Elections in the next few months will alter governments in three Canadian provinces, as well as in Washington DC, and in all states of the USA. Justin Trudeau will call a Canadian federal election in less than a year. Journalism we can trust is vital at all times, especially in late 2024 and early 2025.
Voters can find endless information from many sources, but we need accurate and thorough information to make informed decisions. Democracy cannot survive if voters are uninformed or misinformed.
Dan Froomkin asks why mainstream political journalists are not taking a more aggressive approach to explaining the threat to democracy. He speculates that it is because of the “dictums of hidebound editors who feel they should remain above the fray.”
Giving equal weight to two opposing political organizations is a valid approach for journalists only if both parties believe in democracy and universal human rights. If one group is anti-democratic or aims to repress certain population groups, media ought not to engage in false balance, or bothsidesism.
The Society of Professional Journalists declares these four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism:
- Seek truth and report it,
- Minimize harm,
- Act independently,
- Be accountable and transparent.
Unfortunately, a few major news providers fail to follow these principles. Some lack the resources, other lack the will.
Categories: Democracy, Journalism
in-sights.ca 
Good example here of how journalism is practiced here in B.C. as the water rises in the Peace River Valley. As far as the “major” news outlets, it’s as though it isn’t even happening.
Site C Dam Flooding: Witnessing the Grief from the loss of a river. – Westcoast Views with Laila Yuile
I was especially struck by the photo of the deer swimming to safety through their former home. There should be video of that on the nightly news. Guess they can’t afford bus fare to the site.
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Try transit and journalism. IN Metro Vancouver we operate a very expensive, proprietary light metro system, that none evidently wants or wanted.
The system has been on the market for almost 50 years, yet …
Under the marketing name Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS), 2 Linear Induction Motored (LIM) systems were built. One was a small single track loop line in Detroit and the Provincial government forced one onto the TTC, now abandoned. The former one in Detroit is kept in operation by the transit authority going to toronto and the TTC’s ICTS “garage sale”.
The LIM powered system was unsalable, yet by changing the name it Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) the politcal rubes in Vancouver bought one and continue building with it.
As the system was unsalable, it was sold to Lavalin and renamed Advanced Light Metro (ALM), but Lavalin went bankrupt trying to build one in Bangkok. The result, Siemens built a metro system instead and SNC amalgamated with Lavalin to become SNC Lavalin.
Bombardier then bought the remains of ALM and found it so badly designed that they rebuilt the system using their Innovia light metro bodyshell and named the system Advanced Rapid Transit (ART).
4 such systems were built (5 including the Millennium Line in Vancouver) of which two, in Korea and Malaysia, embroiled Bombardier and SNC Lavalin in bribery scandals over the issue of paying “success fees” to senior bureaucrats and politicians. The American federal government refused to provide any funding for one because ART failed a peer review panel (the Canadian government funded it through the Canadian Overseas Development Bank) and one was built by the Chinese government to obtain technology.
That the Chinese transportation authorities have not built another one or extended the present line is telling.
The one built in Vancouver was part of a mysterious flip-flop by the then NDP government from building what the local experts wanted, LRT and instead build what the NDP were told to build.
No sales in over 20 years and ART remained an orphan transit system and the name was changed to Innovia Metro system with LIMs being a free add on and finally Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) system, now owned by also who have strongly indicated they are not interested in producing this transit system.
Now the provincial NDP are spending over $15 billion to extend the two LIM powered light metro lines a mere 21.7 km on two routes that will carry the same or less than the current Broadway B99 bus!
Yet the mainstream media have never printed any of this and continue to be big boosters of this long obsolete proprietary transit system.
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