Paul Steiger was in Toronto on Monday, sharing the story of ProPublica's first two years and the challenges it faces into the future. ProPublica is a foundation-funded investigative newsroom, based in New York and founded two years ago with money from Herb and Marion Sandler. With 32 journalists on staff, they focus on stories on the abuse of power and the failure to uphold the public interest. ... [More]

Samara, in partnership with Massey College, is hosting Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief, president and CEO of ProPublica in Toronto on Monday March 1st. Recently named one of Fast Company's ten most innovative media companies, ProPublica is a non-profit investigative newsroom that produces journalism in the public interest. Prior to establishing ProPublica, Steiger was the managing editor of the ... [More]

I'm working my way through this report on Canada's democratic engagement, released recently by The Institute of Wellbeing, an organization that develops and regularly produces statistical reports on various aspects of Canada's well being. The upshot is that our democracy is in a pretty ho-hum state. No surprise there. The researchers have done a very thorough job of pulling together the lite... [More]

Writing about the political paralysis facing our neighbours to the south, a paralysis many observers believe has worsened over the past year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg points a finger at one suspect - or group of suspects - who often escapes scott-free. We the people. This very provocative piece, Weisberg suggests that instead of blaming various politicians or cable news stations, the American ... [More]

Talk to any politically-oriented person in B.C. for long enough and eventually Vaughn Palmer's name will come up. For those living east of the Rockies, Palmer is the provincial political affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun. A reader of this blog sent me one of Palmer's posts, where he recaps an interview he did with Jim Hume, who is retiring after 50 years of covering B.C. politics. I'm a ... [More]

While navigating my rental car through the lower mainland of BC on my way to interview a retired MP, I caught this terrific interview with veteran British journalist Sir Harold Evans, who was in Toronto promoting his autobiography. Sir Harold spent nearly 60 years in the news business, including 14 years as the editor of the Sunday Times in London. He pioneered the use of investigative teams, a... [More]

Hugh Segal shared his articulately-worded yet scathing critique of today's media, tempered by suggested rules that he believes would assist things, at the Canadian Journalism Foundation's annual Democracy and Journalism lecture in Toronto last week. It reminded me of Maclean's editor Ken Whyte's analysis delivered a handful of months ago. On the upside, Segal clearly believes in the vitality o... [More]

Last month, the washingtonpost.com's former executive editor, Jim Brady, was at Samara talking about the various ways that news organization works to cover politics and public policy in a changing media environment. In addition to the experiments he highlighted, it's worth checking out their POTUS-tracker, which uses the information from Obama's schedule to show how he's spending his time, wi... [More]

Those of you who've been following the various discussions on the future of journalism these past weeks may be interested in watching an edited video of the "What's Next for News" panel held at Ryerson, featuring media futurist Clay Shirky, author Andrew Keen and Globe and Mail editor Mathew Ingram. You can watch it here.

Globe & Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse gave an overview things in his world to to a group from the Canadian Journalism Foundation this evening. It was upbeat and refreshing, combining an overview of the industry with a loose outline of the Globe's plans for the future, both online and off. And for the inquiring minds among us, he also shared their top-read online stories this year. He... [More]

Last month, the washingtonpost.com's former executive editor, Jim Brady, was at Samara talking about the various ways that news organization works to cover politics and public policy in a changing media environment. In addition to the experiments he highlighted, it's worth checking out their POTUS-tracker, which uses the information from Obama's schedule to show how he's spending his time, with... [More]

Our first set of MP exit interviews began this week, our first of what will be several dozen interviews with MPs who left public life between 2004 and 2008. Incidentially, the period of these departures also kicked off what general wisdom has us believe to be a prolonged period of minority government in Canada. After nearly five and a half years of this not-unprecedented situation, recent medi... [More]

With September comes back to school and no shortage of great talks on, among other things, the future of the media. We've already told you about our recent lunch with the WashingtonPost.com's editor, Jim Brady, Mathew Ingram's TEDxTO talk and the CJF's recent panel exploring the changing media environment. One more to add to your collection. If you care about journalism, newspapers, public de... [More]

Earlier this month, we shared a couple of events of interest to those who care about the vibrancy of our public debates. In case you missed them, here are the highlights of two and links to where you can learn more. TEDxTO was excellent. Kudos to the organizers. The Torontoist's summary is a good one and the videos should be on at the TEDxTO site soon. Almost all the talks were fantastic, so ... [More]

Jim Brady, the former executive editor of the washingtonpost.com and the U.S. consulting editor for The Guardian, came to Samara for lunch with a number of public affairs journalists, editors and producers to discuss covering politics and public affairs in a changing media environment. His talk was wide-ranging and fascinating to producers and consumers of news alike, full of great examples and... [More]

Fall is here, and with it comes a great line up of interesting events to inject a little mo-jo into our public discourse. Here are a few we're planning to attend (biased toward, although not limited to Toronto): 1. TEDx comes to Canada: Lovers of the brain candy provided by the podcasts from TED's various conferences will be delighted to know that an independently-organized Canadian version is c... [More]

This morning the Globe and Mail was kind enough to publish an op-ed we wrote, arguing that we all need to pull up our socks to get at the malaise in our public life. We've already received a number of terrific comments. Please let us know what you think and we'll share a summary of the feedback with you in the coming days. You can read the article here, and comment on this blog, the Globe sit... [More]

Earlier this year, we introduced you to The Mark, an online opinion forum looking to inject more umpf into the discussion on public issues in Canada. In a similar vein, several months ago PublicVoice.tv arrived at an internet near you. Looking to "raise voices on issues that matter," PublicVoice is a bit like a video-version of The Mark, providing an opportunity for users to watch short videos o... [More]

What makes a "great conversation?" For some its lots of laughter, for others its deep discussions, close friends and a good glass of wine. For those in policy-land it may be something akin to what Shauna Sylvester has created with Canada's World, where the term the "great conversation" meant talking to over 4,000 Canadians face-to-face, plus another 100,000 online, about the future of Canada's ... [More]

Public Service Matters will be an occasional feature on the Samara blog. It will profile individuals and organizations engaged in exemplary public service. The column will be an opportunity to showcase ideas and initiatives that are having a positive impact in our communities and helping shape public policy at the local and/or national level.For this column, we spoke to Vickie Cammack, co-founder... [More]