John Gordon Miller's Blog
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John Gordon Miller's unique experience makes him sought after as an expert witness on journalism issues like libel and protection of sources.
John Gordon Miller's Blog
11M ago
Mark Twain once said “a lie can spread half way around the world while truth is still putting on its shoes.” That’s even truer today than it was in Twain’s time because social media can spread lies and so-called “fake news” far and wide with lightning speed, and we’ve seen how this can have devastating impacts on our democracy.
One of the most chilling proofs of this came out the other day. In his blog Media Policy, Howard Law revealed the results of a public opinion poll conducted last summer by the Department of Canadian Heritage but for some reason never released. He said it turned up une ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
1y ago
In Milton, Ontario, little Jimmy Jones won’t be picking up his Canadian Champions this week to deliver to his neighbours. It’s one of Canada’s oldest newspapers, tracing its roots back to 1858, but it was put to death by its corporate masters last Friday. In Aurora, the Banner will no longer appear on doorsteps to tell citizens what their elected representatives are up to. In Mississauga, with a population of 668,000, you won't be able to pick up the News to shop the flyers to find the best price of groceries.
The same thing—no more news in print—happened without warning the same day ac ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
1y ago
It was an explosive story: A Canadian Liberal member of Parliament was accused of being a willing pawn of Chinese foreign influence, so much so that he supposedly advocated for the continued detention of two Canadian businessmen held for two years in Beijing.
In the wake of the story by Global News, Han Dong resigned from the Liberal caucus and launched a $15 million libel suit for defamation against the network and some of its employees, including reporter Sam Cooper.
The story was quickly criticized for relying solely on anonymous sources. Dong, the elected member for Don Mills North, stron ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
1y ago
The jury in the libel trial of the century had already been sworn in: Five Black men, two Black women, three white women, a white man, and a Latino woman. Considering that the defendant was Fox News Network, the powerhouse right-wing cable TV king, it was hardly shaping up to be its sort of audience.
Sure enough, just before opening arguments began in Delaware Superior Court this week, Fox settled a lawsuit brought by a Canadian voting machine company, Dominion Voting Systems. The cost? A whopping $787.5 million, which is the largest amount of money ever paid to settle an American media ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
1y ago
Case N21C-03-257 EMD goes to trial before a jury in Delaware on Monday, and it’s shaping up as one of the most significant tests of media freedom and responsibility in decades. At its heart lies Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, in part because voting machines were programmed to switch votes to his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden.
Millions of Americans still believe him, despite dozens of court rulings that said there was no evidence for such a claim. Indeed, the judge in this case, Eric Davis of Delaware Superior Court, h ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
3y ago
When I surveyed Canadian newspaper newsrooms in 2004, asking who worked there by race and gender, more than half of them refused to tell me. One managing editor scrawled on the questionnaire: “Frankly, I find these questions insulting.”
That surprised me, especially since my survey was endorsed by what was then the Canadian Association of Newspaper Editors, whose mission was to uphold journalistic standards like accountability, and to fight for press freedom. That organization never carried out what I recommended—an annual survey of newsrooms to measure racial diversity.
My survey of 2,119 jou ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
3y ago
There are cliches about journalism that many journalists use to justify their work. Journalism is supposed to tell truth to power. It’s the first rough draft of history. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. News is something that someone wants suppressed—everything else is just advertising.
Here’s the scoop: Hardly anyone who reads journalism believes that anymore.
It all boils down to who do you trust.
Trust is the currency that sustains most journalistic endeavours. Trust between reporters and their sources. Trust between reporters and their editors. Trust between readers ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
3y ago
The most influential question of the federal election campaign was hardly noticed in the rest of Canada, but it certainly was in Quebec.
The question, asked by moderator Shachi Kurl at last Thursday’s English language election debate, was tough but fair. It reflected concerns of some racialized groups and others over controversial legislation passed by the Quebec National Assembly to reassert the rights of French culture and language in the province.
The exchange between her and Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet quickly inspired outrage across Quebec. Premier François Le ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
3y ago
Jack Morris, who helped pitch the Toronto Blue Jays to their first World Series title in 1993 and was recently inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, got in trouble this week and lost his job as a baseball TV analyst.
He mocked Shohei Ohtani, the major league home run leader, on air by using an exaggerated and stereotypical Japanese accent, saying pitchers needed to be “very, very careful” when pitching to the Los Angeles Angels star.
That was bad enough but his “apology” later in the broadcast did him in. It’s worth examining why because it sends an important message to anyone in the pu ..read more
John Gordon Miller's Blog
3y ago
You’re reading it here because you can’t read it anywhere else. Not one major newspaper or media outlet in Canada carried news that should have interested every one of us—Sunday’s press release from the head of the religious order that was responsible for burying 215 bodies of Indigenous children in unmarked graves at a former residential school.
Given the calls for accountability that are now being voiced for one of Canada’s most shameful tragedies, this omission must stand as one of the saddest failures of recent Canadian journalism.
A full three days after news broke of the shocking ..read more