Do you think a 1000+ year old tradition is "news"? If so, why don't we have a dozen "news" articles about the opening of every single farmers market in every city across the country, or just as many news articles about the every 10k fun run across the country? Because they're not interesting or impactful to anyone in society. There's nothing at stake. They have thousands of firework events every year in cities across the globe. It's normal and generally accepted as normal. If the powers that be decided to stop allowing fireworks displays, then maybe it would actually be news worthy, as it would be a change and something of interest where the reasons for and against keeping the tradition would be part of broader social discourse. Trans rights important because they are neither granted broadly around the world, nor in Canada. They are interesting because the discourse occuring alongside them is involved in discussions of how we contemplate our identity as individuals. They are reported on because governments are making decisions regarding them. If they are as important as other government deliberations is subjective. Our main mechanism for deciding what is news worthy is capitalism - if it gets clicks, it gets pushed. If anything, government funded media is a bastion of resistance against treating media as a winner takes all sport. It affords a small group of journalists funding and an apparatus to do investigative journalism with a modicum more freedom than most media outlets afford. Sure blacklock might be a small example of other models that can work for niche markets, but their reach and impact (as you note) are non-existent in comparison to the big media corps. We could impose very strict rules about content percentages focusing on local, hyper local, national or international topics, but I suspect you would also be opposed to quota requirements of the like. So otherwise, what's your solution?
Damionsipher
What a about Easter is every news worthy? Beyond a losing of water egg hunts or religious services, why would any journalist cover Easter? Meanwhile trans issues are front and center in civic discourse as they are being debated at the frontier of personal freedom of expression. The stakes involved with trans rights extreme to how we structure society and set expectations for one another. Easter, meanwhile, is a non-contentious religious celebration that's become focused on candy and maybe having a ham with family. No one cares because nothing is at risk with Easter. No one is telling any Christian that they shouldn't, or worse can't, celebrate Easter, unlike being trans.
Blacklock sues government and other publications for sharing their content as they want to maintain their content behind a paywall. It's deliberately not an open media outlet for broader public consumption, making it a terrible comparison to pubic media outlets (corporate or government owned). They may have found a model that works within a very narrow context, but it's also a model that would not work at scale within the capitalist media landscape.
Many news outlets do simply use government or corporate provided press releases as the competition for clicks is extreme and taking time to be more journalistic can undercut their ability to meet algorithms. Press releases are, however, only a portion of news content. CBC has their press room that largely reports on daily occurrences, but they also have teams of investigative journalists that produce articles critical of all levels of government and the parties therein. It's not either/or.
I am all for media regulation reform that will place more emphasis on distributed, independent, and local media journalism. I very much supported the digital services act, as it sought to overcome the challenges that local media faces, where it's content is used for the profits of Google, Facebook, etc. without compensation. How are local outlets expected to function when they largely being stripped of any revenue function? Other than subscription based models that are highly susceptible to corporate control and/or buyout, how do you propose we fund a this independent and local media while ensuring reporting can be held to acceptable levels of accuracy and fairness?
The hospital project is not cancelled, some of the contracts are cancelled as the contractors were running up costs before construction even began. The province is putting it back out to tender as they lost confidence in the initially selected contractor. They are trying to save hundreds of millions of dollars here, which seems to me is good fiduciary responsibility.
You think a state funded media outlet, that has organizational control separations from direct government influence, is worse than corporate media? History and every level of academic inquiry very much disagrees .
Canada does not have a perfect track record in it's labor code or application. We have systemic issues related to our treatment of TFWs and suppression of first Nations economic development (better in the past decade, but far from perfect now and still grappling with centuries of oppression).
I agree with the general theme of the article, insofar as we ought to take a firm stance on trade agreements and how we deal with foreign injustice therein. That being said, if the bar is proposed to be raised for issues with China, I would hope that same standard is applied to the USA, with the largest prison labor system that is functionally slavery, Saudi Arabia, where forced labor is commonplace, or any number of other countries where oppression of the labour force is normalized.
The ethical concerns surrounding free trade were major reasons for pushback to the WTO over two decades ago, which have all but been ignored in favour of profit and cheap goods. Painting this as a China-in-particular issue seems to obscure out trade relations with other problematic nations. Discussing India in this context is not overly helpful either, as Canada has experienced more political tension with India than most other countries over the past decade, which stands to reason why we would take a harsher approach there (which is to say Canada's concern is not solely focused on labour rights).
Do you really want laws to be formed primarily around individual feelings of threat?
If that's the basis of the law, if a child enters your home without permission and you feel threatened you are allowed to take any force necessary to no longer feel threatened. Using that definition you could stab an 8 year old to death and be in your legal rights.
Would you then like to retract your statement that a b&e with a brandished weapon is "open season"? I definitely don't take that as a nuanced take that is driving towards broader understanding.
You think my argument is not good fai to h because you're incapable of drawing a line between excessive and reasonable force. If the law were to simply state that self defense is permissible in instances of home intrusion, how are the courts meant to differentiate? There was a case recently where someone literally woke up with a knife in their head, who managed to fight off their attacker, and send them fleeing from their property. The resident chased the intruder back to their car and proceeded to stab them to death. The courts ruled they went from being assaulted to bring the assailant and ended up guilty of murder. Do you disagree with this ruling? Do you think that any level of force is justified following an initial attack, even if that force does not end when an assailant backs off?
Haha - ok, you got me. No one could possibly be so seriously obtuse π€£