The slow death of media credibility
A story in the recent issue of New Republic opens: “A decade of turmoil has left a weakened press vulnerable to political attacks, forced into ethical compromises, and increasingly outstripped…
Journalism
Economic illiteracy in Canadian media
The Fraser Institute declares Tax Freedom Day each year. It is an inaccurate trick to further interests of the millionaires and billionaires for whom the “charity” works. Many of those…
Bitter old man
A person shilling for the pension funds management business complained about my recent article revealing extravagant salaries at the BC Investment Management Corporation (BMI). He wrote that I was a…
Good news, bad news
Bill Good is in the news this week. David Ball wrote about this news reader turned political activist in the The Star Vancouver. In years past, Mr. Good was a…
Unreliable narrators
In British Columbia, ethical rules of news gathering are not always followed. Some offences are minor, others are significant…
Postmedia distortions
Postmedia’s Colby Cosh demonstrates the truth of Jefferson’s quote, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
Announcing the Merv Adey Memorial Fellowship
Merv Adey was a passionate British Columbian and a regular and welcome fixture in social media. Following his passing in 2017, a group of his friends sponsored a fellowship in…
Real news reshaped, redefined and side tracked
Independent Voter Network declares: A free press is the watchdog of the people. The media holds the sacred responsibility of alerting the citizenry of actions by governments, elected politicians, corporations…
Shilling for dollars
Updated from June 2016. In an earlier article, I made reference to BC Legislative Press Gallery members producing commissioned articles. These are public relations pieces intended to serve particular needs…
The Role of the Political Journalist
“The journalistic mission remains at its simplest: know your patch and use your knowledge to try to tell readers what’s actually going on.”– Katharine Murphy, Journalism Professor & Guardian Australia’s…
CBC offered “pure propaganda”
After a CBC radio offering that made little effort to provide a complete story, economist Erik Andersen sent a message to CBC Early Edition. Erik keeps a close eye on…
Louis C.K.’s “Victims” Didn’t Put Vancouver Animators Out of Work
We need more from the CBC. And the Canadian Press. “Sexual Misconduct Claims Against Louis C.K. put Vancouver Animators Out of Work” was the initial headline of a Canadian Press…
Abandon hope, all UCP who enter here? Ted Byfield may have opened the gates to Lake of Fire 2.0
PHOTOS: Social conservative publisher and ideologue Ted Byfield (Photo: Screenshot of Youtube Video). Below: United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney, NDP Education Minister David Eggen, and Calgary-West UCP MLA Mike…
Postmedia’s colours
Rafe Mair was a man with long experience in government, journalism and political activism. He warned us of the consequences after Canada’s largest newspaper chain crawled in bed with the…
Too High A Price To Pay
This year, The Star has been running an Atkinson Series entitled The New Newsroom, which looks at both the challenges and the possibilities facing journalism in this age of Internet…
Plug pulled on LNG
Today, China pulled the plug on Aurora LNG, the last large LNG project proposed for British Columbia. This comes 55 months after Christy Clark, leading her first general election campaign,…
R.I.P. Merv Adey
It’s a sad day today. I knew Merv had been seriously ill for some time. Four weeks ago, he was hoping that a series of new treatments would be successful…
Behind the ostensible government
An item previously published, with minor updates: I studied political science at university long, long ago. In those days, I was naive and idealistic and a member of the Liberal…