The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

We have a very timely, and as it played itself out these last few weeks, controversial topic to discuss on the pod today. Our guests are journalists Jessica Smith Cross and Charlie Pinkerton, who until recently were employed at Queen’s Park Briefing, which is now owned by one of the 2 former proprietors of TorStar, Paul Rivett.

Ms. Smith Cross as an editor. Mr. Pinkerton as a reporter and editor.

They had the story of Premier Ford’s Daughter’s fundraising Stag and Doe party – attended by developers eyeing the Greenbelt – all ready to go for QP Briefing. A story of the Premier’s potential conflict of interest. Until the new ownership at the publication intervened and killed it.

That story was eventually published, and followed up on, in The Star and other media outlets.

Ms. Smith Cross and Mr. Pinkerton both resigned from QP Briefing, and have now launched TheTrillium.ca, covering Queen’s Park.

We have a great piece by Jim Coyle about all of this over at AirQuotesMedia.com, called “Conflict: Powerful Men Not Getting Basic Principles.” In it, Jim writes: “some journalism organization should strike a reporting award in the names of Jessica Smith Cross and Charlie Pinkerton. Their integrity and courage marked a shining moment in the news biz in Ontario.”

We’re going to dive deeply into all this today. Why is the Stag and Doe story important? What was the level of interference from ownership at QP Briefing? How did it manifest itself? Why did it differ over at The Star? And we’ll also talk about the current state of journalism in general.

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