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Media Watch blog

Media Watch aims to shine a light on a wide range of media, providing a survey of different news and views from global media, as well as exposing uninformed editorials and inaccurate reporting.

Blog - Media Watch blog August 15
Newspapers on newsstand. Photo: greenzowie/flickr
Radical model could be key to creating new community newspapers across Canada
Nick Fillmore | The creation of even one sustainable, independent newspaper project anywhere in Canada would be a huge, unprecedented accomplishment.
Blog - Media Watch blog July 11
Newspapers don't deserve support -- money should go to independent news sites.
Nick Fillmore | A new report asking the federal government for $350 million to prop up Canada's newspapers is out of step with the times.
Blog - Media Watch blog June 27
Liberals take first small step toward rebuilding the CBC, but there are many miles to go
Nick Fillmore | The Trudeau government is taking an important first step forward from the cynical Harper era. During the months and years ahead we will hopefully witness the rebuilding of the CBC.
Blog - Media Watch blog January 27
Image: Flickr/Roland Tanglao
In Greenspon report, corporate media blames everything but itself
Nick Fillmore | In his new report, Greenspon has the nerve to write that Canada needs mainstream media to protect democracy. Who endorsed Stephen Harper for a fifth term again?
Blog - Media Watch blog September 26
Photo: Sophia Reuss
Canada's media needs to get over objectivity and start practicing solidarity
Sophia Reuss | Canadian media needs to dispense with false ideas of "objectivity" when it comes to colonized peoples -- and all systems of oppression -- and practice solidarity instead.
Blog - Media Watch blog September 7
Image: Flickr/Thompson Rivers University
After Mansbridge, does the CBC have the courage to build a truly great news program?
Nick Fillmore | Content, not style and not personalities, should be the focus of a re-built post-Mansbridge National.
Blog - Media Watch blog August 18
Image: Flickr/Thompson Rivers University
The face of Canadian journalism is still white -- and it's time to push back
Joanna Chiu | Canada likes to imagine itself as a multicultural and diverse society. But its media simply doesn't reflect this belief -- and that's got to change.
Blog - Media Watch blog June 23
Image: PMO/Adam Scotti
Mainstream media sucked in, reports whatever politicians or GM say
Nick Fillmore | Journalists used to be taught to report not what people say but what they do. What's changed?
Blog - Media Watch blog June 20
Image: Facebook/Local Xpress
Striking Herald workers up pressure on bosses as rival publication grows
Errol Salamon | The union requires the 57 Herald workers to spend at least 20 hours of their time per week supporting the strike effort to earn strike pay.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 26
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Recalling the greats of journalism: From Walter Stewart, to Amy Goodman, to the phony Dan Rather
Nick Fillmore | Nick Fillmore recalls some of the great names in North American journalism over the past few decades -- and how the landscaper of corporate media has changed.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 25
Image: Facebook/Nour el Sherbini
New world champion squashes Western stereotypes of Muslim women
Dalia Thamin | Four of the top 10 best women squash players in the world are Egyptian Muslims -- but such feel-good stories never make the Western press.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 20
With terror-obsessed corporate airwaves, it falls to social media to share human stories of EgyptAir victims
Dalia Thamin | The human cost of the recent EgyptAir disappearance over the Mediterrenean gave way to continuous experts' speculations about whether a bomb or cockpit sabotage was the reason for the crash.
Blog - Media Watch blog February 4
Image: Pixelbay.com
Canadians need to plan now to fund and develop dependable media for the future
Nick Fillmore | The best solution to our growing news crisis is for governments to provide the financial support needed so that community-based online news sites will be sustainable.
Blog - Media Watch blog February 3
Image: pexels.com
Unless Ottawa steps in, Canadian journalism is doomed
Nick Fillmore | A flourishing, capable news media is the oxygen of democracy. In Canada, the mainstream corporate-owned newspapers, are dying. We need to come up with something better.
Blog - Media Watch blog November 4
It's time for Canadians to demand the local and community media policy we deserve
Cathy Edwards, Meg Borthwick | Tomorrow is the deadline for Canadians (that's you) to tell the CRTC how it should update its local and community TV policy. TV? Who watches TV anymore?
Blog - Media Watch blog September 8
Photo: flickr/ Marcie Casas
National online survey launched: Stewarding community media into the digital future
Michael Lithgow | A national citizen's group has launched an online survey to ask people across Canada what they think about community media, the first of its kind in Canadian history.
Blog - Media Watch blog August 20
Image: Flickr/Peter
The Globe and Mail continues habit of ignoring public opinion
Nick Fillmore | Last week Globe reporter Campbell Clark gave a textbook example of how the mainstream media ignores and marginalizes the public in key debates that are clearly in the public interest.
Blog - Media Watch blog June 19
Photo: flickr/JD Hancock
The power of propaganda from Canada to the U.S. to Ukraine
Mark Taliano | Why are the masses so quick to believe the lies and deception touted by governments? And then equally quick to take refuge in cynicism when the lies are exposed?
Blog - Media Watch blog April 2
Image: Chadi Marouf for ICTV
Challenging Peladeau's Quebecor for control of Community Television
Laith Marouf | Citizens have a chance to make Independent Community Television a reality in Montreal because it is attempting to free public funds earmarked for Community Television production from Peladeau.
Blog - Media Watch blog March 27
Photo: flickr/Rodger Levesque
Corporate media and its self-serving interests
Mark Taliano | Corporate media's agenda for self-serving interests isn't just awful, it's dangerous because its selective coverage deliberately veils windows to the world that need to be exposed.
Blog - Media Watch blog February 4
Photo: flickr/Blurgle
How the right-wing wins
Stig Harvor | To succeed in affecting change, you need to influence the media. Canadian media is increasingly owned and concentrated in the hands of large corporations promoting their own interests.
Blog - Media Watch blog December 4
Image: flickr/Sean MacEntee
Like us on Facebook! A new kind of political donation is emerging in Canada
Chuk Plante and Aaron Genest | The Facebook like is emerging as a new form of political in donation in Canada. But what does this action truly cost and mean?
Blog - Media Watch blog October 28
Broadbent Institute launches new political blog and news site: Press Progress
rabble staff | Today the Broadbent Institute launches a new blog featuring daily political news and analysis: Press progress.
Blog - Media Watch blog September 3
War hawk John Kerry makes the media rounds pushing for Syria intervention
Andrea Germanos | Secretary of State John Kerry continued to push for military force against Syria on Sunday, appearing on a series of talk shows and saying he is sure Congress will support the use of air strikes.
Blog - Media Watch blog August 27
Mainstream media 'beats the drums' for U.S. bombing of Syria
Jon Queally | There's barely a whiff of the skepticism one would expect after the colossal -- and well-documented -- media failure that preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Blog - Media Watch blog August 8
CRTC says 'No' to Sun TV: Right-wing network's bid for mandatory cable spot rejected
rabble staff | The CRTC has rejected the application from Sun News for mandatory carriage on cable television, a major blow to the struggling right-wing network.
Blog - Media Watch blog July 19
Open letter to media reporting on Edward Snowden, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia
various | The supposed “irony” of whistle-blower Edward Snowden seeking asylum in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela has become a media meme.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 21
Action needed to stop 'climate deniers' from winning the information war
Nick Fillmore | The global warming deniers are at it again, and it is high time that the environmental movement launched an organized campaign to expose these scientific community charlatans.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 21
Times Square ticker in NYC reports on Nigel Wright's resignation.
World media reports on Harper government's growing Senate expense scandal
rabble staff | The resignation of Stephen Harper's Chief-of-Staff Nigel Wright, and the growing Senate expense scandal, has made worldwide headlines this long weekend.
Blog - Media Watch blog May 14
Media Watch: About those corporate media editorials endorsing the BC Liberals
rabble staff | There's one big editorial endorsement missing. The Vancouver Sun editorial board has -- in an unusual move for them -- declined to issue an election editorial.

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