In Burnaby, B.C., this past July, more than 70 activists and members of First Nations took to the water in boats, canoes, and kayaks to protest in front of the Trans Mountain Terminal. The protesters formed a flotilla to express their upset with the Trans Mountain pipeline extension project, which the federal government announced it would acquire. Photo courtesy of Protect the Inlet.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline saga has been ongoing for years, but tensions peaked this May when Justin Trudeau announced his government’s plans to acquire the project for $4.5 billion. In 2013, energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan proposed building a new pipeline to run parallel to the existing one, built in 1952. The proposal reignited ongoing disputes around environmental ethics, considerations for traditional Indigenous territories, and the economic benefits of the oil industry. Here’s a look at the different ways news outlets across the country have covered the controversy:

CBC

The national broadcaster’s reporting on the pipeline’s recent developments has focused on response to events and moves by the federal government. It has played a key role in breaking news to the public, and its quick takes have been largely centred on the fears and arguments of environmentalists and First Nations leaders.

“Trans Mountain protesters decry ‘Justin Trudeau memorial pipeline’ in Burnaby, B.C.” | JULY 02, 2018
“Pipeline protesters predict number of arrests over Trans Mountain will eclipse War in the Woods” | JULY 16, 2018

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

The Globe and Mail has largely covered the economic impacts of the pipeline as well as the political sagas that have played out since the Liberals decided to buy out the project. The reporting looks at environmental debates surrounding the expansion, yet these issues are often presented as opposition to the fight for access to land and sea. Another major theme in their coverage is the fear of the pipeline’s demise and the question of what’s next.

“Trans Mountain, Trudeau and the B.C.-Alberta feud: A guide to the political saga so far” | APRIL 18, 2018
“Ottawa is buying Trans Mountain. What does that mean? A guide” | MAY 29, 2018
“Burnaby residents call for pipeline protest camps to be dismantled” | JUNE 17, 2018

APTN

The Indigenous news outlet’s coverage has been focused on those protesting the expansion, such as Indigenous people and non-for-profits like Greenpeace. APTN will often refer to protesters as “land” and “water” protectors, usually residents of remote areas who have been left out of the prevailing conversation in mainstream news coverage.

“City of Burnaby serves eviction notice to anti-Trans Mountain pipeline activists” | JULY 19, 2018
“Anti-pipeline aerial activists hang from Vancouver bridge, block oil tanker” | JULY 4, 2018

THE TYEE

Coverage by the B.C.-focused independent online news source has challenged the truth of what Canadians are hearing about the Trans Mountain Pipeline. They’ve published a number of deep-dives on the data and history around the expansion project, focusing on educating readers rather than providing updates.

“Trudeau, Notley and Trans Mountain Claims: A Tyee Fact Check” | MARCH 21, 2018
“Pipeline Expansion: U.S. Refineries Win, Canadians Lose” | APRIL 19, 2018
“Canada’s Dirty $20-Billion Pipeline Bailout” | MAY 29, 2018

New program aims to make math education more accessible to Indigenous students.

– Two’s company; three’s family. The Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court has recognized all three adults in a polyamorous relationship as the legal parents of their daughter born in 2017. In his decision, the judge wrote there was no reason why the relationship would detract from the child’s best interests.

– Last year, 104 unions were certified in previously unorganized workplaces—the highest number in a decade. The upswing can be traced to changes to the provincial labour code, which allow the Alberta Labour Relations Board to certify a union without a vote, as long as more than 65 percent of bargaining unit members support it.

– An educational program called Math Catcher is aiming to make mathematics more accessible to Indigenous students by highlighting the patterns in traditional weaving, the strategies behind salmon harvesting, and more. Veselin Jungic, the Simon Fraser University professor behind the program, hopes it will encourage more Indigenous kids to further their math education.

– P.E.I. has removed the word “handicapped” from five pieces of legislation, the result of lobbying by 19-year-old Hannah MacLellan. The word has been replaced by “persons with a disability,” which MacLellan argues is less demeaning.

THE BAD NEWS:

The fentanyl crisis is not letting up throughout Canada.

– The fentanyl crisis isn’t letting up. Nearly 4,000 Canadians died from opioid overdoses last year, with 72 percent involving some version of fentanyl. British Columbia was the hardest-hit province, with 1,399 victims, though proportionally, deaths in Ontario have risen more.

– Allegations of sexual harassment from female Inuit workers are rampant at Baffinland Iron Mine Corporation’s Mary River mine. One worker told Nunatsiaq News how her non-Inuit colleagues allegedly ask for sexual favours and her supervisors won’t intervene. Last year, just 12.5 percent of the site’s employees were Inuit, and of those, most were men.

– With no LGBTQ-friendly seniors’ residences in Halifax, some LGBTQ folks are going back into the closet, fearing discrimination or mistreatment in nursing homes. And as Baby Boomers age and the senior population skyrockets, the need for inclusive housing is becoming more and more urgent.

– At 45,000 square kilometres, Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest in the country. But climate change, tar sands activity, and hydro development have led to decreasing water quality and quantity, deformed fish, and high levels of mercury in fish and bird eggs. That, in turn, has led to less traditional food for local Indigenous communities.

New programs across the country are allowing kids to build their own book collections.

– Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card—or when you can build your own personal book collection. Since February, Winnipeg non-profit Share the Magic has donated books to nursery and kindergarten classrooms each month. Meanwhile, Calgary’s Love With Humanity Association has founded a multicultural outdoor library with books in Punjabi and Urdu.

– Hiking, fishing, and fire pits are a recipe for happiness—and Pride. Yukon’s first summer camp for LGBTQ adults in Faro filled up in days. Founder Roger Bower came up with the idea after noticing that there was little LGBTQ programming outside of Whitehorse, and has been delighted with how welcoming the 350-person community has been.

– Toronto theatre awards are becoming more inclusive for non-binary performers. The Dora Mavor Moore Awards is scrapping male and female categories. Instead, it will celebrate outstanding performers in dance, opera, and theatre, regardless of gender. Volunteer jurors will also undergo anti-bias training on equity, diversity, and gender inclusivity.

– Ready to learn how to hunt goose? The Cree Trappers’ Association and Cégep de Saint-Félicien are starting a traditional skills college program. Elders, land users, and accredited college instructors will teach the fundamentals of Cree lifestyle, including hunting, fishing, and building traditional homes. The program expects to welcome its first cohort of students in 2019.

THE BAD NEWS:

Hundreds of families remain on daycare wait-lists in Nunavut.

– As Alberta MLAs were voting on an abortion clinic buffer zone bill—one that would create a 50-metre protester-free area around clinics—the handful of United Conservative members in attendance all walked out of the chamber, only to return once the vote was over. The caucus has declined to comment on or engage with the subject.

– The highly contagious whooping cough is being significantly under-reported in Ontario, according to a new study. The researchers estimated that between 2009 and 2015, there were 12,883 cases in the province of people older than age one, but only 1,665 were reported to public health officials. This might be because doctors aren’t testing for it, have trouble diagnosing it, or simply aren’t notifying public health.

– In 2012, the Harper government introduced a career transition program for veterans, allowing them to claim up to $1,000 spent on career counselling, resumé help, and other job placement support. A recent internal audit at Veterans Affairs found that between April 2013 and March 2015, 335 vets applied for reimbursement—but only 40 got paid.

– More than 700 people are on daycare wait-lists in Iqaluit. The two-year-long list means many family members will have to drop out of work placements and training programs to take care of their children. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada has promised to build a centre this summer, but its 60 spots are barely a drop in the bucket.

Individual news organizations tweet upwards of 100 times per day—a content diet even the most obsessive tweeter can’t digest. Instead, we pick out small bites, our personal interest and bias helping us choose what tweets we see and which accounts aren’t worth a follow. With each retweet and mention, Twitter’s algorithm goes to work, shaping our feeds for us. And if we’re not careful, we’re soon stuck inside a chamber of the algorithm’s making, where only the things we want to hear (or see) are echoed back.

But Ania Medrek has built an app for that.

It’s called Echology. Medrek developed the app while researching the echo chamber phenomenon on social networking sites during her final year as a Master’s candidate at OCAD University in Toronto. An extension for Twitter, Echology takes note of what accounts you follow and scrapes each news tweet for important keywords. After you click the small Echology button below each tweet, the app randomly generates related tweets from news providers you don’t follow. The suggestions appear under the heading “People who’ve read this may not have read,” a conscious spin on the way sites like Amazon and Facebook recommend products and content. But, Medrek clarifies, Echology doesn’t just show opposing political views. It presents everything in between, the diversity of each news story and the context needed to understand each headline.

If you were to click the Echology button under a news tweet summarizing the latest congressional testimony from Mark Zuckerberg regarding Facebook’s data privacy, for instance, the app might generate a tweet from Politico with new reactions from lawmakers, a story from NPR that highlights a different section of the day’s testimony, and BBC coverage on the U.K. Parliament’s response. These are tweets from news providers you don’t follow, and would not have appeared in your feed otherwise.

Before the idea for Echology was born, Medrek read dozens of studies about the echo chamber phenomenon. What she found surprised her: there were distinct, non-human reasons for the polarization, aggression, and ignorance she had seen percolate on her own Twitter feed for years, reasons explaining how and why one news story plays out in countless different ways with countless different consequences, almost all unseen to the average user. Medrek “tweezed out” the 25 most important and compiled them onto deck of cards, each with its own factor. One reads “misleading headlines,” another “hashtags,” and a third, especially important one: “personalization.”

Personalization is just what it sounds like: the ability to make your Twitter feed unique by filtering out who you follow and who you don’t. When it comes to news, Medrek says, personalization is dangerous. “You start seeing only one perspective,” she says. “You’re not understanding the people around you.” And following a range of news sources won’t necessarily help you break free of a social network’s algorithm, which is programmed to show you more of the content you interact with. “It can trump your decisions,” Medrek says. “The algorithm can decide, oh, but you only actually ever click on this point of view, so we’re actually going to hide and suppress the others, even though you chose to follow those [accounts] too.” You may follow CBC on Twitter, but if you only ever click on articles from CTV News, you’re less likely to see CBC tweets on your feed. It’s the algorithm giving you what it thinks you want.

Medrek knew that to break free of the echo chamber, Twitter users would need to see news stories the algorithm was blocking. So, armed with her deck of 25 contributing factors, Medrek sat down with a group of news industry professionals for what called “participatory design” workshops. After three meetings, Echology had taken shape. 

Once she linked Echology to her own Twitter account, Medrek was intrigued by what she noticed. “The different tones, the hierarchy of words, what you chose to highlight and what you didn’t totally shapes peoples news experiences,” she says. “Those little differences mean a lot.” Visitors to OCAD’s graduate exhibition, where Medrek debuted the project in May, tried out Echology and had similar reactions. “People we’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even know I needed this, but now that I see it, I need this,’” she says.

Echology isn’t ready to be distributed to the public yet, but Medrek aims to find more developers and work out the app’s kinks, like improving how Echology recognizes keywords in each news tweet. And the workshops she held during the development stage could morph into tools for teaching in high schools, colleges, and newsrooms.

Thinking about and engaging with the echo chamber phenomenon can bring change, Medrek says, pointing out that most social media companies are genuinely open to finding new solutions. “But it’s not just on tech giants to solve this,” she says, “it’s on journalists, it’s on designers. So there’s hope.”

UPDATE (05/24/2018): This story has been slightly modified to clarify information about social networks’ algorithms and the titles of those in the news industry involved with Echology.

Canadian transgender inmates will now serve in men’s or women’s facilities based on how they self-identify.

– Holy water-spritzing protesters, begone! As of February 1, anti-abortion activists can no longer protest within 50 metres of Ontario abortion clinics, or within 150 metres of the home of health care professionals who provide abortion services. Violators will face fines up to $5,000 and six months in prison for first offences.

– Mikisew Cree First Nation in northern Alberta is headed to court to make sure the federal government consults Indigenous communities when drafting statuses likely to affect their treaty rights. Hearings began at the Supreme Court in January.

– After years of unsafe conditions, transgender inmates in federal penitentiaries—no matter their anatomy or the sex listed on their documents—will now serve their sentence in a men or women’s facility based on how they self identify. They must also be addressed by their correct name and pronoun.

– Low-income residents of Ingonish, N.S., don’t have to worry about making it to the doctor, the bank, or the supermarket anymore. The town’s council has partnered with a local cab company to offer free rides to “anyone who is financially strapped.” The program has about 15 regular users.

THE BAD NEWS:

Inuit living in Ottawa face significant barriers to health care.

– Eight young people have died by suicide in the four First Nations that make up Maskwacis in Alberta between November 2017 and January 2018. Meanwhile, a new study found that Indigenous youth made up 71 percent of the suicides reported to Alberta’s Office of the Child and Youth Advocate between 2012 and 2017. “Our people have a sense of hopelessness,” Samson Cree Nation band councillor Katherine Swampy told APTN.

–  Nearly 40 percent of students at the University of Saskatchewan are struggling with food insecurity, according to a new study. Indigenous students, those who are parents, and international students are particularly likely to go hungry—and rising tuition and rents play a significant role.

– Pro journalism tip: Don’t give Nazis column inches. The editor-in-chief of a University of New Brunswick student paper was removed from her post after publishing a Q&A with and an op-ed by the head of a white supremacist group that distributed anti-Indigenous posters on campus. The op-ed, since removed from the paper’s website, argues residential schools were the only way “to civilize an… uncivilized society.”

– Despite being close to family doctors, well-equipped hospitals, and reasonably priced food, Inuit living in Ottawa face significant barriers to health care, the Urban Indigenous Health Database Project has found. These include low incomes, no health cards, and cultural issues like difficulty trusting health care providers and a scarcity of traditional medicine.

As a freelance journalist and writer Quammie often writes sharp and critical pieces about the intersections of race and popular culture. Two days after the shake-ups, she published a piece with Vice titled, “Are Diverse Hosts like Shad and Larry Wilmore Set Up to Fail?” “Monday was a bad day for diversity in media,” opened Quammie’s piece, which questioned whether diverse voices brought into major media outlets were supported or left to fend for themselves. Quammie wrote that the industry “has to do more than prop a non-white male on set to show an invested approach to diversification.”

Five years into her career as a freelance writer, Quammie says she’s still hyper-aware of the reputation she’s building, and finds herself constantly having internal negotiations within her head: to write or not to write on particular topics. “Am I being too much?” she often asks herself. “Am I closing myself off from certain opportunities? I’ve had that battle with myself… You don’t want to shut yourself out of opportunities, but you have an opinion and you want to share it.” These questions are only part of the internal negotiation that Quammie admits to having when it comes to her writing—both on her own blog, ’83 to Infinity, and with other media outlets. “I’ve said, ‘Okay, my last three posts: were they all about Black stuff? Should I mix it up?’” She adds that she doesn’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s just a feeling, Quammie says: “Should I speak on this? If I don’t speak on that, then what does that mean? Does it mean I’m a poor representation of my race?” In the end, Quammie, who has written for a wide range of publications including For Harriet, Revolt TV, Chatelaine, and the Globe and Mail, says that authenticity wins out. She goes with what she feels strongly about, and hopes that because she can back up why she said it and how she said it, she won’t lose out on opportunities as a result.

Many journalists and writers of colour, including me, have these types of internal conversations with themselves at least once in their career. From time to time, I look at my portfolio, and wonder: Will I be pegged as someone who can only write about diversity issues? And is that necessarily a bad thing? It’s important for legacy media outlets to understand how pigeon-holing writers and journalists into writing about race and diversity issues can lead to this internal conflict—and can also devalue the breadth of knowledge and experience an individual brings to the table. After all, a white journalist is rarely confined to write only about “white issues.” In fact, when Black Lives Matter Toronto held a sit-in at the Pride parade 2016 to protest several aspects of the organization it deemed racist and oppressive, the pundits sounding off about it across major media outlets were overwhelmingly white.

As more legacy media outlets in Canada feel growing pressure to further diversify their newsrooms and the stories that they tell—take Canadaland’s damning “Just How White is the CBC?” that found 90 percent of the outlet’s staffers were white—diversity must become part of newsrooms’ inherent philosophy. As Toronto-based diversity strategist Tana Turner tells it, the onus of ensuring honest and fair reporting and commentary that doesn’t further perpetuate and stigmatize various ethno-racial communities cannot rest squarely on one diversity reporter. She says feeling like the work starts and ends with hiring this one reporter “lets the other reporters off the hook” because they won’t feel like they need to address diversity in other areas, such as education or crime.

There must be buy-in from the entire newsroom. Shani O. Hilton, head of U.S. news at BuzzFeed News, hit the nail on the head in her 2014 Medium piece, “Building a Diverse Newsroom is Work.” She wrote: “Any newsroom in which the Black staff is expected to speak for Blackness while the white staffers only have to speak for themselves is a newsroom that’s failing.”

***

More than a decade ago, when Camille Dundas got her start in media, she worked for a mainstream broadcast media outlet. While sitting next to one of the station’s producers on a plane flying to Toronto for a training session, she glanced over at a list of all the names of people attending. Next to her name was an abbreviation; she didn’t know what it meant. She was surprised to discover it stood for “diversity hire.” “This was my first job and I actually didn’t know about diversity hiring,” she says. “That it existed. I was very young.” Comments she had overheard in the newsroom— like “that’s why she’s here, anyway” or “she wasn’t really qualified to be here, anyway”—began to make sense. She started to doubt herself. Luckily she received words of encouragement from a mentor that made her shake off her self-doubt. It may be the reason you got in the door, he told her, but it isn’t why you’re here. He assured her that she was valuable, and that she had something of worth to bring to the outlet.

Dundas continues to work in mainstream broadcast media as a news writer and producer, as well as editor-in-chief and cofounder of online publication ByBlacks.com. Despite how that experience made her feel, she says she still thinks the notion of diversity hires in journalism is necessary. But she does think news organizations should be transparent about their intent, especially so that new hires don’t view themselves negatively. “Don’t approach your life or your career as if someone’s doing you a favour,” she adds. “Because they’re not.”

Whether it’s overtly stated or not, this is something many people of colour entering journalism grapple with: wondering whether they’re hired to fill a diversity quota or based on their skillset and abilities. Arti Patel, lifestyle editor at Huffington Post, laughs when asked if the thought ever crossed her mind when she entered the workforce five years ago. “I thought about that as soon as I graduated. Am I being hired because of my colour? Or my resume? Or maybe both?”

Ann Rauhala, who has taught journalism at Toronto’s Ryerson University for the past 16 years, says she makes it a point to acknowledge the deep-rooted bias that racialized students may be up against in pursuing media. She reminds them: “You have a right to be there. Your story, your background, your interests are as legitimate as people in the mainstream.”

Like Hilton and Dundas, Patel says having people of different backgrounds who can bring varied perspectives and voices to a newsroom is important. Her own workplace is noticeably diverse and she says that the types of stories the outlet puts out are a reflection of that. Take for example, a multi-part series, which Patel helped spearhead, on the unique experiences of second-generation Canadians—the children of immigrants. It tackles subjects ranging from interracial dating to never hearing your parents say they’re proud of you. “Stuff like that is brought up through hiring a diverse staff,” she says. “I think when you do hire people of colour or people of different faiths and cultures you get different kind of content, which is great because it’s reflective of what the Canadian audience is about.”

***

Andray Domise got his big journalism break two years ago. He credits much of it to a handful of editors who acknowledged a gap in the diversity of voices and perspectives amongst their contributing columnists—and then set out to do something about it. Domise is a community activist and very vocal on social media about issues of social justice, education, and diversity, among other things. And so, he says, editors from media outlets such as Maclean’s, TVO, and Toronto Life sought him out when they needed commentators on issues such as police brutality and race relations. While Domise is grateful, and says he wishes more emerging and established writers of colour would get similar opportunities, he urges media outlets to see racialized people as more than one-dimensional.

While he notes that it makes sense for a publication looking for comment on a particular story related to race or diversity to seek out a writer with relatable lived experience, race shouldn’t be the only topic people of colour are viewed as experts on. He points out how few Black people he’s aware of at major Canadian media outlets who are writing frequently about things like sports, finance or politics. It’s the idea that, he adds, “if it’s racial it must affect us, but if it’s not racial, then we can rely on the commentary of an overwhelmingly white media who explains the experience of everyone who happens to be listening or reading.” And that is, of course, a big problem.

Quammie sees this play out in terms of both what writers of colour are asked to write about and when they are called upon for quotes as experts. “If we’re only in the media and only called upon to speak when it’s these issues to do with race or being a Black person,” she says, “you’re not seeing my humanity when I have other interests and I have other expertise.” This is why for Patel it’s important to note that diversifying goes beyond just covering race and diversity issues. In practice, that means crafting a lifestyle section that reflects a variety of ethno-racial communities when it comes to both authors of and sources. It means being intentional when selecting stock images. It also means understanding that people of colour are not a monolith—no one person can be expected to be an expert in the experiences and stories of all people of colour.

***

While the internal struggles that writers like Quammie experience are complex, there are steps newsrooms can take to better support racialized people working within them. For starters, Turner says that making the connection between the business of the organization appealing to a broader readership can help naysayers get on board. As of 2011, Statistics Canada reported nearly 20 percent of the population identified themselves as “visible minorities”—a huge segment to risk losing by not ensuring they see themselves reflected in the media. Turner says once people start to see the monetary value attached to diversifying it may help to alleviate the types of micro-aggressions Dundas faced in her first gig. “That’s when racialized people are hired and [not] seen as tokens or treated as the ‘diversity hire,’” she says.

Beyond this, Shenaz Kermalli, who has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years and is currently a professor in the Humber College journalism degree program, stresses the need for diversity to happen across the newsroom hierarchy. Even in the mid to late 2000s, when working overseas at Al Jazeera in the Middle East, Kermalli was surprised by the fact that the majority of the senior level management at the time was white. She says more measures— especially a more concerted effort to hire diverse folks at senior-management levels—are needed to help the racialized candidates already in the newsroom move up the career ladder. Offering mentorship and support to these individuals, as well as recognizing and naming implicit biases are some ways media outlets can start this work. “Once you get past that,” says Kermalli, “you can start having more intelligent discussion, which revolves around how to reflect diversity within diversity.”

Quammie says her experiences pitching stories related to race and ethnicity to white (often women) editors has been pretty positive, but adds that top-down change is essential. It’s important to recognize that even if white editors welcome her ideas it’s often through their particular lens. She says that there’s still an expectation that “this is what they think a Black female writer’s going to write about.” She adds that it’s important to ensure diversification happens in multiple areas. As an organization, she says, “It has to be throughout to impact the richness of whatever it is you’re trying to offer.”

More ethno-racial diversity within all newsroom ranks can result in many benefits, including removing any hints of tokenizing and an increased level of sensitivity in the packaging and production of the news. We need editors to accept more pitches about underrepresented or misrepresented communities and issues. We need more genuine relationships and trust built between media organizations and Canada’s diverse ethno-racial communities. And we need more journalists on the ground level, like me, to no longer feel like there is a glass ceiling placed on where they can go in this field.

Woodworth, a Conservative backbencher, recently proposed a private members motion to reopen the conversation on Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which states a child does not become a human being until it has “completely proceeded” from the mother’s body. The motion was quickly denounced by the opposition as well as the Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper said in a recent question period that he does not want the abortion debate reopened and he would vote against any move to do so. Many of Harper’s supporters at the rally were frustrated with his recent remarks and disappointed that a Conservative PM supposedly has no intention of supporting a bill that would restrict abortions.

Any time the word abortion enters into conversation in the media, or really anywhere, very strong public opinions—both for and against—come along with it.

I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. The anti-abortion rhetoric, to me, is a violation against women’s rights. If this country were ever to allow restrictions to be implemented on a women’s choice over her own body, we would be taking one giant leap backwards.

However, debate today is greatly different than in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled to not put any legal restrictions on abortions. At that time, the Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With advancements in medical screenings the debate is no longer just a yay or nay discussion; it has become much more complex.

Major advances in science and maternal healthcare means genetic counselling is now a growing medical field. Through screening and family history, doctors are more capable than ever when it comes to determining if a child may be born with Down syndrome or have a predisposition to a variety of illnesses. What happens when we reach the point when we can find out with certainty that a child will grow up to have Parkinson, ALS or Alzheimer’s? Is it humane to let the fetus survive only to live a life of unspeakable pain and suffering? Female feticide is a regular occurrence in  China and India where boys are the preferred sex—and is now occurring in North America. Should parents be allowed to choose the sex of their child?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. Nobody does. But based on our advances in science and technology the abortion debate will only become more difficult as we move forward—new science-made options in family planning have generated a whole new avenue for heated argument.

The ongoing debate around not having the abortion debate within the House of Commons only confuses matters. The conversation needs to be reborn. We currently have no laws around abortions and it’s about time we enacted policy to officially protect women’s rights.

As Andrew Coyne wrote in his April 27th column for the National Post: “Possibly, after a full and open debate, we might decide we wished to continue to have no abortion law—by policy, rather than by default. That is how a democracy decides such questions. It does not leave them to a tie vote of the Senate.”

We live in a democratic society where issues are openly discussed and voted on by the individuals we have elected into power. Would it be wrong or dangerous to reopen the discussion? I strongly doubt it.  It would be wrong and dangerous not to reopen the debate in a democratic nation. By not allowing this to be discussed within the House of Commons, it would sent a precedent that could prevent other major issues from seeing the floor. We live in a progressive country, a country where church and state are separated, and I think there are enough sound minded individuals who can make the right decision.

As the large networks close small affiliate stations, is there hope for the future of local television news?

The sky is falling on news, said Mike Katrycz, but this isn’t the first time.

The veteran news director joined a panel discussion called “Local TV News Under Siege” at Ryerson Journalism School on Wednesday night. With him were CTV managing editor Adrian Bateman, CBC managing editor Sophia Hadzipetros, and CITY Toronto reporter Farah Nasser.

Katrycz used the rise of the Toronto Sun from the ashes of the Toronto Telegram as an example of news organizations adapting to changing times. When the Telegram closed in October 1971, a group of the newsroom staff started the Sun immediately. The new tabloid sized paper was radically different from its broadsheet predecessor, and is still in print.

CHCH’s story is similar. Katrycz and his team were told the station was up for sale, and slated to close at the end of August if no buyer emerged. The newsroom managers changed the format to all-day news to try something different. The station sold a few weeks ago, but Katrycz and his staff will have to wait to see the numbers before they know if their gamble paid off, or hiring any new staff.

The panel members seemed eager to share the innovations they’d made at their stations to “save the news.” CHCH adopted a news wheel format, like CP24, repeating pre-packaged burst of news which are periodically updated. CBC stations nation wide switched to a new 90 minute supper hour newscast, similar to what CITY was already doing. Both Hadzipetros and Nasser said their long-format local news offers them the chance to tell each story from different angles.

While this all sounded very hopeful, it doesn’t really match up with what we’re seeing. Slashed budgets, and stations and newspapers folding across the country are high on my radar, being a recent J-school grad with looming student loan payments. Longer local newscasts are just that: longer. The same number of staff, and in some newsrooms fewer staff, are filing an extra half hour of news.

Near the end of the question period, a recent journalism grad stepped up to the mic. Her story echoed my thoughts. After graduation, she moved from Toronto to Brandon, MB to work for a small TV station. On her second day of work, the station manager announced they would close by the end of the summer. Now she’s back in Toronto looking for another job.

The road may be paved with technological advancement in Toronto, but the GTA is double the population of the four Maritime provinces combined. Smaller centres, the ones who rely on TV news, are in trouble. The networks need to realize that the small local stations are the roots that feed the big network stations, Adrian Bateman said to loud applause last night. It was a nice sentiment, but he was preaching to the choir in a room full of journalists and current journalism students—who will soon be out looking for their own jobs.

RTNDA Canada plans to podcast a video of the discussion on their website in the future.

UPDATE: The podcast is now online.

[Original creative-commons photo by lawgeek]

Jordan Himelfarb

Jordan Himelfarb—who among many other talents is the Arts & Ideas editor for This Magazine and senior editor of The Mark, above—is giving a talk this Wednesday in Toronto called “The New World of Journalism: Audiences, Editorial and Momentum,” and if you’re interested in the future of our troubled news media, this will be worth your time. This talk is the final in a series hosted by MASS LBP on Democracy and Journalism, and the last one I attended, a joint talk by Walrus publisher Shelley Ambrose and St. Joseph Media top banana Doug Knight, was illuminating (you can watch a video of the whole talk here).

Tickets for the event are free but must be reserved ahead of time. You can do that here.

The Details:

What: MASS Talk #6 — Jordan Himelfarb on “The New World of Journalism”
When: Tuesday, August 25, 6 – 8:30 pm
Where: Jamie Kennedy’s Gilead Café, 2 Gilead Lane, Toronto (map)