These are the stories we’re watching this week. Here is your Weekly Wire:
- U.S. President Donald Trump started off his weekend by claiming former president Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower shortly before election day last November. His sources? Right-wing talk show host Mark Levin and Breitbart News, which cited tangentially-related stories by way of right-wing site Heatstreet. Obama denied the claims through a spokesperson, and reports from the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post said Trump’s evidence is sketchy at best.
- After nearly eight months of searching, Torstar has a new president and CEO: John Boynton. The 53-year-old executive and former chief marketing officer of Rogers was confirmed as outgoing CEO David Holland’s successor on Friday, Holland’s retirement date. Boynton’s background in data analytics may serve Torstar—and the underperforming Star Touch app—well. He starts on March 31. (For a better appreciation of Boynton’s new challenges, look out for Abby Plener’s feature for the RRJ’s upcoming print edition.)
- Disgraced former Intercept staff reporter Juan Thompson, who was fired for fabricating sources and quotes in at least four of his stories, was charged last Friday for allegedly using similar methods to send eight bomb threats to U.S. Jewish organizations—including the Anti-Defamation League. Thompson took to Twitter, and blamed the threats on an ex-girlfriend. The couple broke up last summer, and Thompson has allegedly been harassing her online since then. He’s been charged with one count of cyberstalking.
- Kathy English, the Star’s public editor, wants your questions on how the paper functions. Journalists, she wrote in a column published Friday, can’t assume that readers “understand what seems to journalists to be the basics of journalism.” She cites a segment by CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter last February on the U.S’s media literacy and how journalists need to “do a better job of showing our work.” Feel free to drop English a line at publiced@thestar.ca with the subject line “Media Literacy.”
To see more frequent updates from the RRJ, please follow us on Twitter. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more in-depth news analysis. We’ll be back with your next Weekly Wire on Monday, March 13. Expect our print edition to hit shelves this April.
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About the author
This is a joint byline for the Ryerson Review of Journalism. All content is produced by students in their final year of the graduate or undergraduate program at the Ryerson School of Journalism.