Fair Comment
Editor-in-Chief, Jacob Serebrin blogs about the news and behind the scenes at the Concordian.
9 postings
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Why we granted a writer anonymity
3/16/10 3:33 PM
This week, for the first time, the Concordian granted anonymity to one of our writers. This is pretty unusual for us. In my opinion, the publication of writers’ names keeps people accountable; people are less likely to say crazy or untrue things when their name is attached. Just take a look at anonymous comments all over the Internet, they’re often pretty crazy and pretty extreme, but you don’t see that places like Facebook, where most people go by their real name. The second thing they allow is for the audience to know who the writer is and judge their credibility, they can find out what that person has done and or written in the past and use that information to make an informed decision on the writers credibility. In the past, when writers have asked for...Federal budget is smart politics
3/6/10 12:53 PM
The Conservative government released its new budget yesterday. On the whole, it isn’t exactly an ambitious document — some spending freezes, a few cuts here and there, the lifting of some tariffs and not much else. It’s gotten flack from the Liberals and the NDP for not putting enough into social programs. But the right is also unhappy with it. Yesterday, the head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told CBC that the cuts aren’t real cuts. Rather, he said, they’re cuts to spending increases, the budget is still growing – just not as fast. According to Andrew Coyne of Maclean’s, there is $4.5 billion in spending increases this year. Essentially, the economy is expected to grow, and the increased tax revenue and savings...ASFA elections: final thoughts
2/16/10 7:31 PM
Voting in the elections for the executive of the Arts and Sciences Federation of Associations began today. For the past two weeks these elections have been the subject of our editorials. In these elections, and with certain candidates, we saw some disturbing trends that we felt were important to address. When the topic of this week’s editorial came up, one of the first thoughts was an endorsement. It’s been something of a common practice of ours to endorse a specific party or candidates at election time in civic, provincial, federal and student elections. However this time around it quickly became clear that none of the three parties contesting this election was deserving of our endorsement. While we agreed that...The failure of Facebook organizing
1/24/10 3:23 PM
Somewhere between 17,600 (according to Maclean’s) and 25,000 (Globe and Mail) Canadians protested the prorogation of Parliament yesterday. Organizers hailed it as a testament to the power of organizing through Facebook. Jesse Root, one of the protest organizers in Ottawa, where around 3,00 people came out, told the Citizen, “There have been a lot of questions about whether Facebook can be used to co-ordinate a political movement … Look around.” In today’s Globe and Mail, former NDP press secretary-turned freelance media relations, Ian Capstick, wrote, “Never before has Facebook filled Canada’s streets. It did today.” But considering the Facebook group “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament,” has over...Follow-up to yesterday's wrap-up
11/26/09 3:24 PM
Based on some of the comments on the last blog post, I think a couple things need clarification. The McGill PGSS delegation does include Jose Barrios (PGSS researcher and a University of Victoria student, he was behind the CFS referendum campaign there), Dean Tester (Carleton student and right-wing blogger) and Erin Hale (McGill undergrad and reporter for the McGill Daily). However this wasn’t the issue that nearly prevented McGill from being let in yesterday. Instead it was the so-called “reform” package, and some of the provisions in there that would have affected CFS staffers. PGSS’ lawyer said the contract was illegal because it would have prevented members of a corporation from attending its AGM and the CFS seemed to agree, allowing them in after...
