#161 How To Save Our CBC

CANADALAND

The Government is about to change the CBC.

November 28, 2016

–

Listen to Jesse’s conversation with Ed Greenspan, president of the Public Policy Forum think-tank, discussing this issue in August 2016.

Sue Gardner’s Twitter: @SuePGardner

Stephen Maher’s Twitter: @StphnMaher

Rachel Nixon’s Twitter: @RachelNixon

Taylor Owen’s Twitter: @Taylor_Owen

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More from this series

#1 Michael Enright

The veteran CBC broadcaster as you've never heard him before.

October 5, 2013

#2 Millionaire Ex-girlfriend

Ariel Garten is the CEO of Toronto-based startup Interaxon, makers of the thought-controlled computing headband, Muse. She also used to date Jesse.

October 14, 2013

#3 Intern Trouble

Howard Bernstein helped create Ryerson's journalism internship program. Now he thinks it should be abolished.

October 21, 2013

#4 Fear and Loathing in Canadian Television

Actor/writer Matt Watts (The Newsroom, Michael Tuesdays and Thursdays) on "incest" and "hush money" at the CBC, among other problems plaguing our TV industry.

October 28, 2013

#5 You Can’t Do Political Satire Here

Playwright & actor Michael Healey on why Canada's powerful never get what they deserve.

November 4, 2013

#6 The Big Three Win Again

Tucows CEO Elliot Noss on how Rogers, Telus and Bell are holding Canada back.

November 11, 2013

#7 Sex Criminal!

Chip Zdarsky is a deranged and celebrated and banned comics artist who is also secretly Steve Murray, a newspaperman at the National Post.

November 18, 2013

#8 Reality Show

Storage Wars Canada showrunner and documentary filmmaker Geoff Siskind on what's real, in life and in work.

November 25, 2013

#9 Wireless Wars

How Bell, Rogers, and Telus keep competition out of Canada.

December 2, 2013

#10 Rabid Unicorn

Kathryn Borel Jr. is a whole other sort of animal.

December 9, 2013

#11 The Taco Heir of Northern Alberta

Graham Wagner wrote for The Office and Portlandia and studied philosophy because of Monty Python.

December 16, 2013

#12 The Dumbest Medium

TV news is reductive, repetitive and usually ridiculous. Was it always like this?

December 23, 2013

#13 Show Notes

So how's it going?

December 30, 2013

#14 The Truth About Foreign Students

Are our Universities exploiting thousands of kids?

January 6, 2014

#15 Death of the Alt-Weekly

Former Montreal Mirror editor Rupert Bottenberg on the end of an era.

January 13, 2014

#16 Exit Interview

Laid-off National Post editor Jeremy Barker on newspaper budget cuts.

January 20, 2014

#17 Susan Delacourt

How did Stephen Harper dodge the Senate scandal? Why did the press let him?

January 27, 2014

#18 VICE: An Oral History

VICE's Montreal origin, remembered by those who were there.

February 3, 2014

#19 Sheila Heti

The Author of How Should A Person Be on her own hype, GIRLS, and why she doesn't care about CanLit.

February 10, 2014

#20 Rex Murphy is Paid by the Oil Sands and the CBC Won’t Disclose or Discuss it

The CBC's chief conservative commentator has a glaring conflict of interest, reports investigative journalist Andrew Mitrovica.

February 17, 2014

#21 Jonathan Kay Defends Rex Murphy

The pundit won't talk, but his National Post editor will.

February 24, 2014

#22 CBCecrets: Mansbridge’s Oil Pay Makes the News

How the story happened.

March 3, 2014

#23 Why Food Trends are for Idiots

Jen Agg on the problems with Canadian restaurants.

March 10, 2014

#24 The Notorious P.K.P.

Media King, Separatist Billionaire

March 17, 2014

#25 How Canada’s Spies Game the Media

CSEC is shadier than the NSA. Nobody really knows what they are doing, including the Ministers who empower them and the judges who grant them warrants.

March 24, 2014

#26 What is happening at the Globe and Mail?

Former Globe editor speaks about the recent shakeup.

March 31, 2014

#27 The End of Internships

The Labour Ministry cracks down on free labour, starting with the magazine business.

April 7, 2014

#28 What Only the Press Knows about Rob Ford

Robyn Doolittle and Jonathan Goldsbie talk about unreported smells and Rob Ford's mastery of modern media.

April 14, 2014

#29 Why won’t the CBC defend itself?

The CBC is being systematically disassembled, but its employees can't or won't speak up for it and make the case for public broadcasting.

April 21, 2014

#30 Canadian Television Is Doomed

The CRTC is unbundling cable channels, but will anyone subscribe to cable TV in 5 years anyhow?

April 28, 2014

#31 Your Telecom Provider is Selling your Information to the Government

Internet and wireless companies have supplied private data millions of times.

May 6, 2014

#35 Ricochet: Crowdfunding The Next Journalism

A people-powered journalism startup from Montreal has quickly earned the support of hundreds of backers. So what is Ricochet and who’s paying for it? Editor Ethan Cox explains.

June 1, 2014

#39 The CBC Covers Its Cutbacks In Futuresauce

The CBC's new plan is to be a digital content company (that doesn't make content). Jeffrey Dvorkin used to run news at CBC and NPR. He tells Jesse what he would do if he were still in charge.

June 30, 2014

Michael Enright (repeat)

The veteran CBC broadcaster as you've never heard him before. A candid, combative, and lubricated conversation about the state of journalism, the CBC, Canada in general, and Jesse's life choices in particular.

July 6, 2014

#40 THE GRID: no path to profitability

THE GRID may be remembered as the last newspaper ever launched in Canada. The people behind it share their thoughts on whether success was ever even possible.

July 13, 2014

#41 (A Fate Worse Than) Death Of The Newspaper

Veteran journalist John Barber has written a fire-breathing, bridge-burning polemic on the state of Canada's newspapers, including The Globe and Mail, where he spent most of his career. He explains why he had to say it.

July 20, 2014

#42 MuchMusic Isn’t Dead, But We Should Probably Kill It

MuchMusic and dozens of other specialty channels collect millions of dollars a year from subscribers who didn't ask for them and don't watch them. Meanwhile, channels are laying off their staffs and producing less meaningful content than ever. Is it time to cut the cord on the protected cable business?

July 27, 2014

#43 The Score

The Score is a digital-first, globally popular Canadian media company that's growing each year. So why did its well-loved feature writing team just get the axe? Former features editor Dustin Parkes explains.

August 3, 2014

#44 Cartoon Sweatshop

Canada produces top animation talent but lousy animation content.

August 10, 2014

#45 Dan Riskin On Science In The Media

How is the press supposed to cover science in a country where the government stifles research that conflicts with its policies?

August 24, 2014

#46 Soknacki

David Soknacki is the opposite of Rob Ford: he's skinny, sober and thoughtful. But is the political press too sensationalized for a candidate with substance to get noticed?

August 31, 2014

#47 Comedy Is A Joke

Canadians can be funny, but can funny Canadians make a living? Comedian Rebecca Kohler on the state of stand-up.

September 7, 2014

#48 Free Money For Being Old: A Guide To The Netflix Tax

The CBC, Ontario and Quebec say they want to tax Netflix to pay for CanCon TV. The Harper government says there will be no Neflix tax as long as they remain in power. They're all full of it. A Netflix tax is impossible. Journalist Steve Faguy explains why.

September 14, 2014

#49 The Geritocracy

Baby Boomers are the wealthiest generation ever while young Canadians are increasingly poor and in debt. Yet the federal government spends four times as much on the average senior citizen each year as it does on the average 24-year-old. Eric Swanson of Generation Squeeze is fighting an uphill battle to even the scales.

September 21, 2014

#50 The Last Music Critic

Carl Wilson changed the way music is discussed. His "poptimist" manifesto, Let's Talk About Love, made it okay to talk seriously about bubbly pop, and went pop itself- that rare work of criticism that becomes a bestseller. He rose to a top job in his field, senior critic at SPIN. But he almost instantly lost that job. He explains why, and talks about the rapid decline of music criticism itself.

September 28, 2014

#51 patreon dot com slash CANADALAND

CANADALAND is at a crossroads. The show won't continue without your support. But if each of the show's 10,000 listeners kicks in $1 a month, CANADALAND becomes an independent news org, a podcast network, and a daily news site.

October 5, 2014

#52 Hark! Kate Beaton

Cartoonist Kate Beaton is an exemplary weirdo.

October 12, 2014

#53 Why I Hate Talking About Israel

Norman Spector is Canada's former ambassador to Israel. He was also the publisher of the Jerusalem Post. Conversations about Israel-Palestine are invariably bummers, but for Norman, Jesse makes an exception.

October 19, 2014

#54 All I Can Say For Now About Jian

Just a few thoughts about my investigation with the Toronto Star.

October 27, 2014

#55 Glenn Greenwald Knows Things About Canada

An on-stage interview with Pultizer-prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald on his troubled relationship with the Canadian media and what he knows but has yet to report on CSEC spying.

October 28, 2014

#56 We All Knew About Jian

Roberto Verì used to work for CBC's Q with Jian Ghomeshi. He witnessed harassment that he never reported, until now.

November 2, 2014

#1 Parliament shooting/Amanda Bynes/Barbara Kay

Emma Rose Teitel of Macleans Magazine talks about the myth of superior Canadian breaking news coverage and the different rules the media has for crazy men and crazy women. Also, a folk song for cranky columnist Barbara Kay.

November 6, 2014

#57 Mark McKinney

How on Earth did The Kids in the Hall even happen?

November 9, 2014

#2 UnNews/Ezra Levant/Don Cherry

John Semley, contributor to the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star talks with Jesse about the media pageantry around Remembrance Day, reporting on viral videos, Ezra Levant's supposed boner and Don Cherry's shrinking box.

November 13, 2014

#58 An Interview With My Harshest Critic

Joe Clark has been aggressively challenging and sometimes attacking my work for years.

November 17, 2014

#3 Harper & Putin/Book Prizes

Playwright Michael Healey on Harper's theatrical handshake diss and the problem with the Gillers

November 20, 2014

#59 The Family That Owns New Brunswick

The Irvings are secretive billionaires who have a monopoly on New Brunswick's news media. Journalist Jacques Poitras, author of Irving vs Irving, describes how the family subtly suppresses criticism and destroys competitors.

November 23, 2014

#4 Ghomeshi/Rehtaeh/Ferguson

Denise Balkissoon joins to talk about how insecure employment impacts journalism, why we need to say her name, and why there's no "Canadian angle" on Ferguson.

November 27, 2014

#60 The Secret Diary of Ed the Sock

Steven Kerzner may be the most famous TV peformer you've never heard of. His hand has insulted some of the biggest pop stars in the world. Crouched just out of frame, he had a worm's eye view of the heyday of CityTV and Muchmusic, and he tells Jesse all.

November 30, 2014

#5 Joni Mitchell/CraveTV/Ben Levin

Emma Teitel returns as Dave Bidini mansplains class to Joni Mitchell, Bell's news orgs "report" on Bell's new product, and SUN news illustrates the Liberal-lesbian-pedophile meetup that wasn't.

December 4, 2014

#61 Laura Robinson

45 First Nations people allege experiencing or witnessing abuse by former school teacher John Furlong, President of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Journalist Laura Robinson broke the story.

December 7, 2014

#6 Torture/Payola/Oscar Clip Journalism

Jan Wong returns to talk about Canada's war criminals, the CBC on the take, and the Globe and Mail fishing for awards

December 10, 2014

#62 President vs. Freelancer

The President of Ecuador spent his state TV broadcast decrying a 26 year-old Canadian journalist. Then his operatives bullied her out of the country. Now, Bethany Horne tells her story.

December 21, 2014

#63 Performance Review

CANADALAND is gearing up for a big year. Time to check in with those who listen to it and who pay for it: What should I be covering? How should I handle ads? Who should host the upcoming politics show? More questions, some answers, and an apology.

December 28, 2014

#64 Andrew Coyne

Andrew Coyne joins Jesse for a wide-ranging conversation before he begins his new job as editor of the National Post's Opinion and Editorial pages.

January 4, 2015

#7 Charlie Hebdo/Ghomeshi/Keystone

Jen Gerson of the National Post joins to talk about chickenshit editors and why Keystone XL is just like Kim Kardashian.

January 7, 2015

#65 Live From Hamilton It’s The Collapse Of Local News

A CANADALAND live taping from The Hamilton Public Library on the state of news coverage in medium to small markets. Panelists include crowdfunded local journalist Joey Coleman, media researcher Sonya MacDonald and CHCH's Donna Skelly.

January 12, 2015

#8 Amanda Lang/Charlie Hebdo

Sean Craig explains why his Amanda Lang expose is actually about how good CBC's journalism is, and Jeet Heer describes an unspeakable cartoon of Jesse's dad.

January 15, 2015

#9 Two Annoying Jerks

Simon Houpt and Jesse talk about their own journalism

January 22, 2015

#67 Ezra Levant

As few as 5000 people watch Ezra Levant's SUN News TV show, yet Levant himself is a major presence in the Canadian media. Why is that? Jesse asks Ezra to explain his own prominence.

January 25, 2015

#10 Dean Blundell/Racist Winnipeg

Scaachi Koul of Hazlitt talks about tolerated abusers and intolerable headlines.

January 28, 2015

#11 John Baird/Anti-Terror

Why is the media so incurious about John Baird's sudden resignation? Why is Baird being so vigorously lionized? Torontoist staff writer Desmond Cole talks with Jesse about this, and about what we're not allowed to discuss as we submit to new anti-terror laws.

February 4, 2015

#69 Canada Is Failing Mohamed Fahmy

Before he quit his job, Foreign Minister John Baird said journalist Mohamed Fahmy's release was "imminent". Now Fahmy is set to be retried in Egypt after over a year in prison.

February 8, 2015

#71 The Last Newspaper Barons (Live From New Brunswick)

The Irving Family of New Brunswick own more land than anyone in the world except for royalty and the Pope. How do they use their media monopoly to further their interests? What happens to those who try to compete with them?

February 22, 2015

#72 Why Is The Walrus So Boring?

And why is it so white? Editor Jon Kay answers.

March 8, 2015

#73 Video Game Welfare

Why does the government fund gaming?

March 15, 2015

#76 “Michael Bryant Killed My Son”

CANADALAND has obtained two eyewitness accounts of the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard. Neither has been publicly released before. They tell a very different tale of the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard than what the media has previously reported. They are followed by an interview with Sheppard's father, Allan Sheppard.

April 5, 2015

#77 When Global News Killed A Documentary About The Koch Brothers

Veteran investigative reporter Bruce Livesey was fired by Global News after they spiked his report on the billionaire Koch Brothers and their influence in Canada.

April 12, 2015

#78 Duffy Fallout

Journalist Mark Bourrie has vowed to sue CANADALAND for an article about his dealings with Senator Mike Duffy. Instead, Mark and Jesse talk it out.

April 19, 2015

#79 Our Oily Media

The energy sector has flooded Canada's media with money, be it in ad dollars, speaking fees, charitable donations or "native content" partnerships. What this has bought, in effect, is a lack of critical mainstream discourse on oil and the environment. The National Observer has launched to counter this reality. Linda Solomon Wood is its founder, and she speaks to Jesse about her effort.

April 26, 2015

Chantal Hébert

It's possible that Chantal Hébert's journalism once held Canada together. She joins Jesse for a discussion about what's appropriate in political news coverage, and what (if anything) needs to change.

May 3, 2015

#32 Jan Wong Isn’t Over It

The betrayed reporter is still fighting the Globe and Mail.

May 11, 2015

#81 Leah McLaren

Leah McLaren was telling the world about her private life before we all started doing it. She talks to Jesse about haters, journalism and acts of provocation.

May 11, 2015

#33 A Federal Minister Explains why the Government Creeps your Facebook

Harper cabinet member Tony Clement describes how government outsources social media monitoring of the public. Is it legal? He's not sure yet.

May 18, 2015

#82 Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

Aboriginal people make up over 4% of Canada's population, but less than .5% of Canadian news stories have anything to do with them. What little we do hear from the media about indigenous people is often negative. APTN is the first, and perhaps the only aboriginal TV network in the world. Jesse visits their Winnipeg HQ and speaks to Karyn Pugliese, APTN's Director of News and Current Affairs.

May 18, 2015

#34 The Linden MacIntyre Interview

"I don't have to be nice to them anymore."

May 25, 2015

#83 Jay & Jesse Solve Canada

Jay Baruchel on the Canadian film & TV racket and how to smash it. Taped before a live audience at the Bloor HotDocs Theatre in Toronto.

May 25, 2015

#84 My Socalled Friend

Josh Dolgin is one of Canada's most idiosyncratic talents. He is a rapper, a producer, an accordian player, a magician, a cartoonist, a puppeteer, and a cook book author. He is also Jesse's former creative partner, and this conversation should probably have taken place in private, if at all.

May 31, 2015

#85 The Tim Hortons “Boycott” Fiasco

Last week a Conservative strategist fooled the media into thinking there was a popular, grassroots movement to boycott Tim Hortons on behalf of the oil industry. There was not. BuzzFeed Canada's politics editor Paul McLeod revealed the scheme, and talks to Jesse about how reporters get played by people in politics all the time.

June 7, 2015

#36 Is Video Game Journalism Corrupt?

Globe and Mail video game critic Peter Nowak on the "fucking nonsense" of the gaming press.

June 8, 2015

#86 Hongcouver

South China Morning Post's Vancouver correspondent Ian Young speaks with Jesse about wealth migration, racism, and immigration schemes.

June 14, 2015

#37 The Globe And Mail’s Plan To Force Reporters To Write Ads

Mathew Ingram, formerly of the Globe, explains why that plan won't work.

June 15, 2015

#87 CANADIAN MUSIC (is horribly broken) WEEK

Musician Paul Lawton discusses FACTOR, NXNE, CMW, the Canadian music industry, and why the current system is broken.

June 22, 2015

#38 The Tyee

The Tyee may be the oldest surviving "digital native" news site in Canada. Who funds it and why has it stuck around for so long while so many others have faded away? Founder David Beers explains.

June 22, 2015

#88 Dirty Halifax

Journalist and Halifax Examiner founder Tim Bousquet talks about corruption, investigative journalism, and conflicts of interest in Halifax media.

June 27, 2015

#89 James Dubro, True Crime Writer

Crime writer James Dubro discusses the symbiotic relationship between criminals and the press, and the four decades he's spent covering the mob in Canada.

July 5, 2015

#90 Stephen Harper Will Participate In A Photo Opportunity

VICE's parliamentary reporter Justin Ling is mad as hell at the PMO, and he's not gonna take it anymore.

July 12, 2015

#91 Paul Watson

Paul Watson discusses his resignation from the Toronto Star, his upcoming article that the Star refused to publish, and his career spent reporting from hot zones.

July 19, 2015

#92 Women and Newspapers

Veteran journalist Vivian Smith on institutional sexism, metaphorical pink and blue aisles, why some women choose to leave the profession, and how to fix it.

July 27, 2015

#93 Operation Anonymous Down

Anthropologist and author Gabriella Coleman on Operation Anon Down and what it's like studying Anonymous from the inside.

August 2, 2015

#94 Scott Thompson

Veteran comedian Scott Thompson on why nothing happened after The Kids In The Hall, the biggest problems with the Canadian film & TV industry, and why gay men still have to be defanged to be accepted.

August 9, 2015

#95 Interview With Anonymous

First, the National Post's Adrian Humphreys on working with Anonymous. Then, Jesse interviews #OpAnonDown about their recent leaks on CSIS foreign stations, their John Baird threat, and more.

August 17, 2015

#96 The Ashley Madison Affair

The Ashley Madison hack was shitty and evil. But is reporting on it shitty and evil? Fortune Magazine's Mathew Ingram discusses where to draw the line.

August 21, 2015

#97 Hart Pomerantz

Hart Pomerantz was Lorne Michaels's original partner, back when Michaels was still known as Lorne Lipowitz. Their top-rated CBC variety show, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour, was a precursor for Saturday Night Live before it was pulled from the airwaves after two short seasons.

August 30, 2015

#98 Performance Review

Time to check in with CANADALAND's supporters. How are we doing? What are we getting right & wrong?

September 6, 2015

#99 Christie Blatchford

A difficult interview with the controversial columnist.

September 13, 2015

#100 Margaret Atwood

Prize-winning author, Twitter enthusiast, and censored columnist Margaret Atwood schools Jesse on technology, dictators, and CanLit.

September 21, 2015

#102 John Furlong’s Privilege

Laura Robinson has lost her libel suit against John Furlong. The ruling, which could limit the media's willingness to report on abuse allegations, is based on erroneous information. Lawyer William McDowell discusses the possible impact.

October 5, 2015

#103 TPP: Spying, Blocking, and the Internet

University of Ottawa's Michael Geist breaks down the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), a proposed trade agreement that Stephen Harper has been toiling over in secret for the last five years - an agreement that will have huge impacts on Canada's internet freedom and copyright issues.

October 12, 2015

#104 Steve Paikin

Steve Paikin just might be the best TV host in the country. But who needs TV hosts anymore?

October 18, 2015

#105 @Kady

Kady O'Malley might be the 1st Canadian journalist who gets paid, primarily, to report the news via Twitter. Ottawa Citizen calls her Canada’s first mobile-focused political journalist. Jesse and Kady discuss social media journalism and the relationship between journalists and politicians.

October 26, 2015

#106 Abuse And Ethics At The Walrus

The Walrus is in meltdown: stories of office bullying, exploitation and workplace chaos are leaking from "Canada's best magazine". Three of the people at the centre of the controversy speak.

November 2, 2015

#107 The Wrong Kind of Black Person

What does it really mean to be represented, in the media or in government? Can one kind of minority stand-in for another? What is shadeism? Does the media demand that minorities conform to whiteness in order to get in front of a camera? Is Canada finally, truly ready to deal with race? Septembre Anderson takes it all on.

November 8, 2015

#108 The Reporter Who Fought City Hall

Joey Coleman was often the only reporter at Hamilton Ontario City Hall: a one-man digital newsroom, funded by his audience. His constant presence irritated a city councillor, who lost his temper and got physical. Joey didn't fight back, but he was the one punished: through a series of retaliations he was pushed out of the building and his news coverage became impossible. He joins Jesse to tell his story.

November 16, 2015

#109 News Police

Who keeps the media in check? The newly-formed National Newsmedia Council, according to John Fraser and Don McCurdy. Can a bunch of journalists and public members wrangle the entire Canadian journalism industry?

November 23, 2015

#110 VICE

Is VICE a cult? Is it a sweatshop? Does their partnership with ROGERS influence their content? VICE Canada's head of content Patrick McGuire and executive vice president of TV Michael Kronish sit down for a tense chat with Jesse.

November 30, 2015

#111 What is Sugar Sammy?

Comedian Sugar Sammy might be the most famous Canadian you haven't heard of. He plays to sell-out crowds in Paris, India, South Africa, and night after night in Montreal. He has sold hundreds of thousands of tickets. Yet he has yet to break through in english Canada or in the States. Jesse asks him why, and waxes nostalgic for the time he and Sammy were at the same university.

December 6, 2015

#112 Newsworthy Victims: MMIW and the Media

It's taken 40 years for the media to pay attention to the permanent crisis of missing and murdered aboriginal women. Karyn Pugliese, APTN's Director of News and Current Affairs, talks about what has finally changed and why it's taken so long.

December 13, 2015

#101 Anne Kingston

How will we know how bad things have gotten when most of the records have been erased? Anne Kingston discusses how Canada has thrown its data in the dumpster and become an international cautionary tale.

December 17, 2015

#113 Everyone Loves Marineland

Marineland denies the allegations made in this podcast by Phil Demers, their former animal trainer. They have launched pending legal action against The Toronto Star, Phil Demers and others.

December 22, 2015

#114 CANADALAND Staff Meeting

What is CANADALAND doing wrong? What are we getting right? Where should we be headed? Listen in and find out: we recorded our annual staff meeting/staff mixer.

December 27, 2015

#115 The Unbundling

It's a brutal time for the Canadian television industry and it's about to get worse.

January 3, 2016

#116 Is The News Biz a Lost Cause?

Do Canada's legacy news orgs have digital strategies? Do they make any sense? Is profitability online even possible?

January 7, 2016

#117 State Of The Unions

Do media unions protect journalists at the expense of journalism? Do they make it impossible for struggling news orgs to survive? Do they protect older workers at the expense of the younger generation? Nora Loreto, author and union activist, talks about what place organized labour might have in today's media.

January 17, 2016

#66 The Government’s Secret Newswire

News Canada (NC) looks like a wire service, but distributes stories produced by the federal government.

January 18, 2016

#118 The Collapse Of Postmedia

Last week, Postmedia laid off 90 journalists from newsrooms across Canada, months after absorbing the Sun newspaper chain. What if a slow, painful death was the plan all along? The National Observer's Bruce Livesey weighs in on the implosion of Postmedia.

January 24, 2016

#119 More Trouble at The Walrus

When Ken Alexander co-founded the Walrus in 2003, he wanted it to be a left-leaning literary magazine that also functioned as an educational charity. Now he says The Walrus has lost its way, strayed from its editorial mandate, abused its staff and violated its charitable obligations.

January 31, 2016

#74 Shad

The new host of CBC's Q talks about what he'll change post-Ghomeshi, and what he won't.

February 7, 2016

#120 Indigenous Media Roundtable

Most Canadians don't hear about the stories Indigenous peoples tell within their communities. Mainstream media only covers the most tragic events affecting Indigenous communities — if it chooses to cover them at all. Now, alternative digital platforms have created an opportunity for these stories to travel outside the communities they are about.

February 9, 2016

#121 Glen McGregor

Glen McGregor just left the Ottawa Citizen (along with 14 others) after breaking many major political stories of the last few years. So what's next for him, for the Citizen, and for print journalism in Canada's capital?

February 14, 2016

#70 Journalism vs. Science

The Toronto Star's HPV fail reveals a wider problem: the journalists who inform us about science are increasingly scientifically illiterate.

February 15, 2016

#122 The Dismantling of Claude Jutra

Is it ok for an anonymous sexual assault allegation to destroy the reputation a beloved cultural hero?

February 22, 2016

#123 The Unsolved Murders of Halifax

Dozens of women and girls have been murdered in the Halifax area over the past few decades. Tim Bousquet is capturing it all on his independent news site, the Halifax Examiner.

February 29, 2016

124

#124 Second Class Journalists

Should journalists have control over what other journalists have access to? Allison Smith is the publisher of Queen's Park Today, a daily news website that reports on Ontario politics. For the last four years, the Queen's Park Press Gallery - a group of journalists - has denied her membership on dubious grounds.

March 8, 2016

#125 House Horny

The media is fuelling our real estate obsession and Garth Turner, ex-Conservative MP turned real estate blogger, is pouring cold water on us.

March 13, 2016

#126 Failing Up

The Government is about to change the CBC. The think-tank hired by Heritage Canada to research media solutions invited Jesse to debate the CBC about it, but only Jesse showed up, along with some former CBC brass. Jesse goes into a deep dive with panelists Sue Gardner (Wikimedia, former Senior Director of CBC.ca), Stephen Maher (iPolitics) and Rachel Nixon (Discourse Media, former Senior Director of Digital, CBC News). Moderated by Taylor Owen. Recorded live at SFU Harbour Centre on November 4th 2016. – Listen to Jesse’s conversation with Ed Greenspan, president of the Public Policy Forum think-tank, discussing this issue in August 2016. Sue Gardner’s Twitter: @SuePGardner Stephen Maher’s Twitter: @StphnMaher Rachel Nixon’s Twitter: @RachelNixon Taylor Owen’s Twitter: @Taylor_Owen I think you should be getting our newsletterGet a weekly note about our top stories.This is a good thing that we do. You'll like this.johnsmith@example.comSign UpForm is being submitted, please wait a bit.Please fill out all required fields.

March 21, 2016

#127 The Imposter

NOTE: Since this episode aired, The Imposter was put on hold, and has re-launched with new host Aliya Pabani.

March 27, 2016

#75 What It Was Like At SUN News TV

Adrienne Batra and Alex Pierson were SUN News TV hosts until the network suddenly went dark last month. Now, they join Jesse to come clean about what it was like to work at the most hated TV station in Canada.

March 29, 2016

#128 The Ethnic Aisle

The Ethnic Aisle is a crowdfunded digital magazine tackling issues of multiculturalism, diversity, and race in Toronto and the GTA. Chantal Braganza is the managing editor of The Ethnic Aisle and a digital media producer at TVO. Guest hosted by Scaachi Koul.

April 4, 2016

#129 Spy Shit

Freelance journalist Matt Braga joins Jesse to talk about spy shit - the Panama Papers, CSIS, C-51, and Ben Makuch's ongoing battle with the RCMP.

April 10, 2016

#130 Trial By Media, Media On Trial

What happens when three lawyers argue with Jesse Brown?

April 18, 2016

#132 Andrew Loku, Desmond Cole & Black Lives Matter

For the past year, Desmond Cole has been the media's go-to guy whenever a story about black Canadians would come up. Now, he discusses what's to come after hosting COMMONS.

May 4, 2016

#133 First Scandal of the Trudeau Government

Justin Trudeau's government told us that selling weapons to Saudi Arabia was a "done deal" of the Conservative government, but reporting by The Globe and Mail's Steven Chase revealed that it was entirely within the Liberals' power to stop it. The Globe called the government hypocrites, the NDP called them liars. What about the public?

May 9, 2016

#131 Newfoundland Is Screwed

In Newfoundland and Labrador, massive numbers of workers are getting laid off. Taxes are skyrocketing. The oil industry is collapsing. Meanwhile, journalist James McLeod has independently published a Sunshine List that exposes just how cosy the province really is.

May 24, 2016

#135 Dangerous Cartoonists

Live from the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, cartoonists Ted Rall, Chip Zdarsky, and Rokudenashiko talk censorship, the surprisingly subversive power of cartoons, and the dying art of comics journalism.

May 24, 2016

#134 Failing Up, Pt. 2

When it came to Canadian arts administration, Jeff Melanson was the king. Until his messy annulment papers from frozen food heiress Eleanor McCain alleged that he left more than just administrative damage in his wake from the National Ballet School, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Banff Centre for the Arts. Anne Kingston dives deep into the hushed world of Canadian arts institutions.

May 25, 2016

#136 How We Investigate

CBC still has a bullying & harassment problem. Jesse and Jane discuss how they investigated it for their recent report, "Bullying & Harassment Claims Emerge at CBC's As It Happens, TV Sports, and HR."

May 30, 2016

#137 I Stand With Gawker

Gawker is in trouble. Writer Stephen Marche, a frequent target of the gossip site, expands on his defense of the blog that smears him.

June 6, 2016

#138 How Justin Won

How did the Liberals win the election? Author Susan Delacourt knows.

June 12, 2016

#139 “It Was A Power Play” – Sexual Harassment Claim At Global News B.C.

Global News anchor Chris Gailus is one of British Columbia's most renowned television broadcasters. He's been accused of sexually harassing his former makeup artist, Dawne Koke. Koke speaks to Jesse about her claims and about sexual harassment in the news business.

June 19, 2016

#140 Is The Canadian-Chinese Press Controlled By Beijing?

Is the Communist Party of China influencing the Canadian-Chinese press? Journalist and paralegal Jonathan Fon joins Jesse for a discussion on the influence of Beijing.

June 26, 2016

#141 The Case For Local Television

When disaster strikes, local television matters. But does anyone actually care about small-town daily news coverage anymore?

July 4, 2016

#142 Kathryn Borel

Kathryn Borel reveals new details about the Jian Ghomeshi case.

July 10, 2016

#143 Monica Heisey

Baroness Von Sketch, CBC's new sketch show, is funny. What happened? Jesse asks Baroness writer, author, and standup comedian Monica Heisey about what went right and what may be changing in Canadian comedy.

July 18, 2016

#144 Follow Up: John Furlong

John Furlong has been accused of abusing dozens of First Nations children when he was a teacher in Burns Lake in the 1960s. Journalist Laura Robinson told this story and ended up on the wrong side of a defamation lawsuit.

July 25, 2016

#145 Why You Can’t Set a TV Show in Canada

Media scholar Karen Burrows discusses the impact on our power as media consumers.

August 1, 2016

#146 Should The Government Bail Out The News Business?

The Trudeau government is actually considering it.

August 8, 2016

#147 Why Johnny Can’t Innovate: Canada’s Tech Sector

Canada's tech sector is hemorrhaging talent. Between tax credits, targeted R&D programs, and Trudeau's cheerleading, can we stop the bleeding?

August 15, 2016

#148 What The Hell Happened At The Toronto Star?

Answers to some of the questions about reporter Raveena Aulakh's suicide. How much did the Toronto Star know about its "toxic" workplace and what did they do about it?

August 28, 2016

#149 Canadaland At The Movies

Last winter, Canadaland invited journalists to The Revue Cinema in Toronto to discuss the films that made them want to become journalists.

September 5, 2016

#150 The News Is Dead So What Comes Next?

The Collapse of the News Business is Irreversible. So what will emerge from the ashes?

September 11, 2016

#151 Trained To Ignore: The Media And First Nations

Why does indigenous representation in settler media matter?

September 19, 2016

#152 Paywall “Blackmail”

If you share paywalled content, does that constitute copyright infringement?

September 26, 2016

#153 Pipeline Antics

When Jean Charest was a paid agent of an energy company he had a secret meeting with the government pipeline regulator, who then lied about it.

October 3, 2016

#154 The BBC & The New York Times Come To Canada

The BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Bloomberg: all of them are increasing their presence in Canada at the exact same time that the Canadian media is cutting back like never before. Jessica Murphy, head of the BBC's new Canadian bureau and the New York Times' Canada correspondent Ian Austen discuss the influx.

October 10, 2016

#155 Guys, We’re Having Some Problems

We lost almost half our staff this month. We need to pay better to retain our amazing team. Help us on Patreon and everybody but Jesse will get a raise.

October 17, 2016

#156 The Media Disruptors

Is solutions-based journalism the future of Canadian news?

October 24, 2016

#157 The Occupation Of Muskrat Falls

Justin Brake caught the nation's attention by broadcasting the peaceful protests of Muskrat Falls. And then he got served with a court injunction.

October 31, 2016

#158 Tabloid!

Every day at 12:36pm, Marc Weisblott sends out his "tabloid" newsletter. Is he a cultural critic? A media visionary? Or just a crank?

November 7, 2016

#159 The Surveillance of Patrick Lagacé

La Presse journalist Patrick Lagacé tells all about why the Montreal police spied on him and other journalists, and why the free press is under attack.

November 14, 2016

#160 People Like Fake News Better

Fake news sites won the American election. BuzzFeed Canada's Craig Silverman discusses how bogus Facebook stories blew credible news out of the water.

November 21, 2016

#161 How To Save Our CBC

The Government is about to change the CBC.

November 28, 2016

#162 Do First Nations Have A Free Press?

First Nations reporting usually falls into the four D's: drumming, dancing, drinking, and death. Wawmeesh Hamilton is trying to change that.

December 4, 2016

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#163 Edmonton Is Weird

Suburbs frozen in the 1950s. Progressives in the middle of oil country. Jesse explores the eccentricities of Edmonton, past and present.

December 12, 2016

#164 There’s A Hidden VIP Program In The Ontario Health Care System

Do politicians and foreign dignitaries have better access to health care than everyone else?

December 19, 2016

#165 The Best Of The Imposter (So Far) pt.1

Featuring the best moments from Canadaland's new arts & culture show, hosted by Aliya Pabani.

December 26, 2016

#100 The Best Of The Imposter (So Far) pt.2

Featuring the best moments from Canadaland's new arts & culture show, hosted by Aliya Pabani.

December 28, 2016

#166 Misha Glouberman

Misha Glouberman has been hosting Trampoline Hall, a barroom lecture series created by author Sheila Heti, for 15 years. He and Jesse are almost, but not quite, friends.

January 9, 2017

#167 Post-Truth Fact Check

When reporters are more relevant as unwilling political props than as chroniclers of facts, what happens to the job of journalism?

January 16, 2017

#168 The Killing of Colten Boushie (Live in Saskatoon)

In the wake of Colten Boushie's death, Jesse discusses racial tensions in Saskatoon with panelists Betty Ann Adam, Rob Innes, and Mylan Tootoosis. Recorded live at Winterruption in Cosmo Seniors Centre on January 20th, 2017.

January 23, 2017

#169 Down By Law In Yellowknife

Yellowknife crime reporter John McFadden has been getting into problems with the local police for a while now. But that won't stop him from doing his job.

January 30, 2017

#170 Are We Too Mean To CBC Comedy?

On this episode, guest host Ashey Csanady and Vicky Mochama look at CBC's recently launched comedy portal and wonders if it's relevant and, you know, funny.

February 6, 2017

#171 Don’t Fling Mud At The Scud Stud

In 2008, political pundit Don Martin penned a negative screed against former NBC wartime correspondent and - at the time - Alberta provincial electoral candidate Arthur Kent, aka the Scud Stud. Convinced that Martin had violated basic journalistic ethics, Kent took him and the CanWest newspaper chain (later Postmedia) to court for defamation of character.

February 13, 2017

#172 Satan Vampire Zombie Bloodbath: The State Of Canadian Newspapers

Late last month the Public Policy Forum released its long-anticipated report on the state of Canadian newspapers. Somewhat unexpectedly, this was a bold and far-reaching document, exploring the changing face of media in this country. The principal author of the paper, former Globe & Mail Editor-In-Chief Ed Greenspon, joins Jesse to dig deep into its findings. Read the entire report (no, seriously, read it) here.

February 20, 2017

#173 Robyn Doolittle On Breaking The Story Of The Year

In the months after Robyn Doolittle's groundbreaking series of exposés about the scandal-ridden Toronto mayor Rob Ford, she left the Toronto Star for a new investigative role at the Globe & Mail. Then, mostly, silence. Her lack of bylines belied her hard work behind the scenes as she dug into what would become the story of the year: a 20-month investigation into police departments across Canada and their chronic underreporting of sexual assaults being filed.

February 27, 2017

#174 Is Atlantic Journalism Fucked?

March 6, 2017

#175 Michael Chong

Michael Chong is trying to sell an inclusive, sober conservatism. Are conservatives buying it?

March 13, 2017

#176 The VICE Media Cocaine Caper

March 20, 2017

#177 Being Jewish In Public

March 27, 2017

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Space Vs. Canada

Something special to announce today, new show on Thursday.

April 3, 2017

#178 The Ugly Anglo

April 10, 2017

#179 Post-Postmedia

Postmedia, the largest newspaper chain in Canada is in its death throes.

April 17, 2017

#180 Who Buys A Newspaper Chain In 2017?

April 24, 2017

#181 Desmond Cole: Celebrated and Resented

May 1, 2017

#182 It Was Illegal To Print Their Names: Alberta’s Lost Children

May 8, 2017

#183 Why Your Rap Lyrics Could Land You In Prison

May 15, 2017

#184 Jason Kenney Is A Charming Man: Inside Alberta’s Weird Conservatism

May 22, 2017

#185 Travel Journalism’s Dirty Little Secret

May 29, 2017

#186 End Of The CanLit Hustle

June 5, 2017

#187 We Got Played

June 12, 2017

#188 The Images Are Merciless

June 19, 2017

#189 The Great Newspaper Bailout

The newspaper industry is pleading for hundred of millions of dollars per year to help prop itself up.

June 26, 2017

#190 Queer Media

July 3, 2017

#191 Revenge Porn

Ren Bostelaar posted nude pictures of women to 4chan without their consent. He avoided a criminal record by taking a peace bond. Is revenge porn legal in Canada?

July 9, 2017

#192 15 Years Covering Omar Khadr

Michelle Shephard has been covering Omar Khadr since the beginning. She talks to guest host Omar Mouallem about what the media keeps getting wrong about the story.

July 16, 2017

#193 Summer Dump

July 24, 2017

#194 Live From New York, It’s CANADALAND

In it: should you fuck your Prime Minister?; Why Canadians secretly love climate change; why we love the RCMP; and a peek at the Canada of the not-too-distant future. The stage show for our book, the CANADALAND Guide to Canada.

July 31, 2017

#195 Bleeding Edge Outrage Meme Generators

Following the election of Donald Trump, Craig Silverman wrote the defining article on fake news. Now he dives into hyperpartisan media -- websites that blend legitimate reporting with clickbait viral headlines to create a morass where you can't be sure what's real and what isn't.

August 14, 2017

#196 Ezra’s Very Bad Week

It's been, to put it mildly, a shit week for Rebel Media's self-styled 'Rebel Commander' Ezra Levant.

August 21, 2017

#197 I Don’t Speak Sports

Sports journalism is facing many of the same issues as other facets of the industry: declining ad revenues, job insecurities, and too much content vying for too few eyeballs.

September 5, 2017

#198 Punching Nazis… With The Law!

Who thought we'd have a Nazi problem in 2017? Richard Warman did. Years before the current "Should I punch a Nazi" debate took off, he attacked neo-Nazis with the law. And the media hated him.

September 11, 2017

#199 TIFF Is A Monster That’s Eating Itself

Every year, Toronto hosts some of the biggest stars in Hollywood as they debut their new films. But is the Toronto International Film Festival actually good for the city?

September 17, 2017

#200 Blame Michael Enright

Michael Enright got Jesse his first job in radio. He was also CANADALAND’s first ever guest, drinking bourbon and talking shit about the Canadian media. For our 200th show, he’s back to talk about how the media has changed since that day.

September 24, 2017

#201 Saudi Arabia Is Using Canadian Weapons Against Its Own Citizens And Nobody Seems To Care

Over the summer, videos came out that appeared to show Saudi Arabia deploying Canadian combat vehicles against their own citizens. And it barely made a splash in the Canadian media.

October 1, 2017

#202 It’s The End Of CanCon As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly had the thankless task of crafting a new culture plan that was sure to disappoint. She is now being viciously attacked by the press.

October 9, 2017

#203 My Awkward Date With Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley talks about how she helped Jesse break a major story. And she discusses domestic abuse, sexual harassment and assault, and the culture that fuels it.

October 15, 2017

#204 Daniel Dale

The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale has become one of the most-watched journalists in Washington in part by simply enumerating Donald Trump's lies.

October 23, 2017

#205 Out Of My Depth With Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik lived out a certain Canadian fantasy. He left the country and became a prominent New York intellectual.

October 30, 2017

#206 Jeremy Scahill: Mistrust First, Then Verify

“Objectivity for the sake of objectivity often means make sure that the powerful always get their say. And sometimes Caesar shouldn’t have his say. Sometimes the truth is just true.”

November 6, 2017

#207 Village Of The Sprawling Phoenix: New Models for Local News

Is local media doomed? We speak to three entrepreneurs who are making a go of it with three very different models.

November 13, 2017

#208 Ahead Of The Times: Jezebel Reporters On Investigating Louis CK

Reporters Anna Merlan and Madeleine Davies were investigating and writing about Louis CK well before the New York Times story came out. And they faced a lot of criticism for it.

November 19, 2017

#209 The Man Behind The Paradise Papers

“I do think that people should be marching in the streets over this,” says ICIJ director Gerard Ryle.

November 26, 2017

#210 Why Newspapers Don’t Have to Die

And why you can't just blame Google and Facebook for what happened last week.

December 3, 2017

#211 Inside a Right-Wing Meme Machine

This Facebook group gets more engagement than the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail combined.

December 10, 2017

#212 Meet The New Partisan Press

PressProgress looks like the news, but it's funded by a leftist think tank. Who are they and what are they trying to do?

December 17, 2017

COMMONS – Invisible Victims: How Police Botched The Robert Pickton Case

Over the holidays, CANADALAND is presenting the best work across our network. Here's a recent episode of COMMONS about Robert Pickton, marginalized communities and police accountability.

December 24, 2017

The Imposter – I Pity The Country Part 1

This episode of The Imposter was featured alongside shows like The Heart and Radiolab as Constant Listener's best podcasts of the year.

December 27, 2017

The Imposter – Aliya Tries Comedy

This week, we're presenting some of the best work from across our network. In this series of The Imposter, host Aliya Pabani decides that to learn more about comedy, she's going to learn how to be a comedian.

December 31, 2017

#213 How Facebook Bought-Off Canada For Peanuts

Forget taxes and regulations — why scrutinize Facebook when you can partner with them?

January 8, 2018

#214 Black Mirror Canada

"From mass dissemination of false information, to impersonation, leaking foreign documents in order to influence political and legal outcomes... the possibilities for the types of activities contemplated in [Bill C-59] are limited only by imagination."

January 15, 2018

#215 They Asked Me To Join The Militia

January 22, 2018

#216 As If It Never Even Happened

January 29, 2018

#217 The CANADALAND Guide to Jordan B. Peterson

February 5, 2018

#218 Robert Jago: Decolonizing Canada In His Spare Time

February 12, 2018

#219 Where Is Rock Bottom? Live From Saskatchewan, Before The Trial (Rebroadcast)

February 19, 2018

#220 We Need To Talk About Reddit

After years of dodging emails about the internal politics of the country's largest subreddit, r/Canada, Jesse finally jumps down the weirdo-message-board rabbit hole.

February 26, 2018

#221 Indie Journalists On The Government News Bailout

"I don't want to be trusted by the government."

March 5, 2018

#222 How To Slander Friends And Libel People

March 12, 2018

#223 The Misery Beat

March 19, 2018

#224 How To Un-F**k The Internet

"It's the wild west out there right now, and for lots of people that means it's really dangerous and their experience is horrible."

March 26, 2018

#225 Satirical News Site Fast-Tracks Reconciliation, Everything Fine Now

Tim Fontaine "set fire" to his journalism career last December, when he launched Walking Eagle News.

April 2, 2018

#226 The Great Satan Of The CBC

Richard Stursberg was the most hated CBC executive in recent history. What advice does he have for Catherine Tait, the CBC's new president? And what does he have to say about his own infamous legacy?

April 8, 2018

#227 Journalism On Trial

We hear from two Canadian journalists currently facing legal consequences for doing their jobs. The outcomes of these cases could set precedents for how the press is allowed to operate.

April 15, 2018

#228 What’s The New York Times Doing In Canada?

More than a year after their expansion into Canada, the New York Times is holding its own against our native media. And they're doing it with only three reporters. But what exactly is their goal here?

April 23, 2018

#229 The Manosphere

How did an online subculture of lonely men inspire the murders of 10 people in Toronto?

April 29, 2018

#230 The Pipeline Approval Was Rigged

No outcome other than an approval was ever possible.

May 6, 2018

#231 Robo Reporters and Blockchain Broadcasts

While journalists worry about Facebook algorithms and digital advertising, every other industry gets to be excited about technology. So today, we try our hardest to find the positive tech stories for the news industry.

May 13, 2018

#232 How We Cover Israel

Last week, Israeli forces killed over 60 people and injured thousands more at a protest in Gaza. How did Canadian media cover it?

May 20, 2018

#233 Journalists Are Done With CBC Stealing Their Scoops

Why is CBC so bad at giving credit for stories that other news outlets broke?

May 27, 2018

#234 Famous Anonymous: Celebrity Media In Canada

How do you cover celebrities in a country that's so bad at making them?

June 3, 2018

#235 Taxing Porn (And Everything Else) To Pay For CanCon

Canada's broadcast regulator has put forward a proposal to tax everything from porn to podcasts to help pay for CanCon.

June 10, 2018

#236 Jesse Meets WNYC’s On The Media

On The Media was one of the main inspirations for CANADALAND. This week, Jesse meets them.

June 17, 2018

#237 The Legend Of Weed Toque Girl

Almost every news story about cannabis is accompanied by a stereotypical stoner pic.

June 24, 2018

#238 Authors Are Getting Bloody In The Culture Wars

The book world has been thrown into turmoil by sexual assault allegations, inter-generational fighting and questions over Indigenous ancestry. Is this inside baseball for a tiny industry, a microcosm of the culture wars or a battle over who gets to tell Canada's story?

July 1, 2018

#239 Last Chance For Newspapers: Inside La Presse

The newspaper business is in rapid decline. Can non-profit status save newspapers in Canada?

July 15, 2018

#240 How Marketing Conquered Food

Food journalist Corey Mintz speaks with Jesse about how influencers, marketing and Instagram have impacted food writing and eating.

July 30, 2018

#241 Reporting In Ottawa Vs. Reporting In Washington

BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod has covered politics in both capitals.

August 12, 2018

#242 Live Local News Neither Live Nor Local

Paul Tadich compares his time working at Global TV to a "news sweatshop".

August 26, 2018

#243 What Does ‘Off The Record’ Actually Mean? The Toronto Star And BuzzFeed Explain.

Confusion over "off the record" played a pivotal role in global affairs this past week. So — how does this oft-misunderstood agreement actually work, and why do so many powerful people continue to misuse it?

September 10, 2018

#244 Chip Zdarsky On Marvel Money And The Canadian Comics Boom

September 17, 2018

#245 The Last Labour Reporter

Sara Mojtehedzadeh may very well be Canada's only full-time labour reporter.

September 24, 2018

#246 Sheila Heti And Rachel Cusk On Why Memoir Is A Dead End

Guest Host Sheila Heti (Motherhood, How Should a Person Be?) speaks with fellow "autofiction" author Rachel Cusk (A Life's Work, Aftermath, et al).

October 1, 2018

#247 The Weed Beat

Next week, recreational weed will become legal across Canada. In anticipation, mainstream media has begun taking cannabis coverage seriously. Overnight, nearly every major outlet across the country has hired full-time reporters to cover it — but before we celebrate industry growth, how sustainable is this beat?

October 8, 2018

#248 The CANADALAND Investigation Of The Kielburgers’ WE Movement

Craig Kielburger founded WE when he was 12 to fight child labour. Now, the WE brand is used to promote products made by children. Reporter Jaren Kerr presents the findings of his 4-month long investigation.

October 15, 2018

#249 Thunder Bay

Episode 1 of our new series, hosted by Ryan McMahon.

October 22, 2018

#250 Canada’s First Smart City Is A Disaster

Google's sister company, Sidewalk Labs, has partnered with every level of government to build the first-ever 'smart city' in Toronto — but with several high-profile resignations and mounting privacy concerns, will this project ever break ground?

October 29, 2018

#251 How True Crime Took Over Podcasting

For a long time, CANADALAND was (proudly) the number one podcast in the country — but that's no longer true.

November 5, 2018

#252 Is Business News Amoral, Immoral, Or Just Evil?

Guest host Karen K. Ho explores how ethical concerns are becoming a core component of many big business stories, and what some reporters are doing to expand business journalism’s audience and sources.

November 12, 2018

#253 Is The Media Afraid Of The Kielburgers?

The Kielburgers' WE Movement has enjoyed more than 20 years of glowing press. They also have partnerships with 38 media organizations and a history of aggressive responses to criticism. Reporter Jaren Kerr speaks with Jesse about his investigation of WE's media relations.

November 19, 2018

#254 An Issue Worth Torching Your Job Over

After 25 years at the CBC, tech columnist Jesse Hirsh decided to risk it all. During an interview about Facebook, he turned the tables, asking why CBC continues to promote Facebook after we've seen what that company has done to undermine democracy. CBC refused to post the segment online, raising questions about what you can and cannot say on our public broadcaster.

November 25, 2018

#255 The Making Of Finding Cleo And Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay podcast host and creator Ryan McMahon reflects on the year-long production process, and he, Jesse and Connie Walker — host of CBC's award-winning podcast Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo —speak at ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival about the challenges that come with telling such sensitive, complex stories through the true crime genre.

December 3, 2018

#256 The Dependent Press

The Canadian federal government plans to issue nearly $600M in tax credits and incentives to bolster the country's media industry over the next five years. What will this mean for the independence of the Canadian press? And will CANADALAND be applying for funds?

December 10, 2018

#257 How Not To Cover Climate Change

Blazing wildfires. Pipeline stand-offs. Unpredictable floods. Men in suits arguing... One of our era's most urgent, high-stakes stories is also the hardest one to get right.

December 17, 2018

#258 Christmas In The Newsroom

Stories of big news breaking when everyone else is on vacation.

December 23, 2018

#259 The Mud Slinging, Meme Hustling, Rage Baiting Sites You Need To Know Before The Next Election

A bunch of new partisan political websites are fighting for the narrative in the run-up to the federal election. Reporter Graeme Gordon is here to tell you which organizations to look out for on your Facebook and Twitter feeds, what their political objectives are, and who's paying for them.

January 6, 2019

#260 Fake-Ass Internet

Something like the half of all activity on the internet is fake. Yes, there are bots. But there are also fake websites that cater to bots. And then there are the ways real people adjust their behaviour to try to game the bots. Where does this leave the idyllic internet we were promised?

January 13, 2019

#261 Oh Great, Now China Hates Us

Canada's in a bad way with China. Has the media prepared us to deal with the growing superpower?

January 20, 2019

#262 Meet Canada’s Pro-Oil, Anti-Immigrant Yellow Vest Movement

What do warnings of globalism, support for pipelines and calls to execute Trudeau have in common? They're all part of the rhetoric of the Canadian Yellow Vests. CANADALAND producer David Crosbie investigates how a French working class protest against a fuel tax has inspired a right-wing, populist movement holding recurring rallies across Canada.

January 27, 2019

#263 The Loudmouth Senator

Paula Simons did something that makes a lot of journalists cringe. She went into politics. The former Edmonton Journal columnist is now an independent senator. She speaks about crossing over, using social media to pull back the curtain on Canadian politics... and the Senate's secret snack machine.

February 4, 2019

#264 Quebec’s Fake News Problem

In English media, there are whole organizations and departments devoted to debunking fake news. But in Quebec, a lot of the work falls to one guy: Jeff Yates. He talks to guest host Brigitte Noël about the unique challenges of combatting fake news in French and why he thinks it's time to destigmatize sharing bogus stories.

February 10, 2019

#265 Decoding a Political Scandal

There's a lot to learn from what politicians and journalists can and can't tell us, their lowly constituents and readers. We read between the lines of the news coverage of the SNC-Lavalin scandal with BuzzFeed News' Paul McLeod. Then, Macleans columnist Anne Kingston helps translate politicians' passive-aggressive, condescending, or coded messages, passed to us through resignation letters, speeches, and even Twitter likes.

February 17, 2019

#266 A Guide To The Podcast Industry

In the past year or so, the podcast industry has seen an explosion --or bubble, depending on who you ask-- with companies like Entertainment One, Corus, and Rogers making big plays in the market. Who are the big players? What are they trying to do? And are their podcasts any good?

February 24, 2019

#267 Propaganda, Fascism And Murder: An Alternative History Of The Globe And Mail

This week marks 175 years of The Globe and Mail. You can read all about its accomplishments elsewhere. Writer Jamie Bradburn takes us through the paper's darker moments.

March 3, 2019

#268 Strombo

Canada's most ubiquitous TV host talks about his many, many gigs, from MuchMusic VJ to CNN interviewer -- and why he's turned to YouTube for the latest one.

March 10, 2019

#204 Pressure-Cooked Octopus

While we're all busy talking about the propriety of the SNC-Lavalin affair, it bears revisiting the company's sordid past. Also, how is the media culpable for whitewashing reconciliation? And Pizzagate comes to Canada.

March 13, 2019

#269 Ruthless Or Toothless? The News Biz Complaints Department

Who do you turn to when the news fucks up? It turns out there's a council for that.

March 18, 2019

#205 Scheer And Loathing

Andrew Scheer’s first statement about the terrorist attack by a white supremacist in New Zealand failed to mention a few things... like Muslims and white supremacy. Also, the federal budget was announced and so were the details of that controversial media bailout.

March 21, 2019

#270 The Most Expensive Thing Canada’s Ever Bought

When Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese called the government to follow up on a tip, he heard back from the PR arm of Irving Shipbuilding. And then the president of that company called, and threatened to sue him.

March 24, 2019

#206 Justin & Gerry, Jody & Jane

Collusion? Obstruction? Why can't Canadians stay focused on the domestic scandal? And what does the dawn of Apple News+ mean for Canadian media?

March 27, 2019

#271 Stephen Harper

The CANADALAND interview with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who targeted the press before it was cool.

April 1, 2019

#207 Tape Your Calls!

If there's one lesson we can take away from what's happened with Jody Wilson-Raybould, it's to tape all of your calls. And what's more important to the Trudeau Liberals: reconciliation or cold hard donations?

April 3, 2019

#272 The Best New Podcast In Canada Is About The Opioid Crisis

Crackdown covers the war on drugs from the trenches, and these war correspondents are drug users.

April 8, 2019

#208 Oh My God, They Killed Kenney

Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party is imploding before our very eyes — but the Albertan electorate doesn't seem to mind much. And who does Justin Trudeau think he's fooling with a libel threat? Definitely not Andrew Scheer.

April 10, 2019

#273 The Media Baron Dinner Party Where The News Bailout Was Born

Former CBC exec Richard Stursberg tells Jesse all about it.

April 14, 2019

#209 Don’t Call Me Jason

Journalism that exposes racism, homophobia, and election fraud: does any of it matter? All of this and more in a look at the Alberta election. And then a check-in with the Globe and Mail's Thunder Bay bureau.

April 17, 2019

#274 Is Facebook Worth Fixing?

And if so, can government regulation crack down on hate speech and election interference on social media without crushing free speech?

April 22, 2019

#210 Raccoon Thirst Trap

Who among us hasn't stabbed a lecherous raccoon with a dessert fork? And Omar Khadr gave his first big interview on Québec television; where was English media on this one?

April 25, 2019

#275 Sneaking Chinese Propaganda Into The Canadian Media

A popular pundit has a curious connection: her company worked for China.

April 28, 2019

#211 Your Body Is A Newfoundland

Was the recent Simpsons episode about Canada offensive? Was it even funny? And, finally, the mainstream media seems to be paying attention to the rising threat of white terrorism in Canada.

May 1, 2019

#276 – Twenty Years After Napster: Cory Doctorow On What Went Wrong

Digital media has been gentrified into a mall, says the digital rights activist and author.

May 6, 2019

#212 Newfoundland 2: The Newfoundlanding

In the prurient rush for lurid details about Bruce McArthur and his victims, maybe it’s time to re-examine the way we consume true crime. And the ongoing saga of the Mark Norman affair becomes even muddier.

May 8, 2019

#277 Quebec’s Narcos Tell All!

The new podcast Narcos PQ hands the mic to those who bring Canada its drugs: bikers, drug mules, outlaw chemists.

May 13, 2019

#213 Misfit Manchild Edgelords

It's Nazi season in Canada! From the "controversial" flag in Saskatchewan to the neo-Nazi working in an Ontario city hall, Canada's working hard to normalize racism. And Mark Norman apparently had it worse than Omar Khadr. Who was in Guantanmo Bay. As a minor.

May 15, 2019

#278 Bigotry Punished, Miraculously

But will the $2.5 million judgment against the far-right twice-defeated mayoral candidate Kevin J. Johnston actually stop him spreading hate online?

May 20, 2019

#214 Lord Ballwasher of Crossharbour

Lord Conrad Black, First of His Name, The Unedited, King of Columns, Breaker of Laws, Flatterer of American Presidents, and Father of the National Post. Did Canada’s favourite criminal Lord just schmooze his way into a pardon from Donald Trump or is the American justice system to blame? Also, speaking of ancient things, Canada’s dusty old privacy laws are back in the spotlight thanks to the government’s new digital charter.

May 22, 2019

#279 A Forgotten News Lab Predicted Journalism’s Online Future in 1991

InfoLab imagined newspapers' transition from print to digital, creating multimedia digital news in the basement of The Hamilton Spectator back in the early '90s.

May 26, 2019

#215 What Sort Of Monster Would Disparage Anna Maria Tremonti?

As one of Canada's most beloved radio personalities leaves the job she's held for 17 seasons, who could possibly have anything negative to say? Also, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott have finally revealed their schemes to... run as independents. And should media unions have a say in deciding who gets federal media funding?

May 29, 2019

#280 The News Bosses: APTN’s Karyn Pugliese

Canada's news bosses are some of the most influential people in the country. They decide what is news and what isn't. We think it's time someone talked to them about that.

June 2, 2019

#216 The Word For This Is Genocide

The majority of our media is bending backward to avoid acknowledging Canadian genocide. Why? And Lindsay Shepherd travelled to Ottawa to complain about her weeklong Twitter ban: a look at the online hate hearings and the right's war on free speech.

June 6, 2019

#281 Trolling Jonathan Torrens

Jonathan Torrens talks about the CBC, what really happened on Trailer Park Boys, and about that one song you love to hate.

June 10, 2019

#217 United Conservative Postmedia War Room

Rest assured, Canadians! Jason Kenney is here to protect you from the evils of the Green Left. A look at the Alberta government's anti-environment "War Room," plus the imminent Raptor Rapture.

June 12, 2019

#282 Lifestyles of the Rich and Fatal

Greed, money, and revenge culminate with a gruesome murder on the driveway of a Vancouver mansion.

June 16, 2019

#218 Whose Pipeline Is It Anyway?

What better way to recognize a climate emergency than by approving the Trans Mountain Pipeline? Why did the Raptors’ president get carded after his team won? And what's with U.S. media suddenly paying attention to Indigenous people in Canada?

June 19, 2019

#283 Oh Great, A Republican Plot Against Canadaland

Something strange has been going on for the last little while and we’re ready to talk about it.

June 23, 2019

#219 The Pleasure Of Margaret Wente

Pour one out for Margaret Wente: she's leaving the Globe. The Irvings tighten their grip on New Brunswick news, and some Toronto councillors are learning not to cross Warren Kinsella.

June 26, 2019

#284 A Former WE Employee Speaks Out

Twenty-two people spoke to us confidentially about working for WE. But Josh Keenan went on the record.

June 30, 2019

#220 That’s What You Get When You Draw A Political Cartoon That Doesn’t Suck

A Canadian cartoonist drew a provocative image of Trump, blithely ignorant of the fatal consequences of his border policy. After it blew up online, the cartoonist was let go from the company who'd published his work for 17 years. And what was with that viral clip of Trudeau getting "snubbed" at G20?

July 3, 2019

#285 – Health News In The Age Of Goop

There are countless reporters covering politics in this country, but only one person has spent their career reporting on and analyzing health care.

July 7, 2019

#221 Fuck You For This One, Québec

The secularism bill banning public workers from wearing religious symbols finally passed in Québec. Google News gathered together the heads of major media companies for a meeting and (surprise!) didn’t tell the public. And VICE reporter Ben Makuch lost a legal challenge to keep private background material from the RCMP.

July 10, 2019

#286 Sports, Wages, and Bitstrips Money: Jesse Answers Your Questions

You asked. We answered.

July 14, 2019

#222 SandyAndNoraLand

Sandy Hudson and Nora Loreto take over CANADALAND for this episode about the paltry coverage of Canada's migrant detention policies and the devastating loss of leftist Twitter’s most stalwart defender, Lindsay Shepherd.

July 17, 2019

#287 Let’s Get Serious About UFO Journalism

Hear about how journalists have failed when covering mysterious things in the sky.

July 21, 2019

#288 Wrongly Convicted Of Murder And The Secret Reasons Why

Glen Assoun spent nearly 17 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. But even after his sentence was overturned, the evidence that freed him remained sealed. Reporters fought successfully to have that evidence released. What they found not only raises questions about the investigation, but reveals the outright deletion of evidence pointing to another killer.

July 29, 2019

#289 Steven Page

Steven Page, former frontman and founding member of Barenaked Ladies, talks about his career, why he chose to leave a beloved and wildly successful band, and the fickle realities of Canadian stardom.

August 4, 2019

#290 What It’s Like To Want To Die

Reporter Anna Mehler Paperny talks about her book "Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person"

August 11, 2019

#291 Why Are Trans Issues Suddenly Everywhere?

Over the past couple of years, a few Canadian media outlets and writers have become obsessed with trans people, painting their campaign for human rights as a menace to society. This coverage has hit a peak with the story of Jessica Yaniv, a trans woman who’s taking multiple beauticians to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal after they refused to wax to her genitals. Where did this obsession come from? And why has this particular story taken off?

August 18, 2019

#292 A Medical Horror Story and the Fight to Expose It

A respected doctor put women’s health and lives in danger for money and the public almost didn't hear about it.

August 25, 2019

COMMONS: CRUDE – The Apocalypse Is Now

Canoe-borne bandits strike an underwater town. A new generation of wealthy lobstermen is minted. An island disappears. And hellfire engulfs a highway jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Just another normal day amidst Canada’s climate catastrophe.

August 28, 2019

OPPO: Is Jason Kenney Stoking Alberta Separatism?

Alberta's premier wants a referendum on ... what exactly? And Justin Ling wants you to calm down about climate change "muzzling." Plus, meet some intriguing candidates to keep an eye on.

September 1, 2019

#293 Bruce McCulloch

Comedian Bruce McCulloch talks about the legacy of Canada’s weirdest sketch show, Lorne Michaels, and the CBC.

September 8, 2019

#294 Vagina Empire

Why are we so bad at talking about women's bodies?

September 15, 2019

#295 Big Media’s Plan To Regulate The Internet

Are we really considering CanCon for the internet?

September 22, 2019

#296 Two Centuries of Blackface in Canada

Cheryl Thompson joins to help walk us through Canada’s history with blackface and why this story is not about race.

September 29, 2019

#297 Shad’s Hip-Hop Evolution

Shad's Hip-Hop Evolution is an incredible piece of journalism that nobody is talking about.

October 6, 2019

#80 Chantal Hébert

Does political journalism actually enact change?

October 13, 2019

#299 Today’s Crisis, Tomorrow’s Apology: Indigenous Death In The Child Welfare System

102 Indigenous children died in Ontario’s child welfare system because of underfunding and an indefensible inequality of services.

October 20, 2019

#300 An Argument With Robyn Doolittle

Major announcement about what's next for Canadaland on this episode.

October 27, 2019

#301 Interview With A Very Rich Person Who Wants To Abolish Wealth

Meghan Bell wants to tax the rich. She's also one of them.

November 3, 2019

#302 Is The Extreme Right Finished In Canada?

Has the rise of the far-right in Canada been exaggerated?

November 11, 2019

#303 Jon Ronson

A conversation about the similarities between journalism and porn becomes a tense disagreement about online shaming.

November 17, 2019

#239 StarMetro Hunger Games

Torstar announced the closure of five papers across Canada, CBC tried to consolidate broadcasts across its radio stations in the North, and Don Cherry returned with an expertly produced podcast.

November 21, 2019

#304 From Nanook To The New York Times: Misrepresentations of the North

How the media can fail when covering Indigenous people.

November 24, 2019

#52 Hark! Kate Beaton

A conversation with cartoonist Kate Beaton

December 1, 2019

#241 History Will Judge Us For Our China Takes

Leaked audio from a NATO summit reveals Trudeau’s totally reasonable reaction to Trump. Did an Edmonton school board try to shut down a radio interview advocating for a student? The Globe and Mail’s China coverage is... inconsistent.

December 5, 2019

#305 Researchers Just Proved The Media Is Too White

Canada's newsrooms are whiter than ever.

December 9, 2019

#242 Inside Jordan Peterson’s Antisocial Network

A look inside Jordan Peterson’s new social media platform, which bans photos, memes, and emojis in the name of anti-censorship! Also, The Toronto Star turns to public shaming. Freelancer John Semley co-hosts.

December 11, 2019

#306 The Globe And Mail’s Hidden Campaign For Government Favours

Did The Globe And Mail's editor do anything wrong?

December 15, 2019

#243 The Media Hit Jobs on Andrew Scheer and Jody Wilson-Raybould

Everyone knows that Andrew Scheer resigned because of his tuition scandal; what this podcast presupposes is: maybe he didn’t? And the manufactured outrage surrounding Jody Wilson-Raybould’s office.

December 18, 2019

#307 NOW and Then

The rise and fall of Canada’s alt-weekly magazines.

December 22, 2019

COMMONS: Dynasties – The Sahotas

The Sahotas are Vancouver’s most notorious slumlords. For decades they’ve let their buildings rot, leaving their tenants to live in filth and desolation. But the Sahotas are not like any other dynasty you’ve ever heard of. Their story is far stranger, and far darker, than anything you can imagine.

December 29, 2019

#290 What It’s Like To Want To Die

Reporter Anna Mehler Paperny talks about her book, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person, which covers her search for answers about depression and her personal experiences.

January 2, 2020

#308 The Media War Over The Hong Kong Protests

Is Canadian media propagating the Communist Party lines?

January 5, 2020

#244 Iran So Far

We’ve heard so much from south of the border about Iran, but how are Canadian media treating this conflict? And The Fifth Estate delivers some spurious reporting on “Birth Tourism” and Antifa.

January 8, 2020

#309 A War Reporter’s Newsroom Battles

Why did the Toronto Star try to stop Paul Watson from reporting on a story?

January 12, 2020

#245 I Wanna Live Like Commonwealth People Do

We examine the controversy around stating a plain fact about flight 752. Then, a Royal welcome. With co-host Nora Loreto.

January 15, 2020

#310 Why Is The CBC So Schitty?

How the CBC is losing friends and alienating Canadians

January 19, 2020

#311 Let’s Talk About Bell’s Harmful Prison Phone Contract

Every year, Bell shines the spotlight on mental health for Let’s Talk Day. So we’re taking a look at their prison phone contract, which advocates say exacerbate mental health problems for inmates.

January 27, 2020

#247 Coronaviral

Have we learned anything about reporting on viruses since SARS? And what can a new documentary about Idle No More teach us about our present state of reconciliation?

January 30, 2020

#18 VICE: An Oral History

The origins of VICE told by the people who were there

February 2, 2020

#248 Return Of The Conservative Rapper

The Heritage Minister doesn't seem to understand his own plan for regulating the internet (or not), so we break it down for you. And a group that doesn't exist just ran a major political ad campaign in the country's top newspapers. The National Post's Chris Selley co-hosts.

February 5, 2020

#312 Siege On Wet’suwet’en

Unpacking the RCMP’s recent crackdown on journalists covering the conflict on Wet’suwet’en territory

February 9, 2020

#249 Christie Blatchford’s Complicated Legacy

Jordan Peterson’s familial PR team, Christie Blatchford’s legacy, Ezra Levant’s civil disobedience, and the campaign to discredit national protests.

February 12, 2020

#313 Nardwuar: An Oral History

The history of Canada’s weirdest and most prolific interviewer

February 16, 2020

#250 Wet’suwet’en Coverage Is Still Pretty Bad

Jason Kenney’s War Room sets its sights on that white whale of fake news: The New York Times. And as protests spread, reporting on Wet’suwet’en remains fairly feeble.

February 20, 2020

#314 Nardwuar: The Interview

Who is the man beneath the tam?

February 23, 2020

BONUS: Jesse Gets Grilled

A bonus AMA episode

February 24, 2020

#251 Heard It Through The Pipeline

Do journalists need to be protestors to get better access to Wet'suwet'en solidarity actions? Plus, the Teck Frontier oilsands mine withdraws its application and who the media is blaming will shock you - or not.

February 27, 2020

#315 The Cocaine Smuggling Ring At VICE

A behind-the-scenes look at our new investigative podcast

March 1, 2020

#252 Canada Is Working Exactly As Intended

A front-page story tells us that Canada is broken. Is it, or is this exactly how the country was designed to work? And, as a senior editor leaves the CBC, our national broadcaster pivots to audience.

March 4, 2020

#316 One News Brand To Rule Them All

Does the New York Times' success come at the expense of local news?

March 8, 2020

#253 Panic! At The Discoronavirus

As COVID-19 is declared a global pandemic, how are Canadian media handling the coverage? And what opportunities can moments of crisis provide for a shift in business reporting?

March 12, 2020

#317 Meditations In An Emergency

We are facing an unprecedented shutdown of services and businesses across the country. Health columnist Andre Picard was an early voice calling for Canada to “shut it down” in the pages of the Globe and Mail. He talks to us about how COVID-19 compares to other epidemics he’s covered, the media coverage so far and why he was pushing for social distancing before the government embraced it.

March 16, 2020

Isolation Interview: Robyn Doolittle

What feels most weird right now? Doing normal things

March 17, 2020

Isolation Interview: Jen Agg

Restaurauteur Jen Agg just wants to get home.

March 17, 2020

#254 Wave Of Isolation

In a time like this, we’re so flooded with information that good, quality journalism matters more than ever. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff to make fun of. Plus, how are newsrooms coping with the realities of a contagious virus?

March 19, 2020

Isolation Interview: Socalled

March 20, 2020

#318 The Last Picture Show

COVID-19, Cineplex, and the end of moviegoing as we know it

March 22, 2020

Isolation Interview: Margaret Atwood

"My life is never exactly normal. But it's normal for me."

March 23, 2020

Isolation Interview: Ryan McMahon

“If it really goes down, I can always shoot a moose.”

March 25, 2020

#255 This Op-Ed Could Kill People

COVID-19 coverage continues, for the most part, to be even-handed. But that’s not why you listen to this podcast. A look at what’s going wrong in Canadian reporting, as well as the personal and economic impact the pandemic is having on newsrooms.

March 25, 2020

Isolation Interview: Sarah Hagi

"Put on normal clothes, remember to stretch... That doesn't help. You're still in the prison of your own mind."

March 27, 2020

#319 Cross Country COVID Checkup

Our first ever call-in show.

March 29, 2020

Isolation Interview: Shad

"I've been watching old NBA games and breaking them down on Instagram Live."

March 31, 2020

Isolation Interview: Robert Jago

“I have been obsessed with virtual reality”

April 1, 2020

#256 Good Faith, Bad Information

Has the messaging about whether to wear a face mask been contradictory? How do you report on sports in a world without them? And a roundup of the bad COVID-19 coverage from the last week.

April 1, 2020

Isolation Interview: David Sax

April 3, 2020

#320 Coronavirus Is In Our Prisons And Trudeau Is Doing Nothing

Reporter Justin Ling speaks with prisoners across Canada terrified of COVID-19 sweeping through the prison population.

April 6, 2020

Isolation Interview: Elizabeth May

"This is the death of neoliberalism."

April 7, 2020

Isolation Interview: Matt Huether

"I got scolded by the deputy mayor of Los Angeles for not including Funyuns in my tweet"

April 8, 2020

#257 Speaking Moistly

For weeks, we’ve all been trying to flatten the curve. But how do we measure our success if the numbers informing that curve aren’t reliable? And how do the big newspaper chains justify taking government wage subsidies at the same time as laying off staff?

April 8, 2020

#321 Did Covid-19 Kill The Alt-Right?

The Deplorables that surrounded the Trump presidential campaign have all but disappeared from the mainstream web.

April 12, 2020

Isolation Interview: Kate Beaton

"I do participate in society."

April 14, 2020

Isolation Interview: Club Quarantine

"If we are looking like we are one of the girls just dancing having fun, it's probably performative"

April 15, 2020

#258 Snitch Nation

Do the same rules apply to Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer as to the rest of us? Do the rules matter any more? Could this finally be the end of conspiracy theories?

April 15, 2020

Isolation Interview: Severn Cullis-Suzuki

"My ten-year old got his first octopus all by himself"

April 16, 2020

#322 Why Life Without Fear Is Miserable

When journalist Eva Holland lost her mom, she went on a quest to understand the science behind her phobias, and conquer them.

April 19, 2020

Isolation Interview: Surinder Mann

"I’m helping other people to be safe."

April 21, 2020

Isolation Interview: Tanya Talaga

"This virus is a bitch, for sure."

April 22, 2020

#259 Our Press Can’t Handle The Nova Scotia Shooting

The confluence of the pandemic, reliance on police for information, and slashed newsroom budgets means that reporting on the Nova Scotia shooting was all but doomed from the start. And a tweak to government media subsidies makes more organizations eligible for the funding.

April 22, 2020

Isolation Interview: Chris Locke

"It'll probably be like a mega-hedonistic orgy after this."

April 24, 2020

#323 Industry Pandemic

Journalists across Canada tell us how Covid-19 has changed how they bring us the news.

April 27, 2020

Isolation Interview: André Picard

"The chances of getting infected by somebody walking or running by you outside— they're virtually nil"

April 28, 2020

Isolation Interview: BJ Snowden

"I want my friends and family to be safe from this"

April 29, 2020

#260 Celebrity Malfunction

The more we learn about the shooting in Nova Scotia, the worse it becomes. And did the star-studded Stronger Together COVID-19 special show us anything but how completely anachronistic celebrity has become during this pandemic? Seriously. Did anyone watch it?

April 29, 2020

Isolation Interview: Kai Cheng Thom

“Pushing for a world where we accept the risks of having a body… That’s where we need to go.”

May 1, 2020

#324 Kenny vs. Kenny

A conversation with Kenny Hotz, a man at odds with his industry, his audience, and himself.

May 4, 2020

Isolation Interview: Martin Lukacs

"I think I may have had coronavirus"

May 5, 2020

Isolation Interview: Jaren Kerr

"I guess like a positive abnormal and unusual thing I did was propose to my girlfriend, which was pretty cool."

May 6, 2020

#261 Billionaire Welfare Slackers

When police searched journalists’ offices in the Alberta legislature, we wondered how government reporters were faring in the age of COVID-19. And after securing millions from the federal government, Canada’s big newspaper chains are finding new ways to ask for more money.

May 6, 2020

Isolation Interview: John Semley

"I fucking hate Zooming... and having to look at my own face."

May 8, 2020

#325 Should We Stop Naming Killers?

Prime Minister Trudeau said naming the Nova Scotia mass shooter was giving him "the gift of infamy"

May 11, 2020

Isolation Interview: Weyni Mengesha

“Hugs feel like they’re going to be euphoric.”

May 12, 2020

Isolation Interview: Brooke Manning

“I never believe in going down without a fight…I’m a triple fire sign.”

May 13, 2020

#262 Racist Vegan

Bryan Adams pulls a Morrissey, an Indigenous ceremony is broken up by the RCMP, and Ghomeshi attempts another comeback.

May 13, 2020

Isolation Interview: Jesse Brown

"The wild oscillations of feeling are abnormal for me."

May 15, 2020

#326 While We Weren’t Looking

In the face of a global pandemic, it’s hard to focus on anything else.

May 17, 2020

Isolation Interview: Martha Wainwright

“In the silence you start to wonder…how are we going to find each other again?”

May 19, 2020

Isolation Interview: Omar El Akkad

“The job of fiction is to intrude on reality and instead we’re living in a situation where reality is intruding on the fictional.”

May 20, 2020

#263 A Case For Bad Art

The incredibly controversial painting of Justin Trudeau, François Legault’s problem with anglophone media, and the story about Gaza that CBC disappeared.

May 21, 2020

Isolation Interview: Mumilaaq Qaqqaq

"After this pandemic, we can create a new normal that's better for everyone."

May 22, 2020

#327 A Crime Reporter Exposes The Child Welfare System

The child welfare system is failing Indigenous children, and APTN's Kenneth Jackson can't stop covering it.

May 24, 2020

Isolation Interview: Xanthe Vallentin

“I’m going to be very careful about how much I leave my property until there’s a vaccine.”

May 26, 2020

Isolation Interview: Kaie Kellough

"I had a confrontation with someone in the line up for a grocery store... and that moment of slow honeyed ease was totally interrupted."

May 27, 2020

#264 Smelly Rogue

Torstar was just sold for $52 million, droves of people were chastised for going to the park, and Jesse opens himself up to some rare scrutiny.

May 28, 2020

Isolation Interview: The Right Honourable Kim Campbell

“My biggest fear is that not enough will change, and not enough lessons will be learned.”

May 29, 2020

#328 Should Big Tech Bail Out The News?

The pandemic could be an "extinction event" for American newspapers and so their publishers want their own government bailout. Meanwhile Canadian papers want money from Google and Facebook, too.

May 31, 2020

#296 Two Centuries of Blackface in Canada

"In the psyche of the white Canadian is this same desire to see Black people in positions of either service or as comedic foils"

June 7, 2020

#279 A Forgotten News Lab Predicted Journalism’s Online Future in 1991

InfoLab imagined newspapers' transition from print to digital, creating multimedia digital news in the basement of The Hamilton Spectator back in the early '90s.

June 10, 2020

#329 The Tyrant’s Spin Doctor

Lord Tim Bell worked for a rogues' gallery of international clients, and co-founded one of the most powerful PR companies in history.

June 15, 2020

#266 The Reckoning

Journalists across Canada are speaking out about their experiences with racism in the newsroom. And as Wendy Mesley is suspended from hosting duties, it’s time to reevaluate the language used in news meetings.

June 17, 2020

#330 A CBC News Anchor On Systemic Racism At Work

Adrian Harewood is a news anchor at CBC Ottawa News and the host of weekly current affairs show, Our Ottawa.

June 22, 2020

#267 Consequence Culture

Can you really be “cancelled” if you still have a platform? A look at Margaret Wente, Wendy Mesley, and the Mulroneys. And was the Nova Scotia shooter an RCMP informant?

June 25, 2020

#331 The RCMP Exists to Control Indigenous People

The history of policing back to John A. Macdonald, the killing of Dudley George at Ipperwash in 1995, and its impact on two Indigenous journalists

June 29, 2020

#267 Propaganda, Fascism And Murder: An Alternative History Of The Globe And Mail

The Globe and Mail is now 176 years old. You can read all about its accomplishments elsewhere. Writer Jamie Bradburn takes us through the paper's darker moments.

July 1, 2020

#332 WE Charity: Lawyers, Guns and Money

We really didn’t expect to find ourselves writing about the WE organization again. But then it became part of the biggest politics story in the country, and we obtained a recording of a strange conversation between one of its founders and a person who was then a senior employee in the group’s Kenyan operations.

July 6, 2020

#268 Harper’s Is Still Lurking

The press seems to have given the Rideau Hall intruder the white glove treatment, and why on Earth did so many people sign that letter from Harper’s Magazine?

July 8, 2020

#333 Could The WE Scandal Take Down Justin Trudeau?

It’s a scandal that could—but probably won’t—take down Justin Trudeau.

July 13, 2020

#269 We Do Some Accounting

We have some questions about WE’s government contract and their internal accounting. And the story of how a Canadian media outlet suppressed assault allegations against Peter Nygard.

July 15, 2020

#334 A Dodgy Paternity Test And The War On The Reporter Who Exposed It

Peter Aldhous reported a decade ago that a Canadian lab’s prenatal paternity test was “unreliable."

July 19, 2020

#270 Mr. Brown Goes To Ottawa

Jesse testified before the House of Commons Finance Committee about Canadaland's reporting on the WE organization, and, while accusing a Black person of anti-Blackness, The Globe and Mail itself has been accused of anti-Blackness.

July 23, 2020

#335 Why It’s Illegal to Protest In Alberta

A new law in Alberta is Jason Kenney’s latest front in the oil war.

July 27, 2020

#271 Bottom Of The Barrel

The Kielburgers testified before the House of Commons finance committee, updates on the Nova Scotia shooting, and the plan for a Nazi colony in Cape Breton. 2020, am I right?

July 30, 2020

#336 Let No Good Deed

Last week’s House Finance Committee hearings into the WE Charity scandal yielded few new insights into why the government awarded it a massive sole-source contract or how the organization itself operates. Thankfully, the press has continued to turn up information that MPs have not.

August 2, 2020

#313 Nardwuar: An Oral History

The history of Canada’s weirdest and most prolific interviewer

August 5, 2020

#272 The Best New(ish) Podcast In Canada Is About The Opioid Crisis

Crackdown covers the war on drugs from the trenches, and these war correspondents are drug users.

August 10, 2020

#272 – Anonymously Awesome!

The Prime Minister’s Office leaks secret intel on how amazing it is. And Quebec’s French print papers somehow continue to thrive. The Logic’s Martin Patriquin co-hosts and explains Quebecor’s secret ingredient.

August 13, 2020

#337 1492 Land Back Lane

This week marks a month since the start of a land occupation to block a residential development at the edge of Caledonia, Ontario — and the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve.

August 16, 2020

#273 – Anti-Rebel, Prorogue

Prime Minister Trudeau just needs a quick reset. And Postmedia stands in solidarity with Rebel News. Former CAJ President and Ryerson journalism professor Karyn Pugliese co-hosts.

August 20, 2020

#338 What The Hell Is The Epoch Times?

The Epoch Times’ COVID-19 special edition raised controversy when it landed in mailboxes across Canada in April. The paper was accused of spreading misinformation and fomenting anti-Chinese racism.

August 23, 2020

#274 Reply-All Rosie

What might Jesse and Erin O’Toole have in common? And newsrooms continue to struggle with what it means to respond to this summer’s reckoning with racism. Chatelaine Executive Editor Denise Balkissoon co-hosts.

August 27, 2020

#339 Shree Paradkar

The Toronto Star’s new internal ombud tells us what the job is, discusses power and race in the newsroom, and responds to that reply all email.

August 30, 2020

#275 Bring Me The Head Of John A. Macdonald!

Does anyone really care about indignities to the legacy of John A. Macdonald?

September 2, 2020

Bonus AMA: Canadaland’s Money

September 6, 2020

#276 – Scandalized Philanthropists and A Criminalized Journalist

Breaking news on WE. An Indigenous journalist is criminalized for doing his job. And mass panic appears to be on the newly minted curriculum. One Dish One Mic’s Karl Dockstader co-hosts.

September 10, 2020

#340 Dethroning The Arts-Grant Elite

There’s a broad undertaking to shake up who gets arts funding, and who governs it.

September 13, 2020

#341 Food Will Find A Way

Restaurants have suffered huge losses during the pandemic.

September 20, 2020

#278 Lobster Politics

Mi’kmaw fishermen earning a ‘moderate livelihood’ seems to be too much for Nova Scotia’s settler lobster harvesters. And CBC leverages its credibility for its new corporate clients. APTN video journalist Trina Roache co-hosts.

September 24, 2020

#342 Corporate Psychopaths Still Run The World

The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel calls corporate social responsibility’s bluff.

September 27, 2020

#279 Did The New York Times Get Catfished?

RCMP charges a podcast star with not being a terrorist. And Edmonton radio host chooses the wrong put-down. Al Jazeera journalist and filmmaker Laila Alarian co-hosts.

October 1, 2020

#343 The New Solitudes

Quebec's distinct culture reacts differently to global movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.

October 4, 2020

#281 Trolling Jonathan Torrens

Jonathan Torrens talks about the CBC, what really happened on Trailer Park Boys, and about that one song you love to hate.

October 11, 2020

#344 WE Charity: In Desperation There Is Opportunity

A reporter was offered money to kill this story.

October 19, 2020

#345 Ali Velshi Says The U.S. Election Will Be Closer Than You Think

MSNBC host and journalist Ali Velshi has been traveling to U.S. swing states talking to voters in the lead-up to the presidential election.

October 25, 2020

#346 We’re Getting Sued

Rebel News personality Keean Bexte is suing Canadaland for defamation.

November 1, 2020

#347 The Brayden Bushby Trial And Pity Porn

The CBC's Jody Porter discusses covering the trial, and what she's learned about telling other people's stories.

November 8, 2020

#348 Is Canada Ready To Give Land Back?

Karl Dockstader and Sean Vanderklis update us on the 1492 Land Back Lane occupation and explore why federal government inaction just makes things worse.

November 15, 2020

#99 Christie Blatchford

A conversation with the late National Post columnist and court reporter.

November 22, 2020

#349 #MeToo And The Iranian Diaspora

When artist Aydin Aghdashloo was accused of sexual misconduct, the Iranian-Canadian community's response was divided.

November 29, 2020

#350 Loblaws Will Eat Us All

The Westons might be Canada’s Jeff Bezos, argues Vass Bednar, and not just because they’re very rich.

December 6, 2020

#351 A Uyghur Family Separated By China-Canada Politics

A man imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for years was released over a decade ago, after the U.S. decided he wasn’t an “enemy combatant” after all.

December 14, 2020

#352 Drunk Uncle Holiday Argument Simulator

The holidays, as we know them, are cancelled.

December 20, 2020

COMMONS: The Police – Dirty Tricks

A teenage boy and his friends start robbing banks in Toronto. A future Prime Minister is deported from Montreal. A Black Panther in Baltimore goes to prison for four decades.

December 27, 2020

Crackdown: Cut Off

Here's an episode of the podcast Crackdown, hosted by Garth Mullins.

December 30, 2020

#353 Dinosaur Internet

The pandemic has widened the digital divide, leaving people from Iqaluit to rural Alberta and Ontario fuming at ISPs like Xplornet.

January 3, 2021

#354 This Virus Is Rampant Because We Abandoned Workers

With COVID-19 cases in Canada on the rise, what about the people who can’t stay home?

January 10, 2021

#355 The Open Source Hunt For The Capitol Rioters

Many people who broke into the Capitol broadcast their crimes across social media. Twitter, Facebook and other platforms responded by deleting accounts, but other people rushed to preserve and organize all their posts from the assault on the Capitol, as well as photos and videos from journalists present.

January 18, 2021

#356 Joe Sacco

Comics journalist Joe Sacco tells Jesse about how he draws stories out of people— then draws them onto the page.

January 24, 2021

#357 Califail

The New York Times’ wildly popular podcast Caliphate came into question after its central character, a Canadian man who claimed he’d joined ISIS and committed executions, was charged with perpetrating a terrorist hoax.

January 31, 2021

#358 How India Blames Canada (And Rihanna) For The Farmers Protest

The Indian government doesn’t take criticism lightly, whether it’s from Prime Minister Trudeau... or Rihanna.

February 7, 2021

#359 The Convenient “Pretendian”

Michelle Latimer was the buzziest Canadian director and showrunner of 2020. But it all came crashing down in December when a CBC investigation called into question her Indigenous identity claims.

February 14, 2021

#360 How An Extreme Catholic News Site Went Full QAnon

LifeSiteNews may be the biggest Canadian news outlet you’ve never heard of — a kind of Breitbart for traditionalist Catholics.

February 21, 2021

#361 Will Government Media Rules Strangle Canadaland?

In Australia, the news disappeared from Facebook. And Jesse got very worried about the future.

February 28, 2021

CANADALAND