Behind the Scenes at Global News’ #elxn42party
Social media has been a driving force during the election, but to what extent?
On the ground floor of 121 Bloor Street East, Dawna Friesen and Tom Clark are hosting a live panel: big screens with “Decision Canada” and “Global News” behind them, three cameras in front of them. Down the hall in a back room, 20 or so analysts are calmly watching over computers as polling data and […]
Thank you, Andrew Coyne
Coyne is a good example of what privileged journalists should do: use their status to push back against the status quo when necessary
Andrew Coyne resigned as the editor of the Editorials and Comment section of the National Post today, and journalists should be thankful he did. The resignation comes after Postmedia executives prevented Coyne from writing a column dissenting from the National Post’s endorsement of the Conservative Party of Canada because it would “confuse readers and embarrass […]
Much ado about endorsements
RRJ does a round-up of the newspaper endorsements for #elxn42
Election day is finally, finally upon us, but the longest campaign in Canadian history since 1872 didn’t end quietly for the country’s print newspapers. If anything, it ended nonsensically. Questions of who controls newspapers’ editorial voice haunted the final week of #elxn42 as print media outlets published their editorial board’s federal election choices. Some internet […]
Canadian journalists misled public by portraying niqab poll as “definitive,” data expert says
"We do a grave disservice to the Muslim community and to all Canadians if we rush to judgment that our country is less tolerant of religious diversity than in fact may be the case"
In March 2015 the Privy Council Office, which reports to the prime minister, commissioned a survey conducted by Leger Marketing that included a question asking respondents whether they agree with a ban on niqabs in citizenship ceremonies. The result of that survey, which was released on September 24 and found that 82 percent of respondents […]
Hair matters
The bald truth about the electoral coverage on Justin Trudeau
Justin’s Trudeau’s hair might be the best weapon in the political business, just slightly ahead of Donald Trump’s golden locks. After all it has made headlines in the past two years and signified Trudeau’s trajectory from Member of Parliament to leader of the Liberal Party. “Justin Trudeau: Great hair but no credentials,” read an October […]
Stop talking about the niqab
Amira Elghawaby, from the National Council of Canadian Muslims, calls for Canadian journalists to focus on important matters
Journalists have been enthralled with the niqab debate over the last few weeks. In order to get a better sense of what to make of the niqab coverage, I spoke to the communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Amira Elghawaby. Elghawaby’s most pressing critique of niqab journalism is simply that there’s too […]
Inequality, still
Vivian Smith discusses the challenges of being a woman in journalism
For young reporters, journalism is a game of chicken. You can swerve away early, taking a relatively cushy job in public relations, but if you wait too long to jump ship, you might find yourself without a job at all. It’s hard to think about anything other than survival. That’s a metaphor that Vivian Smith […]
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: RRJ speaks to Mohamed Fahmy
His thoughts on the media coverage of his case, his time behind bars and his future in Canadian journalism
Mohamed Fahmy has been toeing the line between being a journalist and being a story for over a year now. As the former Al Jazeera bureau chief in Cairo, Fahmy, 41, was arrested in Egypt in 2013 with two colleagues and convicted of terror-related charges. The case, the court trials, the journalist and his family have […]