Journalism

Angela Murphy, foreign editor for the Globe and Mail, credits her education at ��Ƶ's Faculty of Arts & Science with giving her the tools to better understand the world she covers every day as a journalist.

Murphy earned her bachelor of arts degree at U of T in 1986 as a member of Victoria College, with a double major in English literature and political science. She says both programs prepared her for her future career, whether it was learning about Canada's place on the world stage or analyzing the historical roots of famous fiction.

"When you’re a journalist, it's so important to know history,” Murphy says. “You need context for today’s current events, and studying the arts informs our humanity – it’s the universal glue that holds us together as a civilization, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.”

Murphy got her first taste of journalism as a reporter with the newspaper, U of T’s independent campus publication, where she reported on university politics and governance and also learned typesetting.

“I met lots of people and I learned how to produce story ideas on the fly," she says. "Student newspapers are a wonderful place to hone your skills.”

John Kirton, a professor in the department of political science, taught Murphy during her undergraduate years and remembers her as a standout student.

“She was a great communicator and could always convey the essence of not just the facts, but the worldview of the intended listener,” recalls Kirton. “She was very engaging and the kind of student who you knew would succeed.”

Murphy's experience at U of T inspired her to earn a master’s degree in journalism from Western University after graduation. Following a stint at the St. Catharine’s Standard, she forged a successful career as a copy editor with the National Post and then as a city editor for the Globe, overseeing coverage of the late Rob Ford’s chaotic term as mayor of Toronto.

Then, as special projects editor, Murphy was part of an investigation into missing and murdered Indigenous women, holding federal politicians accountable for promises to reconcile a dark chapter of Canadian history.

“That’s the reason I do this job,” she says. “It’s so satisfying when you get to dig deep into something and you hope you’re going to get some government action.”

Next, Murphy set her sights on international headlines as the Globe’s foreign editor, coordinating coverage for three U.S. elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other major global stories.

In her role, Murphy still gives back to U of T. Each year she grants media accreditation to several U of T students travelling to the G7 and G20 summits with Kirton’s research groups.

As foreign editor, Murphy oversees reporters in bureaus around the world from Washington to Kyiv, but she never forgets her roots, stressing the importance of keeping local news alive for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

“It’s essential to hold local politicians and authorities to account and if that ever stops happening, I think we’re all in trouble,” she says.

While years of covering big stories with international implications can take a toll, Murphy says she still craves the adrenaline that comes with working in the news business.

“Many journalists wear themselves out because they love what they do, but to me, this work always feels so important – and that’s very rewarding,” she says.

Murphy hopes other U of T students and alumni will find that same passion. She says those seeking a career in journalism shouldn’t be discouraged by shuttered newsrooms and dwindling advertising dollars – there are still plenty of opportunities to do meaningful work.

“Traditional media is going through a tough time, but there are still so many opportunities to do journalism in non-traditional places," she notes. "It’s an honourable profession and a worthwhile pursuit.”

Student project creates accessible database of Canada's first newspapers

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 17:25:04 +0000

Student project creates accessible database of Canada's first newspapers

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/12/2022 - 13:25

Cutline

The front page of issue No. 1 of Le Canadien, which was published November 22, 1806 (image via U of T Scarborough Library)

Tina Adamopoulos

Topic

Our Community

Humanities

Jackman Humanities Institute

Journalism

U of T Scarborough

Undergraduate Students

Researchers at the ��Ƶ are providing valuable insight into Canadian history by creating an accessible, free database of the nation’s first newspapers.

Led by Sébastien Drouin, an associate professor in the department of language studies at U of T Scarborough, the bilingual project, “Early Modern Canadian Newspapers Online” is a collection of newspapers from the second half of the eighteenth century – from 1752 to 1810 – printed in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Québec and Ontario.

“There are libraries at other universities that have started some digitization of Canadian newspapers, but there are no other projects right now dedicated to early modern Canadian newspapers,” says Drouin, an expert in early modern clandestine literature and early modern journalism.

Sébastien Drouin

“We’re very excited about giving access to documents that are almost impossible to find right now.”

The project is one of five at U of T Scarborough that were recently supported by the Jackman Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) program. Fueled by the Jackman Humanities Institute, the tri-campus initiative offers undergraduate students a platform to conduct research with a professor working in the humanities or social sciences for an intensive four-week period.

It took a multi-disciplinary team of students in early modern and Canadian histories, book history and the computer sciences to drive the project.

U of T Scarborough Library’s Digital Scholarship Unit (DSU), an initiative that helps researchers with digital collections, digital preservation and scholarly communications, was a key partner in helping the SiR team connect with institutions across the country who have access to early modern newspapers – which are often stored on microfilms.

The library has so far supported the discovery and digitization of 24 newspapers (so far) through partnerships with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network and the University of New Brunswick Libraries. In fact, the U of T Scarborough Library is now the owner of a 19^th-century newspaper called Le Canadien.

Five U of T students worked on populating the database with the microfilms to create searchable bio-bibliographical profiles of the newspapers, including its printers, first journalists and the context of publication.

There are 30 copies of various newspapers in the database, the majority being full-runs published in 1752 – the year that the Halifax Gazette, Canada’s first newspaper, was printed in Nova Scotia. Another find was 18th-century subscribers lists to the Québec Gazette.

“Newspapers were less about freedom of expression and more of a colonial enterprise,” Drouin says. ”It slowly evolved into a vehicle for expressing your opinion.”

U of T Scarborough students Sapphire Davis and Tanya Ng Cheong were work-study students with the digital scholarship unit who participated in the SiR program.

Ng Cheong, a third-year English, journalism and creative writing student, prepared materials to be processed for categorization. This included sorting and examining microphotographs for damage and the tedious process of documenting page numbers, dates, titles and locations of publication for each item.

An international student from Mauritius, Ng Cheong says the project was a unique way to learn about Canadian history.

“A really interesting part for me has been learning about Canadian history,” Ng Cheong says. “I’m not learning about it in class. I’m learning from the newspapers people were reading centuries ago in Canada. It tells me so much more than what I could have read on a Wikipedia page, for example.”

For the SiR project, Davis and Ng Cheong took a deeper dive into the contents of the newspapers themselves, which included transcribing the articles, searching for mentions of notable people in history and researching additional context for the database.

Students are also investigating the newspapers’ content through a de-colonizing lens, with the goal of helping academics who are studying Black and Indigenous history more easily access resources.

“We saw ads for slave auctions, notices for search warrants and really paid attention to the language used,” says Davis, a fifth-year French and linguistics student. “I think our first step in the decolonization part of this project is that we can prove what happened in Canadian history and do the work to dismantle that.”

The team will continue to develop the database, with hopes of launching it next year. Meanwhile, the U of T Scarborough Library will work with student staff through its Emerging Professionals program to provide additional opportunities for U of T students to gain experience in software programming and processing work utilized in the SiR project.

From fixer to reporter: After escaping the Taliban, U of T's Jalal Nazari is on his way to becoming a journalist

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 17:13:15 +0000

From fixer to reporter: After escaping the Taliban, U of T's Jalal Nazari is on his way to becoming a journalist

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/10/2022 - 13:13

Cutline

Jalal Nazari, who would go on to study journalism at U of T as part of the Dalla Lana Fellowship in Global Journalism, snaps a selfie in front of a Ukrainian military plane before fleeing Afghanistan on Aug. 20, 2021 (photo courtesy of Jalal Nazari)

Jalal Nazari

Topic

Global Lens

Afghanistan

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Global

Journalism

Jalal Nazari fled his home country of Afghanistan one year ago this month following the Taliban takeover. He found his way to the ��Ƶ, where he participated in the Dalla Lana Fellowship in Global Journalism – a program that trains and mentors subject matter experts from around the world so they can provide deeper reporting for global media outlets. Working with U of T News writer Mariam Matti, Nazari agreed to share, in his own words, the details of his difficult and often dangerous journey from Kabul to Toronto – and what his future holds.

My last week in Kabul, Afghanistan was filled with uncertainty.

At the airport under the blistering heat, I was surrounded by more than 20,000 Afghans who were desperate to leave – some even clinging to an American military jet as it was attempting to take off.

I did not know then that my journey would eventually take me to the ��Ƶ.

The Taliban took over major cities on August 15, 2021, shortly after the U.S. military withdrew operations in the country. Since I worked as a fixer for the Wall Street Journal in its Afghanistan bureau, I was lucky to have colleagues who helped me navigate the scary and chaotic situation.

At the Kabul airport, people were dehydrated, exhausted and scared. I saw dead bodies and people being beaten by members of the Taliban for no reason. The U.S. military fired shots in the air to disperse crowds.

Along with my Journal colleagues, I accessed the American military’s side of the airport.

People wait at the airport in Kabul in August 2021 (photo courtesy of Jalal Nazari)

I remember the moment we crossed to safety, sitting in the back of a U.S. marine’s pick-up truck with the wind blowing on my face. I would spend three nights sleeping under the wing of an airplane, but I felt free. I felt like I was released from prison.

After spending a week at the Kabul airport, our plane took off on August 21, 2021, bound for Kyiv. During my three-month stay in Ukraine, I decided to apply for an asylum visa in Canada. The Wall Street Journal helped me enroll in U of T’s Dalla Lana Fellowship in Global Journalism so I could continue to pursue one of my passions.

Looking back at my life in Afghanistan, I now realize how hard it was to live in a conflict zone. In the last five years I lived in Kabul, there wasn’t a day without an explosion or suicide attack.

I lost several friends in these attacks and escaped several attacks myself. I was not able to visit my parents because they lived in another city and the highways were dangerous for people like me. I’m part of one of the most discriminated minority groups in Afghanistan – the Hazaras. We’ve faced persecution for decades and now fear the rule of the Taliban.

I studied English language and literature at Balkh University back home. It wasn’t my first choice – I have always been interested in gender and sexuality studies, topics that are considered taboo in Afghanistan. Since there’s very little sex education in the country, it has always been a dream of mine to fill that gap. Before the pandemic, I organized secret meetings of up to 15 to 20 young people. I led discussions and recommended books for people who wished to learn more about gender and sexuality.

(Photo courtesy of Jalal Nazari)

While I was doing that, I was also teaching English in my second year of university. I started taking on jobs as a translator for local companies, researchers and journalists.

Working as a translator opened my eyes to the world of journalism, which I found fascinating.

That’s around the time I met freelance photojournalist Paula Bronstein on an assignment. I started working with the Wall Street Journal after she introduced me to the paper’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov. I contributed to stories by scheduling and translating interviews.

My experience with the Journal made me think deeply about the media’s role in shaping public discourse and informing people’s thinking. It also helped me become a more empathetic person who was understanding of people’s adversities.

In short, I came to believe the work that journalists do is very important.

My day-to-day life has been very different since arriving in Toronto last November. I lived at an airport hotel until Rob Steiner, director of the Dalla Lana Fellowship, suggested that I move to Massey College. With the help of Nathalie Des Rosiers, the college’s principal, and Catherine Fowler, the college’s chief administrative officer and bursar, I was able to move in at the end of January.

As a Dalla Lana Global Journalism Fellow, I was able to learn even more about my craft. I learned about podcasting, story writing and structure, investigative journalism, and the policies and procedures Canadian media outlets follow. I learned how to pitch a story and how to follow up with an editor – all skills that will help me in my professional career.

It was a pleasure to meet my classmates, who all came from different backgrounds. There was constant collaboration in the classroom – brainstorming story ideas and reading each other’s articles and providing feedback. I’ve built a reliable community and network through the fellowship – one that I valued immensely as a newcomer trying to navigate my personal and professional life in Canada.

I called Massey home for more than six months. I was immediately drawn to the small water fountains, four benches in the courtyard and the beautiful lighting at night. About 60 students live at the college before the summer vacation and they come from all corners of the world and vastly different social and academic backgrounds. I loved getting to know prominent authors, experienced journalists, award-winning researchers and many great people.

Apala Das, a PhD candidate in English literature from India, was my first friend at U of T. I met her in the courtyard the night I moved in, and we quickly connected. I figured it was because of our cultural similarities and the fact that we were both far away from our families. Our conversations often centered around topics like race, migration and cultural differences between South Asia and Canada. She shared with me how hard it was for her to adjust to unfamiliar social and cultural norms when she first moved to Canada four years ago, a process I’m going through as I navigate living in Toronto.

When I think back to my last week inside the Kabul airport, it was hard to picture my future. I am grateful to be in Canada and to be a part of the U of T community because it has given me a sense of direction. I also feel a sense of freedom to pursue my interest in gender and sexuality studies – while I continue to pitch stories and work in the journalism industry.

I have continued pursuing my side passions as well – writing poetry in Farsi and practicing the art of calligraphy in Farsi and Arabic. I’ve been invited to Australia later this month to perform poetry as part of a theatre show called A Poetic Crash Course in the Language of Love.

These are opportunities I do not take for granted.

Unfortunately, my freedom has not come without a price. It is not easy to watch my family and Afghans experience hardships under the Taliban rule. But my experience has made me all the more determined to be somebody who can help advocate for a better world.

U of T Faculty of Law students delve into journalism, media law issues during Toronto Star 'externship'

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 20 May 2022 19:38:20 +0000

U of T Faculty of Law students delve into journalism, media law issues during Toronto Star 'externship'

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/20/2022 - 15:38

Cutline

U of T students Dan Schechner, Sabrina Macklai and Jane Fallis Cooper pictured on the last day of their eight-month externship in media law at the Toronto Star.

Nina Haikara

Topic

Our Community

Student Experience

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Law

Journalism

Media

From working with in-house counsel experts to advancing social justice initiatives and providing information about access to justice services at legal aid clinics, the ��Ƶ Faculty of Law continues to offer its JD students first-hand experience through for-credit externships with outside partners, as well as paid summer fellowships.

Three U of T Law students recently had the opportunity to work with the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) – based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health – as well as the Toronto Star and parent company Torstar’s legal counsel. The externship began in September and finished at the end of April.

“The overarching narrative of this externship was media law considerations at Toronto Star,” says law student Sabrina Macklai, who will enter her third year of study this fall.

“We worked with the IJB, doing things like filing FOIs – Freedom of Information Requests – appeals and other assistance. On the flip side, we helped Torstar’s legal counsel, Emma Carver, with various tasks from prepping court materials to trial.”

From left to right: Sabrina Macklai, Jane Fallis Cooper, Robert Cribb, Emma Carver, Dan Schechner and Iris Fischer.

The externship was co-taught and supervised by Carver, media lawyer Iris Fischer, a partner at Blake’s LLP, and investigative journalist and Investigative Journalism Bureau founder Robert Cribb.

“We created the externship to provide law students with real-world experience in the exciting and fast-paced landscape of media law and public interest journalism,” says Carver, a graduate of U of T Law.

“Dan, Sabrina and Jane infused our newsroom with fresh energy and creative thinking and provided invaluable support to the IJB’s journalists. I believe it’s important to get law students thinking early on about how freedom of expression, open courts and responsible journalism are essential to our democracy and social fabric, and about the role media lawyers play in helping journalists do their work.

“Each law student made tangible contributions in these areas, which is something we are excited to continue in the coming years.”

U of T Law student Jane Fallis Cooper, who will begin her third year of the JD program this fall, says the information sessions organized by Fischer and Carver helped ground the cases they worked on.

“They brought in interesting people who have done investigative journalism at various levels of the Star and a court justice, who gave us primers on different areas of media law, such as defamation,” Cooper says.

Fischer, meanwhile, says it was gratifying to see students interacting with guests on a range of cutting-edge media law issues.

“It’s incredibly motivating to work with such talented students,” Fischer said. “Dan, Sabrina and Jane really immersed themselves in the legal issues and the stories they worked on and brought a fresh perspective to applying what we discussed in our theory sessions.”

Among their tasks, Macklai and graduating JD student Dan Schechner helped draft a factum for an anti-SLAPP motion. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation and are also known as intimidation lawsuits.

“Anti-SLAPP is a pretty new addition to Ontario civil procedure and it's a way of trying to prevent specious or meritless litigation that takes up court resources and makes it harder to access justice for people who have real substantive claims,” explains Schechner.

“What happens a lot in the media context is the newspaper will write about someone and that person is either unhappy with how they were portrayed or, something else that doesn't amount to a real legal issue with the article. But nonetheless they’ll bring a claim for defamation or another claim that relates to the article.

“Anti-SLAPP is a new mechanism that helps prevent against that case from taking up court resources by presenting a motion to get the court to rule it’s a SLAPP case and should be thrown out.”

Both Macklai and Schechner had previously worked with student newspapers but couldn't have imagined the depth of legal considerations that go into a publication before print.

“Who should we reach out to for comment? How long is a reasonable time to give people to get back to you for comment? What are the legal implications of certain investigations? Do we need to ask for copyright clearance for this image, or can we just avail an exception? There are a lot of nuances,” says Macklai.

Fallis Cooper worked with Investigative Journalism Bureau cases related to hospitals and the health-care system, which she found particularly relevant during COVID-19. The cases allowed her to combine her legal knowledge with her previous studies in bioethics.

“Rob [Cribb] kindly allowed me to sit in on IJB meetings, where I was able to discuss both ethical and legal issues related to the students’ investigations,” Fallis Cooper says. “Additionally, as a final project, I looked into undercover journalistic principles and the law. I've done interviews with investigative journalists who have done undercover work and was able to combine that with legal research to create a legal primer on the subject.”

“Bringing law students together with journalists to work collaboratively on real-world investigations was a remarkable innovation that elevated our shared work, helped us expand our journalistic reach and impact, and produced some real moments of magic along the way,” says Cribb. “This is a novel approach that I believe holds tremendous potential.”

The U of T Law students hope the Investigative Journalism Bureau externship will be offered again in future years and encourage their law classmates to consider other externships.

“One thing that I really liked about the externship was that it was very flexible to our individual interests,” says Schechner. “The highlight for me was working with journalists one-on-one on a variety of small motions.

“Everything would be run by Emma, of course, because we’re not lawyers and can’t give legal advice – but playing the part, thinking through real problems that non-lawyers were facing when interacting with the legal system was really interesting.”

Macklai agrees.

“I love being at the law school, but going to the Toronto Star every Friday to talk to people who are not in law school and are not lawyers let me learn so much more about how the law interacts with people and influences their work,” she says.

“It’s very, very cool to see how things you read about in class are applied at the Toronto Star. “

Schechner says he was prepared to wrap-up his final year with coursework, but the externship was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“Media law was something I've always been interested in. In hindsight, my law school experience wouldn’t have felt complete without it.”

U of T researcher studies how movies shaped the public's understanding of investigative journalism

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 20:48:27 +0000

U of T researcher studies how movies shaped the public's understanding of investigative journalism

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 12/11/2019 - 15:48

Cutline

The classic 1976 movie All the President’s Men, starring Robert Redford, helped establish a "heroic" narrative about investigative journalism, according to U of T Professor Sandford Borins (photo by Warner Bros)

Topic

Rotman School of Management

U of T Scarborough

In one of the most iconic scenes in All the President’s Men, a mysterious figure emerges from the shadows of a deserted parking garage and tells Bob Woodward, a young, hungry reporter, “Just follow the money.”

The classic 1976 movie established several elements that came to characterize movies about investigative journalism – not to mention the occupation itself, according to a new study by Sandford Borins, a professor in the department of management at the ��Ƶ Scarborough.

“The average person doesn’t know much about journalism at work, because they rarely come into contact with journalists. They only see the output,” Borins says.

“Movies about investigative journalism are the primary way that the public learns about what investigative journalists do.”

Borins analyzed six American movies about investigative journalism made in the United States over the last 40 years, beginning with All the President’s Men, which follows reporters Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) as they expose the Watergate scandal.

Movies in the same genre often incorporate the same fables – structural elements such as character types, themes and plot points. Borins’s study, co-authored with scholar and author Beth Herst and published in Journalism Practice, looks at what fables exist in the subgenre of investigative journalism movies.

To define the fable, Borins used a unique methodology in which he identified 14 core elements of the investigative journalism fable and dubbed it the “heroic investigative journalism fable.” He discovered that James Hamilton, an economist at Stanford University, had studied applicants for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism and found a similar pattern.

In the heroic investigative fable, a team of journalists begin to research and then enlist support from their editor to pursue a story. The journalists interview sources and sift through mountains of documents, piecing the paper trail together. Despite opposition, the story is eventually published, leading to social change.

A unique element of the fable, and of the subgenre of investigative journalism movies, is the lack of screen time given to the journalists’ personal lives.

“In typical journalism movies, there’s always the love story in the back, and these movies purposely say, ‘That’s not what we’re talking about,’” Borins says. “I think that communicates to the audience a level of seriousness, that this is really important and it demands our complete attention.”

Sandford Borins, a professor of management at U of T Scarborough, says movies about investigative journalism can create unrealistic expectations at a time when reporters face allegations of “fake news” and mass closures of newspapers (photo by Ken Jones)

Borins then used the fable to examine five movies. Two were stories of clear success that embodied the heroic investigative fable (All the President’s Men and Spotlight). Two were stories in which the impact of the investigative journalism was lessened by conflicts with corporate managers of media outlets (Good Night and Good Luck and The Insider). The final two were counter-fables in which the investigative journalists ultimately failed (Truth and Kill the Messenger).

Borins says these movies can create unrealistic expectations of investigative journalism. In the real world, editors may decide an investigative journalist’s work is too risky to publish, thus, the story never makes it to film. People may also confuse it with breaking news reporting, meaning “audiences might come to the erroneous conclusion that investigative journalism is typical.”

“Hollywood always has a tendency to hype its heroes,” Borins says. “While there are occasional movies about failed investigative journalism, such as Kill the Messenger and Truth, the movies about successful investigative journalism have been more successful.”

The study, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, cites several works on the impact of movies. These narratives can shape a person’s beliefs, their social and policy views, their activities in the public sphere and even inspire activism.

Borins notes that narratives in these movies can change the way people view investigative journalism and its role in a democratic society. He says understanding investigative journalism is increasingly important, particularly in the U.S. where journalists now face allegations of “fake news” and mass closures of newspapers.

Borins, for his part, remains hopeful.

“The fact that you have an administration led by someone for whom lying is like breathing and enablers who try to cover this up has stimulated investigative journalism at the national level in the U.S.,” Borins says.

“And journalists in different countries are aware of each other’s efforts.”

Press passes and prime ministers: Inside Peter Mansbridge’s archives at U of T

Romi Levine — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 20:06:36 +0000

Press passes and prime ministers: Inside Peter Mansbridge’s archives at U of T

Romi Levine Tue, 03/05/2019 - 15:06

Cutline

Letters, photographs and speech notes from Peter Mansbridge's time at CBC are now housed at U of T (photo by Dustin Rabin)

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

He’s rubbed shoulders with Barack Obama, hosted eight Olympic opening ceremonies, and was the deep, commanding voice in Canadian living rooms, reporting on the most important news stories of the last half-century. Now, Peter Mansbridge’s illustrious career will be immortalized at the ��Ƶ.

U of T Libraries’ Media Commons has acquired Mansbridge’s archive of items related to his long career at the CBC. The treasure trove paints a picture not only of the famed anchor but of the news industry throughout the decades and the current events that shaped the world in that time.

When Mansbridge announced his retirement from hosting CBC’s flagship news show The National in 2017, Brock Silversides, head of U of T’s Media Commons, said he thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask him to donate his material to the library.

“When I heard he was deciding on retiring, I thought let's give it a try,” said Silversides.

So he sent Mansbridge a letter – yes, a physical letter – with his request. Days later, Mansbridge’s executive assistant got back to him to say he was on board.

That’s how U of T ended up with 19 banker boxes of material from Mansbridge – now housed at the university’s sprawling Downsview facility. The archives of Canadian journalists Michael Maclear and Patrick Watson are also housed at U of T.

Mansbridge collected his press passes from various events and speaking engagements, all neatly organized in an album

When Mansbridge initially received Silversides's request, it was the first time he considered archiving his material on this scale.

“I couldn't think of anybody who would actually want anything from my almost 50 years at the CBC,” he joked. “But I was wrong.”

The archive's value comes from Mansbridge’s meticulous collecting and filing of everything from press passes to letters and speech notes.

His collection of photographs illustrate the evolution of his career – from a picture of him (above) as a young disc jockey in Churchill, Man., in 1969, a year after he was discovered while making announcements on an airport PA system, to candid shots of him interviewing prime ministers, including John Diefenbaker, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau.

“I can remember the first time I interviewed Pierre Trudeau – I was so nervous about it because I was very young, he was a big deal, very smart, and rarely got trapped in an interview,” recalls Mansbridge. “Most interviews with him were painful for the reporter – you usually would get beaten up pretty bad.”

Mansbridge is seen here (fourth from right) standing in front of Pierre Trudeau (far right) in 1978 (photo by Rod MacIvor)

Mansbridge was also the first and only CBC journalist to conduct a one-on-one interview with a sitting U.S. president when he spoke with Barack Obama about a month after he was inaugurated.

“It was a big deal,” he said.

Throughout his career, Mansbridge received letters from viewers across the country on a range of topics including his coverage of the Pope John Paul II visit to Canada in 1984, the Charlottetown Accord referendum in 1992 and the Iraq war in the early 2000s.

“There are obviously the extremes,” said Mansbridge of the varying tone of correspondence he receives. “There are ones that really like you no matter what you do and there are some that really hate you no matter what you do. But in the middle, there's that fascinating part of Canada who will talk to you about things that are on their mind and perhaps how you could do better at reporting on those issues.”

Mansbridge said he learned to take lessons from those letters – seeing them as a unique window into public opinion on what gaps needed to be filled in news coverage.

In 1987, Mansbridge was courted by CBS in the U.S. to host its morning show. He rejected the offer, instead becoming lead anchor at CBC and host of The National – much to the delight of Canadians.

Letters poured in praising him for his decision to stay, including one (pictured left) from a 23-year-old woman who thanked him for sticking around, and wrote: “Thanks for showing us that we can be proud to be Canadian.”

Mansbridge may have stepped down as host of The National, but he’s still busy filming documentaries with the CBC. He also maintains close ties with U of T, where his son is at Victoria College in his second year studying political science. Mansbridge also holds an honorary degree from U of T and is a distinguished fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

In April, Mansbridge will be hosting in an interactive event for students at the Munk school on the future of news.

“News is in trouble in a lot of ways. People don't watch, listen or read it the way they used to, they don't consume it the way they used to, they don't believe it the way they used to,” he said.

“I always used to be able to predict what was going to happen in the news industry but I don't know anymore.”

Trying to get at the root of the problem is a challenge, he said. It’ll be up to the next wave of journalists to shape the future of news.

“It’s the students' generation that is going to determine this, more so than ever before.”

Time for a digital detox? U of T expert training journalists for the ‘fake news’ era

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 18:40:10 +0000

Time for a digital detox? U of T expert training journalists for the ‘fake news’ era

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 07/13/2018 - 14:40

Cutline

Jeffrey Dvorkin, the director of the journalism program at U of T Scarborough, has written a new book to help train journalists in an age of disinformation (photo by rawpixel via Unsplash)

Topic

When Jeffrey Dvorkin began his journalism career at CBS News in 1972, “the assumption was that no one is going to lie to you.”

“There was a complete agreement that the news you got from your local newspaper or off the local radio or television was fine,” says Dvorkin, who was then a graduate student. “Partly because we may have been a bit naive, but it was also about how news and information was a kind of cultural glue that kept a society together.”

Nearly 50 years later, Dvorkin is the director of the journalism program at the ��Ƶ Scarborough, where graduates enter an entirely transformed media environment. In the midst of the digital era, news organizations' resources are plummeting while the quantity of information – and the speed that it's delivered to consumers – is skyrocketing. To prepare up-and-coming journalists for this environment, he wrote Critical News Literacy, a textbook that hits shelves this summer.

The book covers topics including truth and verification, bias (both good and bad), deconstructing news and its sources, and the consequences of fake news. The book also calls for the “best traditions of journalists” – which Dvorkin dubs “curiosity and skepticism” – to be imparted to the public. Each chapter concludes with an ethical dilemma ripped from the headlines of Dvorkin’s time as the first ombudsman for National Public Radio (NPR).

One of the book’s major themes is understanding what constitutes reputable information, suggesting the acronym “VIA,” which stands for “verification," “independence" and “accountability."

“If one of those elements might be missing from a piece of journalism or a news report that you’re looking at, reading, listening to, then you should be questioning the whole thing,” Dvorkin says.

“There’s still a lot of people who are easily changed by that misinformation and disinformation.”

Dvorkin argues the problem of fake news is magnified by an assumption in journalism: digital is better for communicating and, thus, more digital is even better

Inspiration came to Dvorkin in New York, at Stony Brook University, where he teaches four journalism classes per year by video. He observed American students struggling to be part of the “Trumpian environment.” Upon learning of Dvorkin’s planned study leave, one professor encouraged him to write a book on that very theme.

In 2017, while redesigning introductory courses for the U of T Scarborough journalism program, Dvorkin realized his 12 lectures could be written into chapters (the book will not be required for his courses).

He argues the problem of inaccurate information, including fake news, is furthered by a an assumption in journalism – that digital is better for communicating and, thus, more digital is even better.

“Instead, people are so overwhelmed by this stuff that they’re in retreat,” Dvorkin says. He explains that this is why some pull away from the news, only visit sites that confirm existing beliefs or withdraw entirely to watch cat videos.

He says the solution is to develop a new set of instincts. Dvorkin hopes Critical News Literacy will introduce students to the idea that it is acceptable to take regular breathers from technology.

“It’s a big challenge, but it’s one that I think is urgently needed at this point,” he says.

This would require a mental shift for students since it would require to them to view technology as a tool. However, Dvorkin says this could “give them a kind of an empowerment.”

Dvorkin hopes this sense of control will extend to other aspects of digital life, including self-image, insecurity and the mental health issues that impact young people who grow up entrenched in technology.

“I think that this idea of a digital detox is really important. We have to figure out the ways we can do it,” he says. “One way is to give people a sense that they control the information, not the other way around.”

Violent news: Psychological trauma a new risk in digital age

lanthierj — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 13:55:54 +0000

Violent news: Psychological trauma a new risk in digital age lanthierj Mon, 07/10/2017 - 09:55

Cutline

Violent and distressing news video and images such as this girl fleeing fighting in Mosul, Iraq, on July 2, pose mental health risks for journalists in newsrooms — a new phenomenon. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Dr. Anthony Feinstein

Author legacy

Dr. Anthony Feinstein

Topic

Subheadline

U of T's Dr. Anthony Feinstein & The Conversation

Psychological trauma from seeing violent and distressing incidents in news coverage is a growing risk for journalists, even for those who have never been in the field.

Once a taboo subject in newsrooms, a body of research going back for almost two decades shows that journalists can feel adverse psychological effects from their work in conflict zones.

Journalists who choose to cover war, revolution and disaster are largely psychologically resilient. But there are some who succumb emotionally to horrors they have witnessed.

Data now show that frontline journalists have significantly higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety disorders and substance abuse compared to journalists who choose local reportage and who don’t travel to dangerous places.

News organizations have accordingly changed their approach to looking after their staff, recognizing they have a moral responsibility to ensure both the physical and psychological welfare of those dispatched to cover conflict.

New risk: Crowd-sourced imagery

But as the media evolves, the risks change as well. A new phenomenon is the stress posed to some journalists by user-generated content (UGC). This refers to images and video material, often violent, transmitted to newsrooms from the man in the street.

Citizens in the world’s most dangerous places — such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen — can now easily send live images of atrocities to Western news outlets.

Imagery akin to this Associated Press photo of a family in Mosul, Iraq on July 2, increasingly enters newsrooms via social media. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

The same phenomenon is taking place with events closer to home: Terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America have generated a vast amount of local media coverage from ordinary citizens, which has also made its way to news organizations.

Such is the volume of imagery now received by the media that journalists are being employed specifically to screen the material — much of it too violent for viewers. This raises the question: How are journalists who screen such material faring psychologically? I recently addressed this potential problem in the linked study whose results were published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Open. Two big Western news organizations took part. More than 100 journalists working with user-generated content were assessed on an array of indices that measure psychological well-being.

No safe place

The results of the study showed that most journalists who work with this material are emotionally well. However, there remains a minority who struggle to leave these images of violence behind them at the end of the day.

There are journalists who continue to experience unwanted, intrusive recollections of what they have witnessed on a monitor in the safe confines of an office. These images can intrude into dreams. Flashbacks can occur. These experiences can prove deeply upsetting to journalists and lead to difficulty falling asleep, irritability, poor concentration and a sense of personal insecurity.

In response to these feelings, journalists may make a conscious effort to push away recollections of the traumatic image. A journalist’s emotions may become blunted by witnessing a visual diet of endless atrocities. This emotional disconnection, viewed as a defence, may have negative consequences for personal relationships.

While the study showed journalists working with user-generated content can be emotionally affected by their work, it’s important to keep a sense of perspective. The level of distress in journalists sitting in a safe office doing this work is, on average, well below that seen in journalists on the front lines of a war zone. Nevertheless, the basic symptoms are similar.

Remedy unclear

News organizations are now presented with a fresh challenge: How to look after the emotional well-being of staff who spend many hours daily reviewing visual material that contains grotesque images of violence.

The solution is not readily apparent. My data showed that journalists who were repeatedly exposed in short, sharp bursts to images of violence were more likely to be adversely affected psychologically than those who sat for prolonged periods doing this kind of work.

Journalists in newsrooms are seeing more graphically violent video and photos than this image of Iraqi Omar Ali grieving his 15-month-old daughter Amira in Mosul in 2016. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

This suggests that those with prolonged exposure habituated to what they were viewing. While this might be protective in the short term, how habituation and the unconscious blunting of emotional responsiveness might play out in a social milieu away from work is unknown.

Given that there are now no-go areas in the world for Western journalists, news organizations are increasingly relying on news that comes from freelancers and the man in the street. User-generated content is clearly here to stay.

Violent images cannot be sanitized, but they can potentially be made less deleterious to the emotional health of those required to screen them. How best to do this is the subject of ongoing research.

Just as news organizations faced a moral responsibility in the past to look after their frontline journalists, and have largely risen to the challenge, a similar commitment is now needed for those assigned to work with user-generated content.

Anthony Feinstein is a professor in the department of psychiatry at the ��Ƶ. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Police should never have power to tap journalists' phones, says U of T’s Jeffrey Dvorkin

lavende4 — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 16:03:28 +0000

Police should never have power to tap journalists' phones, says U of T’s Jeffrey Dvorkin

lavende4 Thu, 11/03/2016 - 12:03

Cutline

Press freedom is at stake with revelations this week that Quebec police have been tracking cell phones of some journalists (photo by jeanbaptisteparis via Flickr)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Canadian journalists and civil liberty advocates are outraged over revelations that various police forces in Quebec have been tracking the cell phones of local journalists.

Quebec provincial police admitted this week to police surveillance of six prominent journalists in 2013 as they tried to track down a person alleged to have leaked sensitive wiretap information involving a prominent labour leader. This followed revelations that Montreal police had been keeping tabs on the iPhone of a La Presse reporter, including tracking his whereabouts using his phone's GPS chip.

Today, the Quebec government announced a full public inquiry into the growing scandal, but critics are still concerned over what this means for freedom of the press.

U of T News spoke with Jeffrey Dvorkin, director of the journalism program at U of T Scarborough, about the controversy. He is a former vice-president of news for National Public Radio and a former managing editor with CBC Radio.

Why should Canadians care about this?

Canadians should care because access to journalistic work and “work product” (in other words, the stuff that doesn’t get into the final reporting) should always be obtained with a warrant. Secondly, the amount of information about all of us – journalists and non-journalists – should be an area of great concern. We are living in an age of transparency and a diminishing lack of privacy. Google through Gmail has forced us to surrender any concept of privacy. The police are only doing (illegally) what Google does with our permission.

Is it common for police to employ surveillance on journalists in Canada?

Probably more than we know. We should know what all levels of government are doing to know more about us. Sometimes being paranoid is the only rational response to the times we live in. When I was managing editor at CBC Radio in the '90s, we discovered that the Canadian military could tap our phones without a warrant. We got that changed. At least we hope we did...

What effect will these revelations have on investigative journalists in Quebec and elsewhere?

It will make journalists more cautious about what is said in supposedly private communications. My own hope is that journalists will not give up on investigative reporting. But instead of being overly dependent on Internet research, more face-to-face, “shoe-leather” reporting might be preferred in certain circumstances.

Are there any circumstances where police should have the authority to tap journalists’ phones?

Never. Not without a warrant. If ever there was an argument for more media lawyers, this is it.

The selling of the U.S. election: U of T's Jeffrey Dvorkin explains it all

lavende4 — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:20:57 +0000

The selling of the U.S. election: U of T's Jeffrey Dvorkin explains it all

lavende4 Wed, 11/02/2016 - 13:20

Cutline

Jeffrey Dvorkin: “It’s been an incredibly different kind of election in regard to advertising, and I think it will change the way political campaigns are done in the future” (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Campaign advertising (and complaining about it) is a standard during election time and with good reason – TV ads reach a lot of people.

But in a shifting media landscape more people are getting their news from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. In this environment do traditional TV campaign ads still matter? What messages are the campaigns sending people from traditional advertising and from social media?

For more context, writer Don Campbell spoke to Jeffrey Dvorkin, director of the journalism program at U of T Scarborough. He is a former vice-president of news for National Public Radio and a former managing editor with CBC Radio.

Dvorkin will be moderating an upcoming discussion about political advertising at the Hot Docs Theatre on Nov. 6. He shared his insights on the history of campaign advertising and how the current presidential candidates have tried to “sell” themselves to voters.

How has Donald Trump been able to get his message out without relying as much on traditional campaign advertising?

This has never really been done before. Donald Trump has relied far less on traditional campaign advertising than previous Republican campaigns while the Democrats have relied on advertising to pretty much the same extent as they have in the past. What’s unique is that Trump has been able to get on TV consistently either by calling talk shows or open line shows or by saying outrageous things that will get covered by TV network news. This tactic was calculated to be the equivalent of as much as $160 million in free advertising throughout his campaign. At the presidential level, the Republicans have spent $40 million less than the Democrats, but Trump has been able to outspend Hillary Clinton simply by getting on the air. Networks have fallen for this tactic on the assumption that Trump will say something outrageous that will be in the news cycle for the next 24 hours, which helps their ratings.

Historically, how have candidates used campaign advertising?

Political advertising has been an important element in the political landscape since the 1960 presidential election between Kennedy and Nixon, and it’s only been increasing every four years since then. This is especially the case for something called down-market advertising. These are campaign ads that run at the local or state level. They have traditionally been a cash cow for local television stations. In fact, many local TV stations make most of their money for the entire year during the political season. What’s happened this year is that the down-market ads for the local House of Representatives and the Senate have not been the moneymakers they once were.

How has the messaging been different between the two campaigns in this election?

Trump has tapped into a real anxiety among voters. He’s been talking about the hollowing out of the white working class, and he’s tapped into it with a message that’s been at times racist and misogynistic. He’s identified problems but hasn’t offered much in terms of solutions in his messaging. It’s easier for Clinton to counter that message in terms of offering clear policies. This has undermined Trump's message because although there are a lot of pissed-off people, there are a lot of people looking for good ideas.

Trump’s message is appealing to an older television-watching audience, and I think that’s because he’s an entertainer, not a policy person. I think the reason his campaign has failed in general is that he’s appealing to a narrow portion of the American electorate that’s in decline anyways. The demographics in America are changing, and he hasn’t adequately tapped into that.

How have social media and other digital advertising been used in this election?

It’s been an incredibly different kind of election in regard to advertising, and I think it will change the way political campaigns are done in the future. Political advertising at the local level has been targeting older voters because they still watch TV, but younger voters don’t watch TV as much. What Trump has done rather cleverly is that recently he’s been posting on Facebook, trying to directly reach supporters. It will be interesting to see how this translates into numbers, and whether that will work better than buying ads for network or local TV.

But social media and digital culture have changed the landscape, no question. The web has allowed politicians to work around traditional media with their advertising. Big advertising agencies that used to handle media campaigns are being bypassed now by people posting things on Facebook and Twitter. Increasingly, that’s where the eyeballs can be found, not looking at newspaper ads or television ads but social media. Politicians have been looking at ways to circumvent the mainstream media and the internet is providing that outlet.

Are there some influential campaign ads from the past that really resonated with voters in terms of the message they tried to convey?

One really important ad was Ronald Reagan’s "Morning in America." It was very positive and crafted in a way to contrast with how many viewed Jimmy Carter, who was perceived as having a depressing and negative approach to politics. It was during the oil crisis so Jimmy Carter was giving speeches from the White House while wearing a cardigan and telling people to turn down the thermostat. Reagan was a more effective communicator. In the ad, he said, that this isn’t what America is about, that we are problem-solvers. He had an advertising agency develop a message that resonated with people who were actually turned off by Carter’s serious and perhaps more realistic message.

More recently, Barack Obama had a very positive message in his advertising. With his "Yes We Can" message, he tapped into something very positive about how America wants to see itself in the world. That’s why it was so effective, especially given the political climate after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the financial crisis. He said, you know what, there’s no problem we can’t solve. It was in many ways a direct Democrat version of "Morning in America."

How would you rate the media’s coverage of this election so far?

Overall, it hasn’t been great. There’s been a trend of focusing on the race itself via the polls, rather than looking at the party or the candidates’ platform. One reason for this is that news outlets are relying more on polling data than ever before. There are fewer field reporters doing the legwork of figuring out what the policies and ideas are. That’s not happening anymore. The economic reality for most news outlets is that they’re lowering the quality of their content, and the obvious example of this is crunching data to provide content for media organizations.

Some are doing a better job like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which are doing tremendous research into what the electorate want, what they’re thinking, and to what extent they’re responding to the ideas of Clinton and Trump. Other media, especially TV, is looking for a version of political click bait. Every time Trump opens his mouth he’s providing content, and there’s a ratings bump, but often there’s no context provided for it. This is the part of reality TV that Trump is so good at, but overall it’s a disservice to the American electorate.

Don Campbell is a writer with the ��Ƶ Scarborough

Journalism

A view to the world: Globe and Mail editor Angela Murphy got her start at U of T

Student project creates accessible database of Canada's first newspapers

Read more about the project at CBC

From fixer to reporter: After escaping the Taliban, U of T's Jalal Nazari is on his way to becoming a journalist

U of T Faculty of Law students delve into journalism, media law issues during Toronto Star 'externship'

U of T researcher studies how movies shaped the public's understanding of investigative journalism

Press passes and prime ministers: Inside Peter Mansbridge’s archives at U of T

Time for a digital detox? U of T expert training journalists for the ‘fake news’ era

Violent news: Psychological trauma a new risk in digital age

New risk: Crowd-sourced imagery

No safe place

Remedy unclear

Police should never have power to tap journalists' phones, says U of T’s Jeffrey Dvorkin

The selling of the U.S. election: U of T's Jeffrey Dvorkin explains it all