🍁 Canadian Independent Media

Continually updated list of independent Canadian professional, digital-first news outlets.

Broken Pencil

Broken Pencil publisher shuts zine review mag after 30 years, ‘torn down by a woke anti-Israel mobï»żâ€™

Hal Niedzviecki writes that he has been subjected to ‘online harassment over my personal beliefs, a petition demanding that I resign from the publication I founded, that the magazine formally support the Boycott Divest And Sanction Israel movement and devote an entire issue to the conflict in Gaza, and the withdrawal of authors and sponsors from our Canzine festivals in Ottawa and Toronto’. 

Jonathan Rotsztain in The Grind: ‘The cherished Toronto-based zine mag is no more, after the staff and wider community butted heads with the publisher over his staunch support for Israel and its war on Gaza’.

Christopher Dummitt in the National Post: ‘Hal Niedzviecki spent 30 years building a magazine and trade show, only to have it torn down by a woke anti-Israel mob’.

Philip Moscovitch in the Halifax Examiner: ‘I think there’s a lesson here, and it’s not that identity politics and cultural purity tests are destroying culture’.

RadioWest forum

AM revival: The new owner of CKOC 1150 AM Hamilton and CKWW 580 AM Windsor has new websites.

Neeti P. Ray has relauched the former Bell stations with CKWW contuing its ldies format, and CKWW changing to oldies from Bloomberg Business News.

Christian Paas-Lang at CBC

Longtime talkshow host Charles Adler has been named to the Senate for Manitoba

Adler had long been considered a Conservative but in recent years had become more small ‘C’.

Steve Faguy

MontrĂ©al’s WKND 99.5 fires everyone, drops half its music, and will simulcast the talk of QUB

Nobody asked the CRTC for approval but the station hopes it will slip under the radar by keeping 50 per cent of its former format.

Mickey Djuric in the Canadian Press

Did the Federal government approve a bonus for the CBC CEO? It won’t say.

The CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses to non-union staff. The Mother Corp laid over 142 employees last year.

David Pugliese in the Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa Citizen defence writer wonders why the RCAF and National Defence tried to mislead him with false information

David Pugliese was covering a story on the new location for a RCAF aircraft refuelling station and was told a building in Ottawa was ‘secret for security reasons’. Except it wasn’t secret and the Department of Defence held public consultations.

Mickey Djuric in the Canadian Press

After laying off 141 employees, the CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses, $3.3 million of that to 45 executives

Earlier this year, the CBC released a a statement ‘Get the facts: “Bonuses” at CBC/Radio-Canada’ in which the Mother Corp stated it did not pay ‘bonuses’, only ’performance pay’.

Mark Edge in Canadian Dimension

Rebel News, Narcity, and KelownaNow have all been turned down by Canada Revenue for Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization status.

Acceptance means the ability to give out tax receipts. Narcity used its rejection to convince Meta to let it back on Facebook and Instagram.