Local journalism is dead. Long live local journalism!

Last week’s announcement the Examiner will be one of 10 independent digital journalism businesses across North America receiving support and funding from the Google News Initiative’s Startups Labs is good news for the Examiner — and its readers. It was, in fact, a good news week for local journalism. Sometime in early 2014, I began […]

Back to the drawing board, Bill

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says his budget will provide support for journalism. It won’t. It will only provide demise-delaying bailouts for badly managed media corporations. There are better ways. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner March 25, 2019. Start with this from Page 173 of the federal budget Finance Minister Bill Morneau tabled […]

The gospel according to Mark (Lever)

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner July 16, 2018. “We believe being in 25 communities is a big strength… I believe telling local stories in Gander, and in St. John’s, and in Corner Brook, and Summerside, and Sydney are going to be what supports this network. Not amalgamating. Not putting the same copy […]

Schooling Shawn Cleary on journalism education

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner July 2, 2o18. My Examiner column last week seemed to set off a modest Twitter tempest, mostly because its subject, Coun. Shawn Cleary, chose to respond to what I wrote and didn’t write (even when he didn’t seem to realize I’d written it); and then to respond in scattershot […]

Is it always a bad idea to get government involved in journalism?

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on July 3, 2017. “It’s always a bad idea to get the government involved in journalism.” Tim Bousquet June 27, 2017 I hesitate to disagree with Tim Bousquet, the editor of The Halifax Examiner, my colleague and boss. But in this instance I do. Not completely, […]

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 […]

What would Graham say?

As a bitter strike at Atlantic Canada’s largest and most storied daily newspaper heads into its second year, both sides frequently invoke the memory of the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s late publisher to justify their competing arguments. But the more important question now is, will Graham Dennis’s 170-year-old newspaper even be around for anyone to remember […]

Media Coverage Of Fidel Castro’s Death Has Been Abysmally One-Sided

“Former U.S. President George W. Bush, who led his country into a disastrous war with Iraq on the basis of concocted evidence of weapons of mass destruction and who authorized the use of torture against foreign prisoners of war in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law, died today…” No, George W. Bush did […]

Journalism: From Howe to how-not-to

There is, it is fair to say, nothing new in the incestuous relationship between journalism and politics. Joseph Howe was a journalist — can you say freedom of the press? — before he (belatedly) became our father who art in confederation. The 27th premier of Nova Scotia — a.k.a. Darrell Dexter — trained as a […]

Sarah Dennis apologizes… but ignores the reason she had to

Chronicle Herald publisher Sarah Dennis was contrite. Under the headline, “We Have Listened And Will Learn From This,” she wrote about her newspaper’s mis-handling of the infamously viral story that “should not have been released.” She seemed forthright: “apologize,” “failure of foresight,” “acknowledge our mistakes,” “accept and try to learn from criticism…” But nowhere in […]