Some of my most popular, and favourite, dispatches

Headlines matter. Publishers know it. Good headlines help with the understanding, reach, and impact of a story. Headlines frame articles, … Headlines, cognitive processing, and…

Where I grew up in Northern Alberta, hockey was a big deal. My big brother played hockey. And my dad, … Three unforgettable moments in…

I like to imagine different metaphors for journalism. Consider that the press is a giant inertia machine, for example.1 I … Idea: Journalism is a…

Good journalists do what they do because they care. They have interests. The organizations that employ journalists also are guided … Journalism is the business…

Misinformation is a big deal. Hate online is a big deal. And as the public catches up to their reach … Journalism’s allergy to substantive…

I like Maclean’s about as much as I like the National Post. They’re rightwing, partisan, and legacy. On my view … Paul Wells, conservatism, satire,…

When I was growing up I was bad with context. Super bad. My young logic-oriented self just did not understand … The look, and the…

If news orgs are serious about being good partners in mitigating misinformation, they need to link meaningfully to relevant references and especially science-based organizations…

But here’s an old idea: what if dominant journalism, by and large and in the long run, is actually a drag on progress? What if…

I campaigned during the first and second referendums we had here in BC regarding proportional representation. We won the first … The dream of proportional…

Say it with me. The duty to consult Indigenous people does not conflict with the public interest…

The Supreme Court of Canada, happily, was not moved by Trinity Western University’s claims that they weren’t hurting gay folks. And the Supreme Court was…

On my view the news media in Canada have, by and large and in the long run, misrepresented the concept of jihad. They have positioned…

If you read Canadian journalists on the topic, you might not understand that jihad has some very nice meanings. Most Canadian journalists seem to commonly…

A good theory of journalism helps us understand what media are not journalistic. And, equally important, a theory helps us understand what unconventional kinds of…

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of how to help stop the commercial trophy hunting of bears in BC, which is ongoing and…

News orgs make a big deal about fixing typos and issuing corrections. But what if there’s a much deeper trust problem…

I’ve become numb to racism in legacy media in Canada. But to see Canadaland unthinkingly repeat a racist trope angers …

There is a kind of journalist that pretends their work is beyond criticism. It’s an art form. Here’s a rough taxonomy of techniques..

Canadian journalists and other forms of media types rely on press releases written by public relations pros and the problem can be easily fixed by…

In which Colby Cosh calls Stephen Marche a cunt, and then Jonathan Kay and Stephen Marche and Andrew Coyne totally miss the point …

Some thoughts regarding what counts as journalism particularly as it relates to Queen’s Park Today, and subscription news that arrives by email…

In which I talk to Dean, an illustrator, and the creator of Today in Three Panels, and we discuss the thin membrane between private and…

When critically considering a given piece of journalism, we might ask ourselves, was it informative? was it engaging? was it helpful? So it’s rather sad…

The backwards bicycle is a hilarious and damning insight into the challenges of understanding and resisting deeply ingrained ways of thinking and doing…

Unfortunately, headlines are, often enough, hyperbolic, clickbaity, misleading, having secondary content, racist, priming, inappropriate or ill-judged. Engaged readers will complain to the author. The author,…

Maybe Bayes theorem can help right wing commentators better understand, and respect, the language of privilege …

Blue Bloods is a story of a cop family, the Reagans, in New York. And it’s a reasonably well written family drama that suffers from…

I was contacted recently by a student of journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University. She asked me the following questions…

I’m happy to report that the state of hyperlinking in news in Canada appears to be improving. It’s a tentative claim…

The thing about economics is that it’s a real scientific discipline. Like many sciences, there’s some more theoretical branches and also some more applied branches.…

It’s two thousand years since the birth of Christ; the zero year. I think it’s time to free ourselves from the Christian calendar…