{"id":565,"date":"2024-11-16T22:20:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T22:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/?p=565"},"modified":"2024-11-16T22:20:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T22:20:12","slug":"panelists-weigh-case-for-optimism-about-the-future-of-political-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/2024\/11\/16\/panelists-weigh-case-for-optimism-about-the-future-of-political-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Panelists weigh case for optimism about the future of political journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Panelists Aaron Wherry, David Moscrop and Tara Henley during a discussion about the state of political journalism in Canada on Nov. 16, 2024 at Carleton University. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Natasha Baldin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When discussing the current state of political journalism in Canada, some view the media landscape through a positive lens. Others, however, can\u2019t view the news industry and journalistic profession with anything but a pessimistic perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Saturday panel discussion on the current state of political journalism brought together six reporters and columnists to discuss how Canadian consumers view the media and how journalists should work to build up the trust of their audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Charelle
Charelle Evelyn, managing editor of The Hill Times and an instructor with Carleton’s journalism school, discusses the state of the profession as Lean Out author and podcaster Tara Henley listens. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the media is meant to be liked \u2014 we\u2019re adversarial by nature,\u201d said Tara Henley, author of the popular Substack newsletter, Lean Out.<\/em> \u201cBut when people say, \u2018We fundamentally don\u2019t trust you,\u2019 that\u2019s a big problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Moscrop, a freelance political commentator, said he thinks prospects for journalism are  \u201cbetter than we might think,\u201d pointing to the pluralization of digital media and emerging independent outlets that he said are \u201cpunching way above their weight class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a single mainstream audience anymore, but all these new people have come in and created these spaces for people that haven\u2019t been represented before,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s tremendously important and tremendously powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charelle Evelyn, managing editor of The Hill Times<\/em>, said she\u2019s also approaching Canadian journalism with optimism as the digital landscape expands opportunities for journalists to tell stories that have traditionally gone untold in mainstream media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Niigan
Winnipeg Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair said Canadian political journalism has never confronted colonialism. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt might be harder to find the particular (coverage) that you\u2019re looking for, to find the kind of political journalism that you want to consume, but it exists,\u201d said Evelyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, panelists Brian Daly and Niigaan Sinclair said it\u2019s hard to dissect the positives in Canadian journalism as, by and large, it continues to suppress the stories of marginalized communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy virtue of being Black, I think that we have a built-in media criticism, and we don\u2019t see things as rosily as we otherwise might. I\u2019m incapable of saying that we\u2019re doing better than the States,\u201d said Brian Daly, an associate professor of journalism at the University of King\u2019s College in Halifax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Canadians shouldn’t look to the extremes of U.S. politics and feel superiority, warns Brian Daly, an associate professor of journalism at the University of King\u2019s College in Halifax. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sinclair, an Anishinaabe writer with the Winnipeg Free Press<\/em> and journalism professor at the University of Manitoba, said \u201cthere\u2019s a reason that the TRC called upon journalists to be capable . . . The fact is that journalism is, and continues to be, completely incapable of engaging colonialism,\u201d said Sinclair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinclair recently won the 2024 Governor General\u2019s Literary Award in the non-fiction category for W\u00eenip\u00eak: Visions of Canada from An Indigenous Centre<\/em>, a collection of his newspaper columns and other writings. His late father, the former judge and senator Murray Sinclair, was the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CBC Ottawa broadcaster Amanda Pfeffer, host of the Ontario Today<\/em> call-in show and panel moderator, highlighted that a major challenge in the current media landscape is whether coverage is \u201chelping or hurting\u201d Canadian political engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Wherry, a senior writer with CBC\u2019s parliamentary bureau, said while responsibility for political engagement doesn\u2019t inherently lie with journalism, the media can play a role in making politics more accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to ask ourselves whether we\u2019re making democracy \u2026 easier to understand for people,\u201d said Wherry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
David Moscrop, a freelancer who covers Canadian and American politics, said he strives to bring ideas from the political margins into the mainstream. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere has been a move over the last decade towards more explainer pieces, but I think it\u2019s still treated as a supplementary and secondary thing, instead of a central part of the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panelists also highlighted the challenges of navigating the ways Pierre Poilievre\u2019s Conservative party interacts with the news media \u2014 much of which he routinely dismisses as a \u201cpropaganda\u201d arm of the Trudeau government \u2014 while also discussing the inherent newsroom biases that exist against Conservative voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henley said she believes the Conservative viewpoint is underrepresented in the media, highlighting that she never worked with a single open Conservative during her time at the CBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amanda
Amanda Pfeffer acts as the moderator on a panel focused on understanding the political state of journalism in Canada. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She argued that this political tilt within the media contributes to public distrust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re missing a lot of the story and there\u2019s a feeling among the public that we in the media are actually antagonistic to (Conservative) interests and their views \u2026 and we have to find a way to confront that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moscrop added that journalists often feel discouraged from discussing viewpoints that exist outside of the mainstream consensus, whether from marginalized communities or differing political perspectives, out of fear of upsetting the status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe project I\u2019ve adopted for myself as a semi-mainstream writer is to take those perspectives, and sneak them into the mainstream bit by bit,\u201d Moscrop said. \u201cThere is some opportunity to sneak them in, but we have to put in the work to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Natasha Baldin When discussing the current state of political journalism in Canada, some view the media landscape through a positive lens. Others, however, can\u2019t view the news industry and journalistic profession with anything but a pessimistic perspective. A Saturday panel discussion on the current state of political journalism brought together six reporters and columnists … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":595,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}