Rehtaeh Parsons, the media and social media: it's complicated

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Rehtaeh Parsons, the media and social media: it's complicated

It’s complicated. The Canadian Psychiatric Society, among others, publishes guidelines for reporting on youth suicide. Don’t put the word “suicide” in the headline, it says. Don’t give such stories undue prominence. Don’t describe the method. Don’t glorify the victim. The guidelines are designed to reduce the very real risk of copycats. We know many media […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Rehtaeh Parsons, cyberspace and "justice:" a cautionary tale

On April 19, 1989, a 39-year-old woman named Trisha Meili went for a jog in New York’s Central Park. She was raped and violently assaulted. Partly because of the attack’s brutality, partly because of news reports the perpetrators were a gang of “wilding” black youths and partly because of who the victim was—white, a Yale […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Dexter's budget tinkers at the progressive edges, but is that enough?

Did Darrell Dexter balance the budget? Is the pope Argentinian? Depends on which pope you mean. And what you mean by balance. Not to forget “the…” The perhaps more relevant pre-election questions out of last week’s legislature exercise: Would the other parties have done anything different in either the budget’s broad strokes or in its […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Making the Mooseheads

(“Making the Mooseheads” won an award for best sports journalism at the 2013 Atlantic Journalism Awards.) Behind the scenes of how Halifax’s junior team went from worst in the country to being the kings of Canadian hockey. By Stephen Kimber On Friday, April 5, at the Metro Centre, the Halifax Mooseheads—the number-one-ranked team in all of Canadian junior […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Time to end the 'March Madness Educational Demolition Derby'

Richmond, the primary-to-nine school I attended in north end Halifax, is long gone. Not quite true. The oldest section, ironically the one re-built after the 1917 Halifax Explosion, now serves as a family court building. The other two wings, hastily tacked on after World War II to accommodate then-exponentially expanding baby boom babies, were unceremoniously […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Russell MacKinnon may be entitled to his entitlements, but…

If his latest poor-me pronouncements weren’t so outrageously obnoxious—not to mention flagrantly false—we would be wise to treat disgraced, and disgraceful former MLA Russell MacKinnon with the mocking contempt he’s richly earned. The Finance Department made me do it… The Finance Department made me do it… MacKinnon, one of four MLAs whose entitled-to-their-entitlements expense claims […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Russell MacKinnon should have gone to jail

What was he thinking? That he could baffle, buffalo, bamboozle past way too many inconvenient contradictions from too many witnesses with too little to gain to lie about what he’d done? That the law wouldn’t apply to him because he’d been an MLA and Liberal cabinet minister? On Friday—after four days of a scheduled five-day […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

'Donate Now.' I'll pass, thanks…

Few will be surprised to know I’m a financial as well as philosophical supporter of the New Democratic Party. I’ve been making modest, tax-write-off-able, publicly recorded donations since the early 1980s when the provincial party had no MPs and a single MLA. Giving then seemed more act of charity than political statement. Times have changed. […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

How Stephen McNeil will turn into Darrell Dexter…

Do you remember back in the dying days of the Rodney MacDonald regime when then-NDP finance critic Graham Steele threatened the then-deputy finance minister with contempt of a legislative committee for refusing to be forthcoming about the province’s finances? Remember when the deputy finance minister shot back that Steele’s criticism was all “political foolishness?” Do […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

How does Emera afford to put its name on our skating oval?

It doesn’t You do. One way or the other… Solidarity Halifax’s quixotic campaign to rename the Commons skating oval isn’t likely to find many takers among cash-starved city councilors, but it should give the rest of us pause. How is it that Emera, the parent company of Nova Scotia Power, the private utility that keeps […]