Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Canada's National Observer
Canadian national journalism website From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Canada's National Observer (CNO) is a media company that produces daily news, analysis and opinion on energy, climate, politics, and social issues.[1] They focus especially on climate issues from a left-wing perspective.[1]
By January 2018, CNO had an office in Vancouver and Ottawa. Linda Solomon Wood is the founder, sole director and officer of the Observer Media Group.[2][1]
Remove ads
History
Summarize
Perspective
National Observer was founded by Wood in 2015, with the help of $80,000 (CAD) raised in a Kickstarter campaign.[1][3] Wood, who in 2009 founded the more locally-focused publication The Vancouver Observer, noted a desire to build a national publication. CNO would focus on "environmental reporting from a clearly pro-environment angle."[1] Wood described the investigative reporting CNO does as solutions-oriented; “The whole point of an investigative series is to bring further attention to a problem so that there can be policy change for the better.”[1]
The original team included Charles Mandel, Elizabeth McSheffrey, Bruce Livesey, Sandy Garossino, Jenny Uechi, Mike De Souza, Valentina Ruiz Leotaud, and Bruno De Bondt, with Linda Solomon Wood as editor-in-chief."[4][self-published source]
In a 2016 article, National Post columnist Terence Corcoran described a "newspaper war" between the Postmedia Network and the Toronto Star (TorStar).[5] He criticized Torstar's "series of personal and corporate attacks" against Postmedia, in particular CNO reporter Bruce Livesey's massive "5,000-word take down" of Postmedia, published in both CNO and the Star.[5] Corcoran said Livesey was "a master of the inappropriate juxtaposition of fact and conclusion" and described CNO as "the left-wing Vancouver online magazine" and "leftist".[5][6]
In 2017, CNO collaborated with The Toronto Star, Global News, the Michener Awards Foundation, the Corporate Mapping Project and four journalism schools, resulting in The "Price of Oil" project, which looked at the health impacts of oil and gas development on Canadian communities.[1][7][8]
Remove ads
Funding
An article by David Beers wrote that CNO "mixes revenues from paywall subscribers, philanthropies and other sources".[9] CNO's 2015 Kickstarter campaign raised $80,000 (CAD).[3]
CNO has received funding from the progressive U.S. advocacy group Tides Foundation.[2] Harvard University's "Canadian Media Ownership Index" report states CNO's editor-in-chief is the sister of Tides Canada Foundation's co-founder and former Chairman of the Board for the Tides Foundation.[2]
CNO has received funding from Canadian federal government grants, and The Facebook Journalism Project.[2]
Remove ads
Reception
Harvard University's "Canadian Media Ownership Index" mentions "National Observer represents a new digital journalism trend: mission driven journalism and in tandem, a lack of transparency of private ownership of media." The same report contrasted this trend to publicly traded companies and nonprofits who have strict transparency protocols.[2]
The report notes CNO is an example of "solutions journalism", which it describes as a "trend in the US where foundations and corporations can pay to fund a story topic to be developed around a societal issue."[2]
Observer Media Group was named in a Supreme Court Case registered with the province of BC in 2017. The court case alleges the improper use of charity status by a U.S. funder of CNO, the Tides Foundation, in order to campaign against the Canadian oil sands.[2]
David Beers, founder of The Tyee, which has also received Tides Foundation funding,[2] noted CNO's "energy sector investigations have rocked Ottawa and forced resignations".[9]
See also
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads