Although climate change seems to be insidiously disrupting our social fabric, it makes the newscast only when there's a dramatic natural disaster. But given the strong consensus between the media and environmental advocates that objectivity doesn't do justice for climate change how can the news media provide effective coverage of climate change?

You wouldn't ever want to answer your front door to find Wendy Mesley holding a microphone there -- right next to a CBC camera flashing its little red light. Last Sunday, some of the old pre-perky Mesley came back. The following is the last part of of Mesley's interview with Jacques Duchesneau, the former Montreal police chief.

Most newspaper journalists aren't overly-fond of their publishers. Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger who was publisher of the estimable New York Times was always a splendid exception. In fact, he put his own freedom, and his newspaper's very existence, on the line because he believed absolutely in the public's right to know. Punch Sulzberger died Saturday and got a send-off few publishers anywhere have ever earned.

Once upon a time when the world was young and had hope, and global warming, the one per cent and social media hadn't yet been invented, there truly was a golden age for TV news in North America. Could Microsoft bring that golden age back since its split from MSNBC?

What the hell has happened to Canadian journalists? In Canada, one of the world's most multicultural nations, our main media are controlled by a tiny group of almost entirely white newsroom decision makers who live in a world cut off from ordinary people like you and me. One result of this is that they produce journalism for each other.

Last Sunday came yet another T.V. documentary detailing alleged abuse of young boys by Roman Catholic priests. As a journalist I investigated all sorts of stories about abuse of power. But, to my shame, it never occurred to me to investigate those rumours I'd heard so many years before about sexual abuse and the Catholic church in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Is Stephen Harper quietly working to "re-brand" Canada? Is his government emphasizing the military, the monarchy and select episodes of Canadian history in order to create a competing brand of right-wing Canadian nationalism and divert attention from the great symbols of Liberal patriotism, like medicare and Lester Pearson? The pundit class thinks so.

So what do 300 Canadian journalists bitch about when they get together for their annual conference? Speaker after speaker had the same complaint: Canadian authorities are preventing Canadian journalists practicing journalism in this participatory democracy.