Grierson believed strongly that the filmmaker had a social responsibility, and that film could help a society realize democratic ideals. His absolute faith in the value of capturing the drama of everyday life was to influence generations of filmmakers all over the world. In fact, he coined the term "documentary film." [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation on Dec 26, 2011 - 4 comments

Why I Quit My Job Kai Nagata on why he just quit his job as CTV's Quebec City bureau chief at age 24: a critique of Canadian government and media.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jul 8, 2011 - 68 comments

Hanging up the microphone for a cause He was a Fleet Street sportswriter and a boxer. His "Action Line" show had Winnipeggers talking for 27 years. Since moving to the West Coast with the purpose of retiring, Peter Warren has kept busy with a national talk radio show where his brusque replies to insipid callers have made him infamous. But after this weekend, he leaves it all behind to focus on investigative work, including a dossier of 14 murder cases.
posted by evilcolonel on Mar 1, 2006 - 3 comments

iQuit [embedded flash movie]. Smoke Screen 2 is a Health Canada funded project that gives young Canadian immigrants and refugees the chance to make their own health awareness videos, since they're often marginalised by mainstream media. Rather than just being a fun little anti-smoking project though, the resulting videos are being shown on national primetime TV. Last year's project, Smoke Screen: Made By Girls, caused controversy when one of the videos was banned by the CBC.
posted by nylon on Feb 6, 2006 - 11 comments

Dropping an F-bomb on the radio, and in Canada you apologize. In the States, having this happen on your station would cost you many dollars.
posted by evilcolonel on Feb 18, 2005 - 36 comments

Hey Canada! Now you can "Shut Up! Shut Up!" too.
Are our nice, polite, enlightened neighbors to our north really ready for Fox News?
posted by amberglow on Sep 28, 2004 - 41 comments

The Walrus: Does Canada Finally Have Its Quality Magazine? It's always been a mystery why Canada, with its appreciable intellectual weight, cultural sympathies and significant middlebrow readership, doesn't have a general magazine to rival with, say, Harper's, The Atlantic or The New Yorker. Well, The Walrus looks good - at least online. Is this it? Or am I unfairly overlooking other Canadian publications?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Dec 14, 2003 - 24 comments

The Massey Lectures are the CBC's annual effort to give exposure to eminent minds working on 'big ideas' in the realm of social criticism. This year's lecturer, Margaret Visser, undertakes a very engaging attempt to explain and undermine fatalism. The site links to transcripts and audio files of some past lectures. Some Canadian book-learnin' for those of you who aren't sleepily digesting your Thanksgiving turkey!
posted by stonerose on Nov 28, 2002 - 3 comments

Enforcing silence: American media are unsurprisingly preparing to publish details of Vancouver's Pickton case despite a Canadian publication ban. Are media blackouts censorship, necessary for justice, or both? Or are they just doomed to fail when you can just, you know, do stuff like this?
posted by transient on Nov 21, 2002 - 22 comments

Ottawa Citizen publisher fired for criticizing Chrétien.
CanWest Global keeps it real for the little guy once again by continuing to silence dissident voices. The Citizen's own coverage of the sacking is, unsurprisingly, scant on details.
posted by poorhaus on Jun 17, 2002 - 11 comments

Doesn't this site violate Canada election laws? They claim they will be posting election results as the polls close. Under Canadian law, time zones that are still voting aren't allowed to know who is winning further east. First up: Newfoundland.
posted by tranquileye on Nov 27, 2000 - 7 comments

Public Broadcasting Gets Funky
The CBC (sort of like NPR, but Canadian, federally-funded and with TV too) has a stealth project, 120seconds. They are planning to embrace new media in a big way and this is their start: stories, music, film, experiments. Not bad.
posted by sylloge on Aug 11, 2000 - 3 comments

Designer-programmer-actor-model-waiter? Finally, someone giving one or more fingers to Toronto's tightarsed, outdated nouveaux-médias hiring practices. How would you like to be on call 24 hours a day as an interactive-TV manager for the Weather Network way the fork out in Mississauga? Lila Feng worship isn't enough of a payoff, kids.
posted by joeclark on Jun 12, 2000 - 7 comments