Bias in media

Please review each article prior to use: grade-level applicability and curricular alignment might not be obvious from the headline alone.

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Influencers have more reach on 5 major platforms than news media, politicians: report

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview
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Influencers have more reach on 5 major platforms than news media, politicians: report

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Friday, Nov. 14, 2025

OTTAWA - More than two-thirds of younger Canadians engage with political content from influencers — and influencers have significantly more reach on five major social media platforms than news media outlets or politicians, a new study indicates.

A significant portion of the political content Canadians see on the major platforms "comes directly from influencers," says the report from the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory.

The report focused on posts from individuals and institutions on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky. It did not look at or compare reach on websites, other online platforms or traditional platforms.

The researchers say they identified 1,097 influencers and collected 4.1 million of their posts from January 2024 to July 2025 on five social media platforms. Over that time period, politicians were responsible for 1.1 million posts while media outlets accounted for 2.8 million.

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Friday, Nov. 14, 2025

The TikTok app logo is shown on an iPhone on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

The TikTok app logo is shown on an iPhone on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

A Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million and apologize over a raid on a small-town newspaper

John Hanna And Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press 6 minute read Preview

A Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million and apologize over a raid on a small-town newspaper

John Hanna And Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press 6 minute read Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

Marion County sheriff's officers were involved in the raid on the Marion County Record and helped draft search warrants used by Marion city police to enter the newspaper's offices, the publisher's home and the home of a local city council member.

“They intentionally wanted to harass us for reporting the news, and you’re not supposed to do that in a democracy,” the editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, said Tuesday. He added he hoped the payment was large enough to discourage similar actions against other news organizations in the future.

The raid prompted five federal lawsuits against the county, the city of Marion and local officials. Meyer's 98-year-old mother Joan, the paper's co-owner, died of a heart attack the next day, something he blames on the stress of the raid.

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Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

FILE - The offices of the Marion County Record weekly newspaper are seen in Marion, Kan., on Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)

FILE - The offices of the Marion County Record weekly newspaper are seen in Marion, Kan., on Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)

Top BBC bosses resign after criticism of the broadcaster’s editing of a Trump speech

The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

Top BBC bosses resign after criticism of the broadcaster’s editing of a Trump speech

The Associated Press 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 10, 2025

LONDON (AP) — The head of the BBC and the British broadcaster's top news executive both resigned Sunday after criticism of the way the organization edited a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The BBC said Director-General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness had both decided to leave the corporation.

Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster has been criticized for editing a speech Trump made on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington.

Critics said the way the speech was edited for a BBC documentary last year was misleading and cut out a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

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Monday, Nov. 10, 2025

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during a meeting with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during a meeting with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Amid bail-reform debate, some argue court orders must suit low literacy levels

Toni De Guzman 8 minute read Preview

Amid bail-reform debate, some argue court orders must suit low literacy levels

Toni De Guzman 8 minute read Friday, Nov. 7, 2025

Several red flags jump off the page when literacy expert Margaret Banasiak examines a Manitoba provincial court bail form.

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Friday, Nov. 7, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Open Doors Adult Literacy Program director Margaret Banasiak says the legal language on bail forms is impenetrable to many applicants: ‘Very few people have the guts to say, “I do not (understand)”.’

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS 
                                Open Doors Adult Literacy Program director Margaret Banasiak says the legal language on bail forms is impenetrable to many applicants: ‘Very few people have the guts to say, “I do not (understand)”.’

Coming of age in the era of ‘fake news’

Maggie Macintosh 5 minute read Preview

Coming of age in the era of ‘fake news’

Maggie Macintosh 5 minute read Friday, Oct. 31, 2025

‘Let’s get media lit(erate)!” The punny slogan was my attempt to get students excited about fact-checking, current events and finding alternative sources to Wikipedia — a crowd-sourced platform anyone can edit.

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Friday, Oct. 31, 2025

Isabel Felices-Costello photo

Maggie Macintosh: media coach

Isabel Felices-Costello photo
                                Maggie Macintosh: media coach
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Winnipeg students develop critical aptitude essential for navigating media landscape

Melissa Martin 14 minute read Preview
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Winnipeg students develop critical aptitude essential for navigating media landscape

Melissa Martin 14 minute read Friday, Oct. 31, 2025

One day in the fall of 2024, two of Lily Godinez Goodman’s Grade 5 students came to her with a question: Why didn’t their Earl Grey School have a newspaper, they wondered — and if they started one, would she serve as editor-in-chief?

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Friday, Oct. 31, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Earl Grey Press reporters Sebastian (from left), Isabel, Willow and James are on the beat at their school.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
                                Earl Grey Press reporters Sebastian (from left), Isabel, Willow and James are on the beat at their school.

In praise of messy, unruly free speech

Patricia Dawn Robertson 5 minute read Preview

In praise of messy, unruly free speech

Patricia Dawn Robertson 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

There’s a lot of obnoxious and hypocritical talk about free speech circulating online, in editorial pages and at the family dinner table.

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Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

The Associated Press Files

From Charlie Kirk to Jimmy Kimmel, the latest battle over free speech seems to be about who’s allowed to control it.

The Associated Press Files
                                From Charlie Kirk to Jimmy Kimmel, the latest battle over free speech seems to be about who’s allowed to control it.

Setting the record straight on Reading Recovery

Billy Molasso 4 minute read Preview

Setting the record straight on Reading Recovery

Billy Molasso 4 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025

When I read the op-ed Empire of illiteracy in a recent Winnipeg Free Press (Think Tank, Sept. 9), I wasn’t just frustrated, I was deeply disappointed.

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Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESs fileS

Different reading strategies have the same goal: teaching children to read.

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESs fileS
                                Different reading strategies have the same goal: teaching children to read.

MMF objects to city renaming St. Boniface park

Free Press staff 3 minute read Preview

MMF objects to city renaming St. Boniface park

Free Press staff 3 minute read Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

The Manitoba Métis Federation is questioning why the city wants to change the name of a park that honours Métis history — one year after it opened in the Glenwood neighbourhood.

City council will review a motion to rename Carriere Avenue Park in honour of James Peebles, an astrophysicist and astronomer raised in the St. Boniface neighbourhood.

The park, which opened last September near the corner of Carriere Avenue and Des Meurons Street, was built on the former farmland of André Carriere, the federation said in a news release Monday.

“It seems that the city did not undertake appropriate due diligence to understand the historical significance of the name given to the street itself, much less the park,” MMF Winnipeg region vice president Andrew Carrier, a descendant of André Carriere, said in a statement.

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Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

Seth Wenig / The Associated Press Files

City council will review a motion to rename Carriere Avenue Park in honour of James Peebles (pictured) an astrophysicist and astronomer raised in the St. Boniface neighbourhood. Peebles is a 2019 Nobel laureate in Physics, and an emeritus professor at Princeton University.

Seth Wenig / The Associated Press Files
                                City council will review a motion to rename Carriere Avenue Park in honour of James Peebles, an astrophysicist and astronomer raised in the St. Boniface neighbourhood. Peebles is a 2019 Nobel laureate in Physics, and an emeritus professor at Princeton University.

New session of Parliament, but similar to the past

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

New session of Parliament, but similar to the past

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Sep. 18, 2025

It might not exactly be business as usual, but this week’s long-awaited restart of Parliament doesn’t give one the impression that a whole lot has changed.

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Thursday, Sep. 18, 2025

Chris Young / The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Mark Carney

Chris Young / The Canadian Press
                                Prime Minister Mark Carney