National Observer (Canada)

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For other uses, see National Observer (disambiguation).

Canada's National Observer
No logo two lines01 (1).png
TypeDaily news website
FormatOnline newspaper
Owner(s)
Editor-in-chiefLinda Solomon Wood
Managing editorAdrienne Tanner
Founded2015 (2015)
HeadquartersVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Websitewww.nationalobserver.com

Canada's National Observer is an online daily news publication launched in 2015 as an offshoot of the Vancouver Observer.[1] The national site focuses on investigative reporting and news on energy, climate, politics and social issues. They self-describe as a progressive news organization.[1]

Overview[]

Canada's National Observer was described as a "daily news site covering issues like government, the environment, health, climate change, and human rights, all with a progressive bent" in a 2018 profile of editor-in-chief Linda Solomon Wood by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.[2] National Observer's owner, Observer Media Group, was a certified B Corporation.[3] By 2015, they had a Vancouver office and later opened offices in Ottawa and Toronto.[1]

History[]

In their 2016 Kickstarter campaign they described themselves as raising funds for a "dramatic new series about the world's fight to beat climate change."[4] Their original team included Charles Mandel, Elizabeth McSheffrey, Bruce Livesey, Sandy Garossino, Jenny Uechi, Mike De Souza, Valentina Ruiz Leotaud, Bruno De Bondt, and Solomon Wood as editor-in-chief."[4] Through the campaign they crowd-sourced $70,863 from 784 backers.[4][1] Their 2016 Kickstarter campaign listed issues that their investigative journalists would cover, including the role of corporations that impede change, climate policies related to the 2015 Paris Agreement—part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, food security, the oil sands, hydraulic fracturing in Canada, and animal welfare.[4]

The centre piece of the Observer's launch was Bruce Livesey's May 4, 2015 article, "How Canada made the Koch brothers rich."[5]

On January 1, 2016, the Observer published the first in a special series of articles on the Great Bear Rainforest in partnership with Tides Canada, Teck, and Vancity.[6]

In October 2017, National Observer teamed up with The Toronto Star, Global News, the Michener Awards Foundation, the University of Victoria-led Corporate Mapping Project[Notes 1] and four journalism schools, for "the largest collaborative journalism project in Canadian history."[7] The "Price of Oil" project was created for the purpose of "tracking oil industry influence in partnership with investigative journalism students from across the country."[8]

Linda Solomon Wood[]

According to J-Source, in August 2014, Linda Solomon Wood, who is CEO Observer Media Group announced the planned launch of a national version of the Vancouver Observer, an online journalism site that she had created and managed since 2006.[9][1]

Solomon Wood moved from New York City to Canada in 2001, partly because of air pollution fall out after 9/11.[1]

On January 1, 2016, the Observer published the first in a special series of articles on the Great Bear Rainforest in partnership with Tides Canada, Teck, and Vancity.[6] Canadaland's Jesse Brown questioned how funding from philanthropists influences the Observer s journalistic objectivity.[1]

During a 2015 Canadaland interview, Solomon Wood said that the original idea behind National Observer was "to counter the influence of the energy industry's multi-million dollar spending on ads and editorial partnerships with mainstream media through factual independent reporting".[1]

Sandy Garossino[]

Sandy Garossino is a writer and a national affairs columnist for National Observer. She is a former Crown prosecutor and media commentator, according to The Tyee. The Tyee [1] said her son-in-law, "at least unofficially, is Elon Musk. Garossino’s daughter is Claire Boucher, a.k.a. Grimes, the musical superstar." Garossino broke the story for National Observer about Senator Mike Duffy's redacted diaries that had suggested that Enbridge pipeline company had regularly lobbied Duffy to reach then Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2012, while Harper was engaged in "scorching attacks on environmental activists and charities." The redacted diaries story was covered in a number of media outlets including the Calgary Herald the Huffington Post, the Narwhal, and CBC.

Bruce Livesey[]

Main article:

One of National Observer’s first reporters was Toronto-based Bruce Livesey —an investigative journalist and author, formerly with CBC and Global.[10] In 2014, Livesey had been commissioned to produce an investigative documentary for Global Television, about the American billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, who own Koch Industries, a "global behemoth" with extensive holdings in Alberta's oil sands—"from 1.1 million to as much as two million acres" worth "tens of billions of dollars", and "their interest" in the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.[5] Canadaland reported on February 5, 2015 that Global had pulled Livesey's Global News article[11] and the documentary two days before it was to be aired.[12] Although Livesey says he had nothing to do with the Canadaland report, Global fired him immediately.[5] Livesey undertook further research on the Koch brothers connections to the oil sands,[1] and published the article, "How Canada made the Koch brothers rich" on May 4, 2015 as part of the launching of the National Observer.[5] In the article, he described how the Koch brothers had launched attacks on numerous media outlets, including an attack against Edmonton Journal's reporter, Karen Kleiss, for her 2011 article that said that the Kochs had hired a lobbyist in Alberta.[5] His and other National Observer reporters' coverage of the oil and gas industry's push to build or enlarge pipelines across Canada has sparked interest amongst politicians, journalists, commentators, academics, NGOs, and social media influencers.[13]

In 2017, Livesey's 8-part series entitled for the House of Irving for Observer on K. C. Irving's family won a National Newspaper Award.[10][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] When Livesey's series won the award, Tracy Glynn, the NB Media Co-op editor, said that he "National Observer is changing the media landscape in Canada, showing that business can be reported on in a way that has the public interest at heart, which is the task of journalism".[22] Livesey's series on the Irvings was a follow-up to his February 26, 2016 Globe and Mail article, "Is the secretive Irving family ready for its close-up?."[23]

Mike De Souza[]

Mike De Souza, who is managing editor of investigations with Global News, served as the Observer managing editor from April 2016 to 2019.[24] Da Souza, who was originally from Montreal, had covered politics at the National Assembly of Quebec, Parliament Hill in Ottawa and Calgary, which included eight years writing on energy issues for Postmedia s at their Ottawa-based parliamentary office.[25]

De Souza broke a story that became known as 'the Charest affair' in July 2016.[26] Through Freedom of Information requests, he discovered that Quebec's Jean Charest gave political advice to members of a federal panel reviewing a major TransCanada Corporation pipeline project in a private meeting while he was under contract with the Alberta-based company.[26] This story sparked reactions across the country and was quoted by dozens of other media outlets, including the Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star, CBC, Le Devoir, and Le Soleil. In June 2017, De Souza was named a finalist for the 2017 Michener Award for his reporting on the Charest affair.[27]

Controversies[]

In his 2016 article, National Post journalist Terence Corcoran described a "newspaper war" between the Postmedia Network and the Toronto Star and criticized Torstar's "series of personal and corporate attacks" on Postmedia, in general, and National Observer reporter Bruce Livesey's massive "5,000-word take down" of Postmedia in particular.[28] Livesey's article was published in both the Observer[29] and in the Star. Corcoran said that Livesey was "a master of the inappropriate juxtaposition of fact and conclusion",[30] and the National Observer was a "left-wing Vancouver online magazine".[30]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ "The Corporate Mapping Project brings together a large team of academic and community-based researchers, and advisors from environmental, Indigenous, labour and independent media groups. The project is hosted by the University of Victoria, and jointly led by UVic, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Parkland Institute, together with a larger group of partners."

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jesse Brown, Linda Solomon Wood (April 26, 2015). Our Oily Media. Canadaland. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
  2. ^ Owen, Laura Hazard (January 2018). "We stepped in and started doing it". Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  3. ^ "Observer Media Group".
  4. ^ a b c d "Reports from the Race Against Climate Change", Kickstarter, 2016
  5. ^ a b c d e Livesey, Bruce (May 4, 2015). "How Canada made the Koch brothers rich". National Observer. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
  6. ^ a b Solomon Wood, Linda; Hatch, Chris (January 27, 2016). "Great Bear Rainforest: Canada's gift to the world". National Observer. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  7. ^ Inniss, Sandra (November 10, 2017). "Ces petites salles de nouvelles qui enquêtent". JSource. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  8. ^ Beers, David (November 8, 2017). "A good news story about the news in British Columbia". The Conversation. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  9. ^ "Energy and politics news site National Observer to launch this week". JSource. April 22, 2015. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  10. ^ a b "Bruce Livesey". National Observer. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  11. ^ Livesey, Bruce (January 29, 2015). "The Koch Stake in Canada". Global News. Archived from the original on March 30, 2018. The Vancouver Observer, an online newspaper, dug up tax filings that show Koch money has been financing the Fraser Institute, one of Canada's oldest conservative think tanks – a total of $765,000 since 2007.
  12. ^ "Global News Disappeared a Koch Brothers Exposé". Canadaland. February 5, 2015. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
  13. ^ "Al Jazeera features National Observer, Bruce Livesey, Tar Sands Reporting Project, Linda Solomon Wood as antidotes to 'oil-addicted' media". National Observer.
  14. ^ Livesey, Bruce (June 6, 2016). "What have the Irvings done to New Brunswick?". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 1. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  15. ^ Livesey, Bruce (June 13, 2016). "Turmoil at Irving Oil June 13, 2016". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 2. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  16. ^ Livesey, Bruce (June 20, 2016). "Playing hardball the J.D. Irving way". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 3. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  17. ^ Livesey, Bruce (June 27, 2016). "How the Irvings intimidate their critics". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 4. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  18. ^ Livesey, Bruce (July 6, 2016). "The Irvings' media monopoly and its consequences". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 5. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  19. ^ Livesey, Bruce (July 21, 2016). "The Irvings' Invasion of Maine". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 6. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  20. ^ Livesey, Bruce (June 13, 2016). "Are the Irvings trying to censor CBC reporter Jacques Poitras?". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 7. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  21. ^ Livesey, Bruce (March 3, 2016). "Are the Irvings Canada's biggest corporate welfare bums?". National Observer. House of Irving. No. 8. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  22. ^ Lavoie September 25, 2017, Sophie M. (September 25, 2017). "Bruce Livesey deconstructs The House of Irvings". NB Media Co-op. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  23. ^ Livesey, Bruce (February 26, 2016). "Is the secretive Irving family ready for its close-up?". The Globe And Mail. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  24. ^ "Mike De Souza". National Observer. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  25. ^ Guly, Christopher (October 17, 2016). "Former Postmedia reporter De Souza files complaint against National Post". The Hill Times. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  26. ^ a b De Souza, Mike (August 8, 2016). "What is the Charest affair and why should I care?". National Observer. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  27. ^ "Michener winners honoured at Rideau Hall". Michener Awards Foundation. June 14, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  28. ^ Mitrovica, Andrew (December 22, 2015). "The Post is Toast: The disintegration of the Postmedia chain". iPolitics. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  29. ^ Livesey, Bruce (November 24, 2015). "The tawdry fall of the Postmedia newspaper empire". National Observer. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  30. ^ a b Corcoran, Terence (February 20, 2016). "A falling Star: No cash in its dowry, declining revenues and no obvious marriage prospects". National Post. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
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