Profile picture
Jesse Brown
@JesseBrown
, 12 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
Here's a little story I'd like to tell about a big circle jerk between government, a think tank and the media.
2. A few years back the Trudeau government hired a think tank run by a former Globe and Mail editor-in-chief to do a big report on why the news biz is so messed up in Canada and what gov't should do about it. shatteredmirror.ca
3. While the reasons for the news crisis were obvious & the same as everywhere else (FB & Google) the report seized on "fake news" & cited it 34 times without any evidence that it's even a thing in Canada. Also, "filter bubbles" (x10) & "echo chambers" (x5) w/out substantiation.
4. One of the recommendations to government was a big media bail out (check!) and another recommendation of the report was for more reports. It called for "an evidence-based study of the existence, origin and impact of fake news in Canada."
5. Government paid for that too. And guess who they hired to do it? The same think tank that recommended it in the first place - Public Policy Forum!
6. The study's 1st research memo came out today. To its credit, it IS evidence based, w over 1000 CDNs news habits studied - we now have actual data on fake news and filter bubbles in Canada.

Guess what? Neither is a real problem. ppforum.ca/articles/ddp-r…
7. Turns out, Canadians who read the news, regardless of their political affiliations, still mostly get it from mainstream news sources like the CBC & CTV. Those dreaded "filter-bubble"/"echo-chamber"/"hyper-partisan" &"clickbait" sites barely make a dent.
8. As for misinformation, this is funny: the people who got the most basic stuff wrong about Canadian news were the people most likely to read Canadian news (which, again, they're mostly getting from traditional news sources).
9. Let me say that again: the more traditional news you consume, the more things you get wrong on a test of basic news facts.
10. People who consumed less news were UNinformed - they just didn't know the answers. People who consumed more news *thought* they knew the answers, but then got more of them wrong than people with less news exposure.
11. In other words, the problem isn't fake news, it's shitty news. The Canadian media is failing at our basic job, to keep our audiences informed. Which could largely be because there are around 20,000 fewer journalists working in Canada (global news crisis, remember?)
12. "Fake news" was a major reason given to the government as to why they had to bail out "real news". Now that boogeyman has been debunked by the same think tank that spread it. You might wonder how the "real news" is covering that development. Well... thestar.com/news/canada/20…
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Jesse Brown
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @JesseBrown see all

Profile picture
Jesse Brown
@JesseBrown
Something big happened very quietly last week.

According to the chair of the Canadian Association of Journalists, Canada's dying newspapers just succeeded in DOUBLING the amount of government bailout money they're likely gonna get.

Here's how they did it:
Background: the Trudeau gov't said they were gonna give $600m to news companies, but also said they were NOT gonna bail out dying business models, not gonna decide who is and who isn't a journalist, not gonna pick winner & loser news companies...
Instead, they created an ~Expert Panel~ to make those decisions. Here's who they put on that panel:

4 Newspaper owner groups
2 Newspaper employee groups
2 Journalism associations

The public had no representation.
Read 14 tweets
Profile picture
Jesse Brown
@JesseBrown
Whelp, that was awkward. I just had to leave an event at Google Canada's HQ, a meeting between Google & Canada's news publishers.

We (a room full of publishers & journalists) weren't told until the event began that everything would be off-the-record.

I'm keeping the notebook.
Some context: the Google News Initiative is Google's "effort to work w the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age." The unspoken idea here is that having (accidentally?) destroyed the news business, Google will now help rebuild it, w products & partnerships
Right now at the event, Google is leading a convo w the head of CBC News, the EIC of the Toronto Star and a Globe & Mail editor. They're discussing how they will work together to "support quality information".

It's a secret conversation.
Read 10 tweets
Profile picture
Jesse Brown
@JesseBrown
1. On today's show I talk about many recent attacks on Canadaland, all aiming to discredit us. But I don't talk about @MarkBourrie. I will do so now. canadalandshow.com/podcast/283-oh…
2. I've held off on engaging with Mark's many posts and sponsored tweets against us, for one reason: I suspected he was secretly working on behalf of someone else to discredit us. But I couldn't prove it, and I don't wink and nudge about something like that.
3. When @journojaren asked Mark if he was working for a 3rd party of any kind, he said "my posts speak for themselves". Not a forthright answer.
Read 18 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
Jody Rosen
@jodyrosen
Here’s my new @NYTMag piece. It's about the biggest disaster in the
history of the music business, which was hushed up by the world’s
largest record company. nytimes.com/2019/06/11/mag…
Thought I'd add some post-scripts to this piece—a quick survey of a few music preservation topics/questions that wound up on the cutting room floor. These things are worth thinking about & (in a couple of cases, at least) might be profitably followed up on by journalists.
(NB: Some of the stuff I'm mentioning here is based on reporting that's a couple of years old. Certain facts on the ground may have changed in the interim.)
Read 40 tweets
Profile picture
𝐃𝐫. 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐲 📂
@CarrollQuigley1
Haven't got my official copy of @GeorgePapa19's book yet but I've scoped out posts from a few people and nabbed some screenshots.

Let's see what we can find using just a fraction of the book.

#SpyGate
#RussiaGate
#MuellerReport
#PropagandaWars
First off, Noble Energy & Leviathan are a big piece of the PapaDop puzzle.

The geopolitical implications are of interest to many in the region. The premise for spying on GP seems to be related to where the Noble pipeline would be routed.

EU/UK & Turkey are front & Center.
I cover this a bit in my pinned thread.

Noble is heavily influenced by the Clinton cartel. Kerry & Soros also invested big.

Read 40 tweets
Profile picture
Katie Hinde
@Mammals_Suck
NEXT UP: #8 seed Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) & Aardvark Cucumber (Cucumis humifructus) vs #9 seed Monkey #TripleTrouble of Goeldi's Monkey (Callimico goeldii) & Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis) & White-lipped Tamarin (Saguinus labiatus) #CallitrichineCrew #2019MMM
Aardvarks are distributed in Africa, south of the Sahara. "Aardvark" is Afrikaans for "Earth Pig" bc Aardvarks have a boopable snoot & they use their formidable claws to dig burrows in the ground; excavate ant & termite mounds. #2019MMM
But the Aardvark is a bit of a foodie & appreciates a salad garnish. #AlsoDontActuallyBoopTheSnoot #2019MMM
Read 26 tweets
Profile picture
Quinn Cummings
@quinncy
A small story:

(Thank you, @TimLikesPi, for putting it in my mind)

Kid has studied martial arts since she was eight. A few years back, she discovered Krav Maga and was extremely happy. There is nothing quite like throwing someone to the ground to brighten your day.
Conversely, there is nothing quite like getting punched in the face, even accidentally, to help clarify two thoughts:

1. Oh. So that's what it's like. I don't love it, but I'm not dead,
2. But it's really not great. Let's try to make sure that doesn't happen again.
About a year after starting Krav, after years of Aikido, she came bounding out of church Youth Group one Wednesday night and said, "I have got a story for you."

She seemed pleased. I thought perhaps it had to do with faith. It did, just not the way I imagined.
Read 9 tweets
Profile picture
Dannielle Blumenthal PhD
@DrDannielle
1) "A frame-up (frameup) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime. ... Generally, the person who is framing someone else is the actual perpetrator."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frameup
2) You already know what a scapegoat is.
3) "Collusion is a secret cooperation or deceitful agreement in order to deceive others, although not necessary illegal, as a conspiracy."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion
Read 88 tweets
Profile picture
Zach Goldberg
@ZachG932
1/n (Long thread: Understanding patterns in the reporting of workplace sexual harassment) In one of my previous tweets, I posted data from the 2017 Cornell National Survey, which showed that Liberal females were sig. more likely...
2/n ..to report experiences of workplace sexual harassment than their conservative counterparts (the graph is below for anyone that missed it).
Since then, I've gathered enough data to generate a longitudinal trend line to determine a) whether the high % of women reporting sexual harassment is historically unprecedented; and b) whether liberal women are consistently more likely to report experiences of sexual harassment
Read 47 tweets

Trending hashtags

#NotAllBigots #Trudeau #Modi #ModiAaGaya #samjhautaexpress #cops #SriLankaBlast #होली #Kerala #NaMoThanksKashi #LostHighway #Judges #AcceptTheVerdict #SSLC #CallitrichineCrew #Police #ExitPolls #ItHappened #Atishi #NIDS #Uttarakhand #TV #EricssonCase #ModiStrikeFor2019 #government
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!