Dear NNC members, We’re reaching out with huge congratulations to each of you for your dedicated commitment to public service during these uncertain times. We know your readers appreciate very much your heroic efforts to serve the needs of your communities by providing steady access to accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information. Your hard work in extraordinary circumstances is concrete evidence of how vital the news media is during a time of crisis. For our part, NNC staff are in the …

The National NewsMedia Council received a complaint about a racially insensitive syndicated cartoon that appeared in the Calgary Herald. Concern was expressed that the cartoon, “Close to Home,” published on February 21, 2020, was racist against Indigenous people in its depiction of a character. The cartoon showed the Lone Ranger and Tonto at a bar, with the words “‘Kemosabe! Tonto hear last call coming! Maybe eight or ten minutes away…’” A number of news media subsequently reported on objections to …

The National NewsMedia Council recently received a strongly-worded reader complaint about an opinion column published in the Vernon Morning Star that commented on expectations related to women in public, in particular, the assumption that an unaccompanied woman must be a sex worker. In the November 22, 2019 column, “Nothing wrong with being mistaken for a sex trade worker,” the writer humourously described her experience of being mistaken as a sex worker by virtue of where she was—alone—and how she was …