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March-April 2018

The best and worst of Canadian happenings: March/April 2018

In this edition: transgender inmate rights, suicide in First Nations in Alberta, and more

Sara Tatelman

THE GOOD NEWS: – Holy water-spritzing protesters, begone! As of February 1, anti-abortion activists can no longer protest within 50 metres of Ontario abortion clinics, or within 150 metres of the home of health care professionals who provide abortion services. Violators will face fines up to $5,000 and six months in prison for first offences. […] More »

Facebook’s new algorithm isn’t all bad news for independent publications

The change, aimed to curb fake news, could leave indie outlets stranded. But it may also promote a move to more meaningful content—the stuff independents are best known for

Hanna Lee@hanlllee

Facebook has killed news. Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced early last month that the network’s algorithm was changing to show “less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media” in users’ news feeds, instead highlighting personal posts that “encourage meaningful interactions between people.” The announcement cost him more than $3 billion of his own personal […] More »

Who tells the inside jokes of the internet?

A deep dive into the world of internet memes and their makers

Julianna Garofalo@juliannagaro

In the seconds after Melania Trump handed Michelle Obama a Tiffany box at the 2017 presidential inauguration, Jason Wong—from breakfast at a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Los Angeles—raced to rewind the livestream he’d been watching on the Twitter app. “My brain clicked,” recalls the 20-year-old. “I wanted to post about it before anybody else did.” […] More »
September-October 2017

Trudeau performance review: Media presence

On photobombs and novelty socks

Hana Shafi@hanashafi

When American news is dominated by a president with no filter, it’s hard to not be enraptured by our self-proclaimed feminist hunk prime minister. Many Canadians have spent the last year or so consumed by a dizzying high of how lucky we are, how special we are, how unbelievably progressive we are. While the United States […] More »

Hey, Margaret Wente: Racism is still a serious problem in Canada

The national columnist's recent column suggests racism is no longer a defining feature of our society

Amy Oldfield

Margaret Wente is confused about racism. That is the most generous interpretation I can offer for her recent Globe and Mail article, “The good news about racism,” in which she argues that racism is vanishing from society. It is declining at such a rate, in fact, that the recent resurgence of white supremacy is a […] More »
July-August 2017

Quebec media has perpetuated stereotypes about Muslim Canadians

It's time for change, writes Amira Elghawaby

Amira Elghawaby@AmiraElghawaby

This year, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. Ours is a country of rich history—but not all Canadian stories are told equally. In this special report, This tackles 13 issues—one per province and territory—that have yet to be addressed and resolved by our country in a century and a half  I hadn’t been this excited about a stamp […] More »

COMIC: And the Appropriation Prize goes to…

A white person!

Hana Shafi@hanashafi

May-June 2017

The terrible, awful, no-good internet

The web was supposed to improve our lives. The best of it has yet to come

Tyler Hellard@poploser

Two years ago, some friends and I started our own private chat room on a service called Slack to talk about baseball. We did it because our non-baseball-loving friends on Twitter were tired of us yammering about bat flips and Moneyball and Troy Tulowitzki. I can’t overstate how well used this chat room is. We are […] More »
January-February 2017

Why Canada needs quality queer entertainment

Carmilla's Natasha Negovanlis reflects on the responsibility of queer entertainers, both on screen and off

Natasha Negovanlis@natvanlis

Photo courtesy of Jasper Savage/Smokebomb I remember the day I booked the now-hit web series Carmilla like it was yesterday. I was so ecstatic I performed an awkward little happy dance to the dust bunnies in my bedroom when I received the call from my talent agent. I had never wanted to land a part so […] More »
January-February 2017

Twitter probably isn’t the best platform to debate grown-up, complex issues

Welcome to the internet, where much discussion devolves into name calling

Tyler Hellard@poploser

On the morning of the U.S. election last November, I logged onto Twitter and spent several hours arguing about privilege—mostly white, but also male—with someone who believed the entire concept was, itself, racist and sexist because he “judges people individually,” systemic issues be damned. As often happens, the discussion devolved to me calling him “willfully obtuse” […] More »
November-December 2016

In today’s internet age, who does the news belong to?

On Facebook's algorithmically powered stories—and what it means for Canadian media

Tyler Hellard@poploser

Earlier this year, Facebook got in trouble for “curating” trending news articles that seemed to betray an ideological bias—their editorial team was accused of pushing a left-wing agenda by people who would have preferred to see them push a right-wing agenda. Facebook’s solution was simple: get rid of the human element. But a few hours after flipping […] More »