The Hub trades increasingly in sponsored content
Peter Menzies minces few words in voicing his disdain for Ottawa’s recent wealth redistribution efforts on behalf of Canada’s news media. If he’s not railing against the Online News Act,…
Marc Edge
Canada’s news media must be refashioned for the future
Photo by Serge Tanet/Flickr Writing about all of the problems with the ownership of Canada’s news media, as I have done for the past quarter century, has become frustrating. From…
Trudeau’s one-word answer shows his devotion to legacy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, November 1, 2021. Photo by Ian Forsyth. I met Justin Trudeau once 30 years…
Postmedia’s cuts to newspapers in Atlantic Canada begin to hurt
Cartoon by Michael de Adder Postmedia Network’s takeover of the SaltWire Network newspapers in Atlantic Canada this summer has brought the inevitable cutbacks to editions, journalists an...
Reports of beheaded Israeli babies were bound to be propaganda
Anyone who has studied the history of propaganda must have rolled their eyes as I did upon hearing reports of babies being beheaded by Hamas militants after their incursion into…
News pollution is more dangerous than news poverty in this small BC town
Squamish, British Columbia, as seen from a lookout point located in Stawamus Chief Provincial Park. Photo by Benoit Brummer/Wikimedia Commons. Write what you know best, aspiring writers are ofte...
BC Conservatives adopt election strategy of attacking the media
BC Conservative leader John Rustad. Photo by Don Craig/Flickr. Before our next federal election comes in the next year or so, and even before November’s pivotal US presidential vote, British…
Why the Russian disinfo scandal could hurt Cons at the polls
Canadian far-right influencer Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, are alleged to have helped Russia spread disinformation through American commentators. Image from YouTube. I used to enjo...
Could I go to prison for writing this column? Under Bill C-63, I just might
With our beleaguered Liberal government now plunging in the opinion polls and facing the final year of its mandate, Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, could be its final showdown.…
Conservatives find that proposing media reform is a dangerous minefield
Pierre Poilievre holds George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four as a prop during Question Period, March 30, 2023. Photo courtesy CPAC. It isn’t even Labour Day yet and federal ...
Uproar over CBC bonuses ignores industry realities, international comparisons
Photo by Richard Akerman/Flickr Context is something journalists are supposed to provide in reporting on matters of national importance, but it has been sadly lacking so far in coverage of…
What doesn’t qualify as journalism in Canada seems a bit arbitrary
Newsroom of the New York Times, 1942. Photo by Marjory Collins/Wikimedia Commons. One of these things, as they sang on Sesame Street, is not like the other ones. Rebel News…
Saltwire takeover would give Postmedia a coast-to-coast monopoly
Postmedia emerged this week as the surprise buyer of troubled Saltwire, which publishes more than 20 papers in Atlantic Canada, including the Halifax Chronicle Herald. Photo by Tony Webster/Flickr. ...
Old journalists need to get over their resistance to press subsidies
The Free Press Building in downtown Winnipeg. Photo courtesy Heritage Winnipeg. Some old-time journalists are dead set against public subsidies for journalism despite our news media dying on the...
Canada runs on subsidies. Why shouldn’t news media get them?
Photo by Alex Proimos/Wikimedia Commons The recent Ottawa Declaration on Canadian Journalism signed by right-wing think tanks, publications and journalists calling on news media to stop taking t...
How Canada’s cultural lobby only serves corporate greed
Photo by Dominic Smith/Flickr Canada vs California: How Ottawa took on Netflix and the streaming giants Howard Law Lorimer, 2024 It has long been said that history is writt...
Independent media group chosen by Google to distribute news funding
Photo by Anthony Quintano/Wikimedia Commons There’s nothing we at Canadian Dimension like more than a good collective. After all, Canada’s original socialist magazine has been produced since 1975 by a…
Epoch Times on the ropes after money-laundering charges laid
A man holds a copy of the Epoch Times at the “Million MAGA March” at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, November 14, 2020. Photo by Elvert Barnes/Wikimedia Commons. Where…
Ottawa Declaration on Canadian Journalism wants to put subsidy genie back in bottle
Photo by greenzowie/Flickr In a classic case of “better late than never,” an Ottawa think tank has issued what it calls the Ottawa Declaration on Canadian Journalism urging news media…
Is The Hub the future of journalism in Canada?
There’s a new kind of journalism in Canada of the non-profit variety, and it comes with a wonkish bent. It’s been called think tank journalism by The Economist magazine, which…