I gave a small, intimate presentation to a reading group in western Massachusetts after coordinating with one of their organizers. Graciously, they allowed me to record, so now you get to hear it here. This talk is more of a general overview about perception of news, which resources are best to cultivate a critical news eye, a critical examination of two events covered by the news, an overview of how settler-colonialism seeps into news and a brief alternate history of progressive journalism.This episode's photo is the one I presented at the end of my talk, just edited with "The North State" on it.

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/

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After Australians confirmed a massive majority for their Labor government, Canadian journalists and pundits agreed: anyone who compared the two is a genius. Now that the dust has settled, it's important to not move past lessons we can learn from each other. Half-victory lap, half-cogent analysis, this week on The North State is a closing of the discussion begun on The Down Under State to compare each country's respective elections and what each of us can learn about the current political moment. Mitch Alexander, co-host of the Australian Radical Online Leftist Pipeline podcast, PhD candidate and vocalist of metal band Eye Of The Enemy, rejoins Scott to talk Dutton and Poilievre's loss, Labor and Liberals' gain and a surprising carbon tax connection.

Clarification: I mentioned the Bloc Quebecois being a factor in the 90s Liberal landslide but did not make it clear that the Reform Party, which was the right-wing Western split of the Progressive Conservative federal party, contributed greatly to the change in the electoral landscape, moreso than the Bloc.

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Mitch’s Blog: Philisophica

Only Equals Negotiate by Eye of the Enemy

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/what-canadians-can-learn-from-australias-election-ft-mitch-alexander-the-north-state-podcast

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Rebel Media and other right-wing figures dominated the discourse around the two leadership debates this election. After disproportionately representing their perspective in the French-language scrum, their behaviour completely disrupted and stopped the scrum after the English-language debate. It's not a one-off occurrence, this is only going to get worse. This week on The North State, Scott walks through the effect of the Online News Act on Canadian's news habits, how the broader right-wing shift has deteriorated the average Canadian's news diet, what implications this has for our politics and how there is no plan to fix this from any party. Fun stuff!

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/our-decaying-news-ecosystem-is-a-political-problem-the-north-state-podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.