🍁 Canadian Independent Media

Connie Thiessen in Broadcast Dialogue

CBC pauses production of Indigenous ‘prank’ show ‘Northland Tales’

Criticism of the still-in-production show over its Yes Men-inspired method caused the CBC to pause production. The CBC says that it wants to ensure that it is clear that the show is produced by the entertainment division with APTN and not by CBC News.

Peter Menzies in The Rewrite

Postmedia is dropping the Canadian Press from all 130 of its publications, says Peter Menzies

Menzies says that tomorrow, Friday May 21, will be the final day for Canadian Press usage and that all copy must be removed from websites by May 25.

Fagstein

The Sherbrooke Record to become a weekly in print

After 129 years as a daily, The Record will print Fridays only. Publisher Sharon McCully says one of the reasons is the paper could no longer share distribution with the Montréal Gazette and must rely on Canada Post.

CBC

After 3 local newspapers closed, journalists revive print news in Burnaby, New West and Tri-Cities

Steve Faguy

Is Hits FM back in Montréal? Not quite, says its owner

Tim Bousquet at the Halifax Examiner

The erosion of The Coast: Founders of Halifax’s storied alt weekly have quit, and the new owner is publishing AI slop

Amy Eileen Hamm in the New Westminster Times

Reduxx Magazine Sued For Defamation In Japan For Calling A Male A Man

Three employees at four at Business in Vancouver, one at the Coast Report, and four at Vancouver is Awesome – including the editor in chief – have been laid off by Lodestar Media.

Lodestar is the newish name of the community and business newspaper division of Glacier Media.

Silvia Stifini at That Eurovision Site

Federal budget includes funds for the CBC to join Eurovision

Eurovision, a song contest amongst member nations, enjoys cult status across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. 

Despite the name, both Israel and Australia take part.

Broken Pencil

Broken Pencil publisher shuts zine review mag after 30 years, ‘torn down by a woke anti-Israel mob’

Hal Niedzviecki writes that he has been subjected to ‘online harassment over my personal beliefs, a petition demanding that I resign from the publication I founded, that the magazine formally support the Boycott Divest And Sanction Israel movement and devote an entire issue to the conflict in Gaza, and the withdrawal of authors and sponsors from our Canzine festivals in Ottawa and Toronto’. 

Jonathan Rotsztain in The Grind: ‘The cherished Toronto-based zine mag is no more, after the staff and wider community butted heads with the publisher over his staunch support for Israel and its war on Gaza’.

Christopher Dummitt in the National Post: ‘Hal Niedzviecki spent 30 years building a magazine and trade show, only to have it torn down by a woke anti-Israel mob’.

Philip Moscovitch in the Halifax Examiner: ‘I think there’s a lesson here, and it’s not that identity politics and cultural purity tests are destroying culture’.