John Gordon Miller has been an award-winning reporter, a senior news executive, chair of a journalism school, an author, a teacher, a researcher and a consultant.

 

 

 

 

 

I was professor of journalism at Ryerson University for 23 years, and now am a professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University. That followed a 20-year career as an editor and reporter. Most of it was spent at the Toronto Star, where I was foreign editor, founding editor of the Sunday Star, weekend editor, deputy managing editor, and acting managing editor.


I joined Ryerson as chair of the School of Journalism, and served in that position for 10 years. I helped raise $2 million to fund a modern new building that has housed the school for the last 30 years. I directed two curriculum reviews, and established Canada’s first chair in media ethics and its first chair of diversity reporting.


During sabbaticals, I returned to my first love – reporting – and won two national awards for excellence in environmental and investigative reporting (2000 and 2003), as well as one for best editorial writing (2000) by the Ontario Community Newspapers Association. With a group of citizens including Farley Mowat, I founded and edited a volunteer community newspaper, The Crier, in my hometown of Port Hope in 1999.


Recognized as one of Canada’s leading researchers on diversity in news organizations, I presented numerous refereed conference papers on diversity in journalism (including the Fifth International Conference for Diversity in Organizations, Beijing, China, July 2005). In June of 2004 I was invited to Ottawa by the federal Minister of State (Multiculturalism) as one of four speakers commemorating the 15th anniversary of Canada’s Multiculturalism Act. I won for Ryerson the Award of Excellence of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation in 2003 for founding and teaching a pioneering journalism course, “Covering Diversity.”


Since retirement in 2009, I havbe blogged on media matters and acted as an expert witness in defamation cases. My Journalism Doctor blog is included on a list of the 50 top journalism sites in the world. As an expert in journalism standards, I have acted at the request of both plaintiffs and media clients and my testimony has been accepted at trial in three provinces.

I am the author of a highly regarded book on the challenges that journalists face in establishing meaningful connections with their readers, Yesterday’s News: Why Canada’s Daily Newspapers are Failing Us. It was chosen by The Globe and Mas one of its 100 notable books of 1998.

 
Resume available on request