B.C. Human Rights Commissioner: Police must respect the media’s right to report

B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner said police had no good reason to block media access during the April 2023 eviction of an encampment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A Feb. 4 report found that Vancouver police compromised transparency and press freedom by excluding reporters from the operation. “The rights to peaceful protest and freedom of the press […]

Canada’s J-schools face the ax

When the Board of Governors at Algonquin College announced in February it was ending the college’s journalism program, it joined a growing list of journalism program closures across the country. Both the news industry and post-secondary institutions are facing dire financial circumstances. Many colleges are responding by targeting their j-schools, but professors and students worry […]

Access to Information: Ottawa lacks the appetite for reform

A complete version of this column appeared in Dean’s newsletter. The Liberal government has finally got around to asking ordinary Canadians how to fix the country’s premier transparency law, the Access to Information Act. But it’s hard to have confidence that the government will embrace real reform. The Act requires a thorough “review” of the […]

Who decides what journalists can see?

When police arrested photojournalist Amber Bracken while she was documenting a protest in northern British Columbia, they didn’t just detain a reporter — they set the stage for a major test of press freedom in Canada. The Narwhal and photojournalist Amber Bracken were in court in January to press their suit against the RCMP over […]

A shrinking press; a changing media landscape

The newspaper industry should brace for more challenges in the coming year, as other media players rush to fill the void left by a shrinking industry. The warning came in November from Statistics Canada which reports on the financial health of the newspaper industry. A multi-decade decline in revenue has resulted in newsroom job losses, […]

Student reporters are stymied on access to information

Student journalists across Canada are increasingly facing delays, ghosting, and centralized message control from universities and student unions, raising concerns for the future of press freedom and the learned practices of the next generation of Canadian reporters. “Sometimes we’re waiting on emails for too long and then the story withers on the vine,” said Thai […]

AI can aid journalism — but only with strict oversight, says Mila scientific director

AI may offer cash-strapped newsrooms “an infinite amount of interns,” but those digital interns — like real ones — will need close supervision and rigorous fact-checking, a leading Canadian AI researcher told attendees on Parliament Hill. Hugo Larochelle, scientific director at Mila, Canada’s largest AI research institute, gave the keynote at AI & The Press: […]

Retooling for AI: Facing the Threats and Opportunities Head-On

Canadian media companies have to re-imagine how they gather, produce and disseminate news in order to remain relevant and viable in the age of Artificial Intelligence, AI expert Nikita Roy told the WPFC symposium. Roy was part of a panel on AI in the Newsroom: Promise and Peril. She is a data scientist, Knight Ridder […]

Fact-based News as a “Public Good”

Fact-based, responsible journalism must be seen as a public good that’s supports democracy and requires government policy, Aengus Bridgman, director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory, told WPFC’s AI symposium. Bridgman participated on a panel on Misinformation, Disinformation and AI: Trust on the Line. He participated with David Skok, publisher of the online news site The […]

Media Leaders Convene Canadian AI Journalism Alliance

Following the WPFC symposium, two of the panellists – the CBC’s Rignam Wangkhang and Nikita Roy of Newsroom Robots – convened a newly formed Canadian AI Journalism Alliance to keep the industry abreast of developments and best practices. Some 40 media leaders, including newsroom managers, union officials and representatives of journalists’ organizations, gathered at CBC’s […]