Serena McCarroll and others spoke out on the record as part of a Macleans cover story on abuse allegations at the Winnipeg Ballet. McCarroll hoped that going public would give the accusations a greater resonance than some might think is lacking with anonymous allegations. Unfortunately, in its treatment of the story, Macleans side-stepped fundamental issues at play and portrayed its on the record victim in an unclear light, to the point where it has left her frustrated and saddened by the piece.
How well are be being served by our political media if they can’t be bothered to get both sides of a story if that other side is coming from the Senate? It is a legitimate parliamentary body, even if they’re not elected, and it’s not going away, so maybe it behoves us to actually give it proper coverage.
For some reason, Elizabeth May’s drunken press gallery speech was treated as the most important story in the country. To Evan Solomon, our whole democracy was in crisis.
After a topless Femen protester crashed a Quebec cabinet minister’s press conference late last month, some reporters in the Quebec Parliamentary Press Gallery wondered aloud if VICE had something to do with it. The media company had never reported from the National Assembly before, and yet it had a three-person camera crew on hand to film Neda Topaloski as she yelled in protest against a health-care bill she argued would limit access to abortion.
A member of the Press Gallery on why ignorance is not bliss.
The women who accused Jian Ghomeshi of sexual assault, abuse and harassment took extraordinary risks and gained nothing. If Ghomeshi is guilty, their courage may have prevented others from being harmed by him, and it has certainly emboldened others to speak out about sexual assault and abuse. These women have changed the way people think and talk about domestic violence, workplace harassment and sexual assault.
Their recent performance in office and at the hustings subject to widespread media and voter skepticism, incumbent Premier Jim Prentice and the Alberta Progressive Conservatives nonetheless managed to secure the endorsement of the four largest papers in Alberta, the Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Sun and Calgary Sun. In one case, instruction to endorse came from the papers’ parent company, Toronto-based Postmedia.
Drake, born Aubrey Graham in a city where almost one in ten people are black, is black. Toronto’s greatest civic triumphalist since Jane Jacobs is black. And yet Drake’s own identity – his nationality, his mixed race background that includes Jewish heritage and upbringing, the neighbourhood he once lived in, the schools he went to – is often taken to mean that his black experience is somehow inauthentic.
Rogers publication Medical Journal recently recognized four medical doctors for their religious faith. Three of them were Christians with sterling accomplishments. One was a Muslim… and is the leader of Al Qaeda.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
Or, in CBC News-speak, it’s the 100th anniversary of “what is widely referred to as the Armenian genocide except by the Republic of Turkey, which rejects the term.”
Here’s a memo that went out to CBC newsrooms this morning from the CBC Alert Desk:
