Blog by John Miller

Shame on Maclean's

January 27th, 2011
Was it racist for Maclean's magazine to kick off its annual university rankings with an article headlined "Too Asian?" implying Canadian schools have trouble attracting the best students if they have that reputation? If it wasn't racist, did the story repeat crude and hurtful stereotypes without having any basis for doing so? If it didn't, was it a fine piece of journalism?Maclean's says i ...

Dead reckoning

January 26th, 2011
If you sue me for calling you a crook when I don't have any proof, and you unfortunately die before the case gets to court, I go scot-free. You cannot libel the dead. That's the law not only in Canada, but also in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. But that may be about to change. In Scotland, the government has published a consultation paper that could open the door for the first t ...

The winner is ...

January 2nd, 2011
Just in time for the New Year, we have news that Pierre Karl Peladeau, CEO of Quebecor, has been selected as the Canadian considered to be most prominent in the economic sphere in 2010. We know that because of an online public opinion poll conducted by Leger Marketing for the news agency QMI. Hold your applause though ... um, Quebecor owns QMI, meaning that the news agency commissioned a ...