These are the stories we’re watching this week. Here is your Weekly Wire:
- BuzzFeed News media editor Craig Silverman will be discussing fake news at Ryerson University tomorrow for the 2017 Atkinson Lecture. Silverman helped trace a disproportionate number of fake, pro-Trump news stories to Veles, a small town in the Republic of Macedonia; demonstrating how fake news outperformed real news on Facebook; and analyzing how partisan Facebook pages like Eagle Rising and Occupy Democrats were duped into sharing fake news. Silverman also heads Emergent, which tracks rumours reported by news organizations. The event, unfortunately, is sold out, but don’t fret: The RRJ will be live-tweeting it tomorrow, starting at noon.
- Shattered Mirror, the Public Policy Forum’s long-awaited report on the Canadian news industry, was released last week—and the news isn’t good. The study found that there’s more clickbait and fake news than ever before, a majority of news organization’s ad revenue goes to Google and Facebook, and projected that, by 2020, only two newspapers will be sold per every 100 households. PPF President and CEO Edward Greenspon didn’t mince words, saying in a statement that the Canadian news industry is in the midst of an “existential crisis.” For a comprehensive takeaway, read Keith Capstick’s synopsis here.
- Ali Hamedani, a BBC World Service reporter, took a risk by flying to L.A. on Sunday. He’s based in London, U.K., but was born in Iran—one of seven predominantly Muslim countries whose citizens are now banned from entering the United States, thanks to an executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump last Friday. Airport security pulled Hamedani aside and confiscated his passport, but apparently not his phone: he briefly live-tweeted his 2-hour detention. His bag, and electronics were searched—but Hamedani was allowed into the U.S. Others, even those with green cards, weren’t so lucky.
- The New York Times officially has a Toronto bureau chief. Former Toronto Star social justice columnist and National Newspaper Award-winner Catherine Porter joins Times reportersDan Levin and Ian Austen, who spent 2016 shedding international light on the Highway of Tears, Calgary’s Mayor Naheed Nenshi, and the Indian Act. Jodi Rudoren, the Times’ deputy international editor, told J-Source that while there aren’t any plans to hire more staff, it may start developing a network of local reporters for investigative work, and possibly visual journalists as well.
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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.