Someone knocked on the door after 8 pm one night last week. Derek and I were in bed, reading, but I scrambled up and grabbed a robe. By the time I got to the door I saw a woman I didn’t know hustling down the end of our driveway, carrying signs on metal frames. …
Oh Canada (Free Flag!) Read More »
Volunteers do lots of good things for others and never brag about it. And some researchers decided to try to put a dollar value on what they do, to figure out what would happen if they suddenly stopped. It’s called the Halo Project. …
I Can See Your Halo Read More »
Sometimes it’s a struggle to remember the positive when you’re in the news business. News is, by definition, made up of anomalies and bad things. The sun came up, people helped each other and took care of their families, children got enough to eat – those are the things that are supposed to happen. News is about when things go awry. …
It Walks Like A Duck Read More »
The City of London is considering adopting a different method of voting for the municipal election next year. Instead of first-past-the-post, they’re looking at ranked choice ballots. You rank your first, second and third choices instead of choosing just one and the ones with the fewest votes are eliminated, until a clear winner emerges. …
Voting for Voice-Work Read More »
On Sunday, I received a forwarded email from the head of a racist/white supremacist political party who shall go unnamed. (I don’t want any link to their name on this site.) The President of this awful group was advising members about how to deal with radio talk show hosts. He basically said that talk show hosts are puppets for corporate masters who want to ruin the white race by promoting race-mixing. It was incredibly insulting to broadcasters. It advised the faithful (racists) to see through us and keep calling, using fake names, to get on the air and spew. …
Perhaps you’re familiar with the bad lip-reading video series? Someone takes the Donald Trump speeches and painstakingly (and poorly) reads his lips and adds corresponding voice-overs. Well, Ken and I did the same with this week’s Canadian political viral video. …
Bad Leitch-Reading Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, The Toronto Star’s Public Editor nailed it in an editorial on an issue that’s been bugging me but I didn’t quite click the Lego pieces together as well as she did. The gist is this: there’s a misunderstanding about what fake news is. …
The Reality of Fake News Read More »
A massive report on Canada’s media was released a couple of weeks ago. It aimed to study the country’s corporate media landscape – newspapers, radio, television, Internet – and report to the federal government on what can be done to make sure that 1. journalism survives and 2. democracy also survives because without journalists, no one keeps politicians in check. This is why Donald Trump is attempting to repeatedly discredit major media. But I digress. …
Two words uttered by the Counselor to the President on the weekend scared the heck out of me. “Alternative facts”. That’s what people who deny evolution rely on. The Flat-Earth Society. Those who think the missions to the moon were shot on a soundstage in the Nevada desert. Late Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” …
Putting the Con in Conway Read More »
As the 45th President of the US is sworn in today, the oldest first-timer at that, I’m really split on how to feel about it. Part of me wants to take a wait-and-see attitude. After all, there’s a sentiment that says, the electorate never gets it wrong. …
Perhaps you’ve read a self-help book or two about how to argue. Maybe you’ve taken a class or been in marriage counselling or took another type of conflict resolution lesson. So, you know that the number one rule is to focus on how you feel, and not to attack the other person. And you separate the behavior from the individual. “I love you Timmy, but I don’t love that you hired that hooker!” …
Attack Ideas and Not People Read More »
The Huffington Post conducted a fascinating experiment this week. They crafted an article with a deliberately false headline just to see how many people would share it without even reading it. Thousands did. …
“Upset” describes what Donald Trump pulled off and how many people feel this morning. …
A former colleague once said to me, “people are liberal when they’re younger and they get more conservative as they get older”. My first thought was, well isn’t that a sweeping statement! And my second: that doesn’t apply to me. …
Election Prediction Read More »
This is the best and clearest explanation I’ve seen for the millions of people who, inexplicably, support Donald Trump in an election that’s now just a few days away. …
This week, Los Angeles became the latest American city to discuss replacing Christopher Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Italian-Americans aren’t happy because they see ol’ Chris as an important part of their heritage. But what’s more important? Continuing to honour a man for discovering something that was already discovered, or celebrating the truth? …
When our Mayor revealed his affair with his then-Deputy Mayor, we – as a news organization – were called names and overwhelmed with texts and social media postings about how awful we were to report it. Keep in mind that Matt Brown had gone from news organization to news organization on what I now refer to as his “apology tour”, and there were many questions about whether this affair affected city hall business. …
When it Comes to News, You Can’t Win Read More »
Early on in my career, I undervalued myself and took a lower salary than I was worth. In a couple of cases, I later discovered that I could have earned a lot more. If I had had a little more confidence and faith in myself, I would have negotiated harder. It’s something I eventually learned to do. …