Category: Press Freedoms

Julian Sher looks at the camera in a portrait photo
2025, Press Freedoms, Quick Reads, Spring 2025, Stories, The Magazine, Under Attack

When We Become the Story

As journalists we want to report the story, not become the story. Sometimes, though, it’s unavoidable. Back in December 1992, an investigation I did into drug trafficking and corruption with a team from CBC’s The Fifth Estate led to the shocking suicide of a senior RCMP inspector the day before we went to air. Then there are some famous cases when our own media companies become the story—like when Fifth Estate broadcast “The Unmaking of Jian Ghomeshi” in 2014, exposing how CBC mishandled sexual assault allegations against its former star radio host.

Blurry image of a police officer looking into the camera.
2025, Featured, Long Reads, Press Freedoms, Spring 2025, Stories, The Magazine, Under Attack

Barred from the Story

If Brandi Morin had to place a bet on where she might get arrested, her home Treaty Six territories in Edmonton, Alberta, wouldn’t even make her shortlist. The moment the Indigenous journalist later described as “one of the darkest chapters” of her career began while Morin was covering an Indigenous-led homeless encampment on a cold, harsh winter night.