 percent” doesn’t seem to capture this activity. Just look at the statistics for Buzzfeed, which were released a few days after the survey. Video traffic is high, content traffic is high, and it can’t all be easily explained.

We’re so busy trying to track progress and change in the Canadian journalism industry that we forget the value of numbers is only as good as our observations of where they are fluctuating. The government has decided it will start to look into exactly that: media concentration, its impact on local news reporting and how digital media fits into the whole picture. We should be doing it ourselves.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the survey—and, arguably, the most worrying—is that only 40 percent of Canadians surveyed said they have confidence in the media. Maybe, it’s time to turn our focus on this number and let the others fall into place automatically.Good journalism, after all, does well regardless of medium, publisher or byline. When we improve our audience’s confidence in us, we’ll increase in viewers, readers and shares. It’s a domino effect waiting to happen, as long we focus on the right number.

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.

In the summer of 2014, The Globe and Mail narrowly avoided an editorial staff strike over native advertising—the practice of working with advertisers to create ads that resemble journalism. A leaked memo from Globe management to the paper’s union proposed a system in which editorial staff would write for advertisers, compromising, in the minds of many Globe reporters, their integrity as journalists.

Now, the Globe has launched a new website for Globe Edge—a potential solution to the hotly debated question of whether newspapers can produce native advertising without selling their souls to ad clients. Despite the inextricable problem with publishing clearly biased ads designed to blend in with theoretically unbiased journalism, the relaunch of Edge may represent the better of many evils, as well as an industry warming up to the idea of writing for someone other than readers.

According to Globe Edge managing editor Sean Stanleigh, Edge operates as a micro property of The Globe and Mail, much like a section of the newspaper. While Edge staff still write native ads in the same physical space as the rest of the paper, an important divide exists between Globe employee roles.

The seven members of the Edge team who work on native advertising—though many once worked as journalists—are distinct from the Globe’s editorial staff. This workforce divide distinguishes Edge from the Globe’s first bungled attempt at native advertising, which nearly caused the strike. Stanleigh says this is crucial because it separates editorial work from work supervised and directed by clients, which is outside the scope of acceptable journalism.

Another important divide appears within the articles themselves, albeit not as prominently as it should. Take, for example, “Roughnecks, armed with tablets, transform the energy industry,” a distinctly uncritical look at new technology in the oil fields: a tiny banner along the top declares, “sponsored content” (in size 7.5 font); the type shade is slightly lighter than the standard black (though nearly indistinguishable); and an italicized message at the end of the article clarifies that the Globe’s editorial staff had nothing to do with it.

As native advertising has become more standard–particularly online (BuzzFeed makes nearly all its money this way)–many believe these small design cues aren’t enough. In a 2013 article following a native advertising misstep that led The Atlantic to publish a glowing endorsement of Scientology, the Globe’s own Simon Houpt took a firm stand against native advertising, writing, “Given the way readers consume stuff online, scanning articles on tiny screens, simply sticking a label at the top or bottom of an article won’t do the trick.”

But Stanleigh has observed a shift in the Globe newsroom away from knee-jerk rejection of native ads as unethical without exception. “I haven’t felt any antagonism from my colleagues,” he says. “I think they understand that we need to make the money it takes to produce great journalism.”

This awareness of a newspaper’s financial needs is keener than ever, and the softening of journalists toward native advertising has likely been prodded along by declining revenues.

Another contributing factor toward the acceptance of native ads is increased responsibility on the part of the advertisers. In 2013, the U.S.-based Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) published the Native Advertising Playbook, which attempts to establish industry-wide standards such as clear and unmistakable disclosure to readers. “It’s eminently possible to protect institutional integrity and provide a platform for paid points of view,” says IAB President Randall Rothenberg.

But “integrity” is a distinctly subjective concept, and its definition for advertisers may differ wildly for journalists. For Stanleigh, who was once deputy national editor for the Globe and has also worked as a senior editor at the Toronto Star, bridging this gap is essential. “One of the most important parts of my role is making sure advertisers have an understanding of journalistic principles,” he says.

While the concept still makes many journalists queasy, the development of Globe Edge is a leading example of a bad thing done well. If we accept that journalism needs to be profitable to exist—and that it may soon have exhausted all morally sound means of making money—a careful, responsible approach toward native advertising may be our next best bet.