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

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.

Winnipeg students develop critical aptitude essential for navigating media landscape

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?

A few Transit tweaks help, but aren’t a solution

Winnipeg Transit has made some adjustments to its overhauled route system, the first since the original summer rollout that has left many riders frustrated.

The American Right has its martyr — what’s next?

Every revolution needs heroes and martyrs. Heroes to follow and martyrs to look up to. MAGA is no exception.

Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s therapy-set two-hander plays with reality

The public and private perils of online engagement crash through the screen and into a therapist’s office in Job, a nervy drama that explores the power of posts and the ethical responsibilities inherent to our respective postings.

Written by New York’s Max Wolf Friedlich and directed by Calgary’s Jack Grinhaus, the opening production of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s season heads to the races with the brandishing of a starter’s gun in the warped offices of Bay Area psychotherapist Lloyd (Dov Mickelson).

Lloyd’s description of his typical patient — young people who are “hopeless and beyond help” — isn’t exactly inspirational.

Blundstone-booted Jane (Jada Rifkin) seems to have made the cut, having been placed on paid administrative leave after a viral meltdown by her employer, an unnamed tech giant on whose campus she’s enrolled as an adjudicator.

Blame game after acts of political violence can lead to further attacks, experts warn

DENVER (AP) — From the moment conservative activist and icon Charlie Kirk was felled by an assassin’s bullet, partisans began fighting over which side was to blame. President Donald Trump became the most prominent to do so, tying the attack to “the radical left” before a suspect was even identified.

It was part of a new, grim tradition in a polarized country — trying to pin immediate responsibility for an act of public violence on one of two political sides. As the nation reels from a wave of physical attacks against both Republicans and Democrats, experts warn that the rush to blame sometimes ambiguous and irrational acts on political movements could lead to more conflict.

“What you’re seeing now is exactly how the spiral of violence occurs,” said Robert Pape, a political scientist and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago.

On Friday, authorities announced they had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Washington, Utah, in the shooting. While a registered voter, he was not affiliated with any party and had not voted in the last two general elections. Even so, officials said Robinson had recently grown more political and expressed negative views about Kirk.

Stop the online world, I want to get off

One day, I won’t need to keep up.

I look forward to that. When I won’t need to know what is happening with tariffs and governments, when I won’t have to fill my morning cup with a daily dose of man’s inhumanity to man, when I don’t have to dig through dross.

I’m just back at work after a few weeks out in a non-media world, realizing after several days I felt like I was coming up from underwater — and that, crucially, I was actually thinking about things beyond the regular churn of news. That I was having thoughts not directly connected to work purposes, that delightful meanderings of mind were still possibly in my weary head.

Thoughts about the domed shape of a sea urchin’s pale-green shell once all of its spines have fallen away; about the feel of small smooth beach rocks as you hold them in place against your index finger and rub them with you thumb. About the distance and weight of the horizon on a grey day, and the slap and lop of small waves on a beach protected by offshore rocks.

Brit BFFs on Titanic moored to each other

Donna Jones Alward could be a character in one of her novels: Maritimes-born farm girl leaves home, gets an education and then an office job, finds love, marries, has babies, returns to work, starts writing in her spare time and finally — after much angst — sells her first book in 2006. Fast forward to 2025, where our Nova Scotia-based heroine, now with countless romance novels under her pen, has segued into historical fiction writing. Talk about happy endings and homecomings.

Alward has described Ship of Dreams, released in late August, as “a story about the enduring bonds of friendship when they’re tested by adversity.” Set in 1912 aboard the RMS Titanic, dubbed “the ship of dreams,” her novel focuses on Hannah and Louisa, two longtime English chums who book passage to New York aboard the luxury liner. One is married, the other a single suffragette. But both young women have big secrets and need to repair affairs of the heart and head.

Little do the two besties know that the ship’s collision with an iceberg at sea will put their beliefs on love, loss, grit and grief to the ultimate test.

Like any decent historical fiction scribe, Alward doesn’t let her famous setting overshadow her fictional characters. While Ship’s storyline plods along for the first two-thirds of the novel, the narrative picks up steam once ship meets berg. Having the first-person chapters alternate between Hannah and Lou offers insight into how the pair view their locale, their dilemmas and demons; it also fosters reader engagement.