Time to call out the ‘provided a statement’ scam

When the CBC’s Atlantic Investigative Unit wanted to understand better how police handle complaints from the public for a project called “Police and Public Trust,” it filed freedom-of-information requests asking all provincial police forces for 11 years of internal discipline decisions. Every force complied, except one. Halifax Regional Police declined to release any information at […]

March break, Cuban beaches and… politics?

The CBC continues to push an anti-Cuban line while downplaying the U.S. embargo On Monday, March 6, CBC Radio’s local morning newscast carried a report on Cuba by national reporter Evan Dyer, which also appeared on cbc.ca. “As holidaying Canadians return to Cuba,” it began, “Cubans themselves are fleeing in record numbers.” CBC’s Information Morning […]

Tara Thorne and the tweet that trumped 20 years of exemplary arts coverage

How do we balance Tara Thorne’s history of supporting artists and culture in Halifax with what even one of her supporters described as ‘a hurtful and very bad joke tweet’? These days, it seems, we don’t. I will confess off the top I don’t know the specifics of what freelance arts journalist Tara Thorne tweeted […]

Journalism: Banking on public broadcasting

At this moment — when real journalism is often dismissed as fake news and alternate-reality U.S. president Donald Trump is decimating American public broadcasting in his new budget— there is some comfort living in Canada where our recently refinanced and reinvigorated public broadcaster is not only publishing real news but is also affecting the public […]

Police street check data (also) shows we need more journalists, more news organizations

On October 24, 2016, CBC Halifax journalist Phlis McGregor happened to hear an interview on As It Happens about a York University research study that analyzed two years of Ottawa police data. Between 2013 and 2015, the report said, police there pulled over nearly 82,000 drivers for mostly routine checks. The data showed Middle Eastern […]

Justin Trudeau, the allegations and the options

Halifax NDP MP and deputy party leader Megan Leslie says she “cannot believe” Liberal leader Justin Trudeau went public with allegations of “serious personal misconduct” by two Liberal MPs against two NDP MPs. But really, given the state of the nation — the fascinating, mostly thoughtful, sometimes insightful, occasionally knee-jerk conversations triggered by recent Jian […]