Blog by John Miller

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Fun with Ezra

December 30th, 2011

Quick now. Got any plans for the weekend of February 24-26?

No? Then you're invited to spend two fun-filled days at an exclusive Muskoka resort. Need we say more? All meals and taxes in, it's yours for just $1,050 per person. But you gotta hurry. Book it after Jan. 16 and the rate shoots up $150.

Just think. Instead of staying home and having to shovel your walk, you can spend it poolside min ...

For shame

December 14th, 2011

One of the most shameful and overlooked details of the housing crisis in Attawapiskat is that its people are living in desperate Third World conditions while an obscenely rich company is impacting their community by mining nearby for diamonds.

The media is missing a big story here. Sure, the crisis earned coverage in the national media when the northern Ontario reserve declared a state of em ...

Tabloid disease

December 3rd, 2011
Let this stand as the week in which the media in Canada completed the "tabloidization" of politics.

As the world economy flirted with meldown, as unemployment rose alarmingly, and as war drums were beating for armed intervention in Iran, news from Parliament Hill focused on whether Canada's defence minister took an inappropriate helicopter ride.

As our largest city announced plans to lay of ...

Media fight back

November 17th, 2011
The most important rule in newsrooms is this one: Don't break the law.

But one of the most difficult ethical questions news executives face is what should they do when their cameras capture evidence of someone else breaking the law?

Does it depend on the crime? If someone assassinates the prime minister, any reputable news organization would come under moral and legal pressure to do the rig ...

Care about this

November 6th, 2011

At a conference of the Canadian Media Lawyers Association on the weekend, a colleague asked the very good question: "What would it take for Canadians to care about freedom of expression?"

No one could give him a good answer. Freedom of expression is a right we too often take for granted, unless of course you're a right-wing ideologue who is obsessed with the belief that it's under threat from ...

Stabbed in the back

November 1st, 2011

Rosie DiManno has let her readers in on a secret that I'm sure publishers don't want anyone to know: Newspapers aren't  published for you and me, they're published for the privileged one percent.

The amazing thing is that the Toronto Star printed her column. It was headlined "Occupy newsrooms to rescue words." Good for her for writing it and speaking truth to power so effectively, and good fo ...

No one trusts us

October 25th, 2011

Journalists in English Canada are fond of saying they're independent seekers of truth, beholden only to the public and trained to operate ethically and responsibly in the public interest.

But most people don't believe them.

There's proof: A new Ipsos Reid poll, done for the Canadian Journalism Foundation, shows that 84 percent of Canadians either believe our journalists are guilty of the wors ...

Islamicismphobia?

September 9th, 2011

Okay, just what the hell is Islamicism? It's Stephen Harper's word, invoked on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, to describe the biggest security threat Canada faces. But it appears in no dictionary.

It's baffling even his supporters. A generally praiseworthy editorial in the National Post noted that the Prime Minister "flubbed" when he used the term Islamicism and added rather archly: "Presumabl ...

Christie and Jack

August 25th, 2011

Don't blame Christie Blatchford. She just uses a different value system than Jack Layton. You know ... anger is better than love, fear is better than hope, despair is better than optimism.

The National Post columnist is under fire for this column she wrote just hours after news of the NDP leader's death flashed across the country, unleashing a wave of unprecedented public emotion. In it, Blat ...

Over the line

July 29th, 2011

As a former cartoonist and editor, let me shed some light on where we should draw the ethical line between acceptable and unacceptable these days. At issue is whether the Cape Breton Post should have published an editorial cartoon that some readers call racist.

It showed two bearded men in turbans sitting on a pile of skulls and reading a newspaper headlined "Oslo." They are celebrating last ...

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