With deep cuts in the Canadian media industry occurring on a near monthly basis in recent years, some of Canada’s most talented and respected journalists have been forced into early retirement or otherwise marginalized.
Beyond the layoff of big names like Lisa Laflamme and Paul Workman, cuts within the industry are occurring at every level to the point where journalism schools are being shuttered due to falling demand for journalism jobs. In 2023 alone, Loyalist College, Humber College, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Mohawk College discontinued their journalism programs.
One of the few voices who has consistently sounded the alarm on how dangerous this trend is for our democracy is Mark Bourrie – an Ottawa-based journalist, award-winning author, lawyer, professor, and one of Canada’s fastest-rising media critics.
Bourrie is a talented and accomplished intellectual; few in Canada can match his credentials. He is a lawyer who holds a PhD in history, was a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery for over 25 years, and taught media history and journalism at Concordia University, history at Carleton University, and Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa.
As an author, Bourrie has penned 14 books including The Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre Radisson, which won The Taylor Prize in 2020, Canada’s most important nonfiction award. His book, Kill the Messenger: Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your Right to Know, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Books of the Year.
His most recent book, Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia, examines the Jesuits’ attempt to create their own nation on the Great Lakes and turn the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy into a model Jesuit state in the early 1600s, led by Missionary Jean de Brébeuf.
The book has earned critical acclaim – both for the work and its author. In a review for the Globe and Mail, writer and journalist Charlotte Gray wrote, “Bourrie has done more than any other Canadian historian writing for a general audience to disinter the root causes of degenerating settler-Indigenous relations… And he has done it with attention-grabbing panache. Crosses in the Sky is reliable history and would make a stirring movie.”
Over his journalism career, he has won several major media awards, including a National Magazine Award, with his work appearing in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post, the Montreal Gazette, and the Ottawa Citizen, along with magazines including Toronto Life and Ottawa Magazine.
Today, through his website (Fairpress.ca) and on social media, where he enjoys a solid following with over 17,000 followers on X/Twitter alone, Bourrie provides an incisive and in-depth analysis of the Canadian media sector. He is unafraid and at times ruthless in his critiques, taking on the decline in standards of journalism and tackling topics others are unable or unwilling to broach.
For example, he was an early and frequent critic of the attack mob mentality that took over Canadian media during the so-called “WE Charity scandal.” Through dozens of articles and posts, he was able to uncover the sloppy, dishonest, and false reporting by Canadaland and its reporters. Similarly, he uncovered the complete failure of CBC’s The Fifth Estate in upholding even the most basic media standards.
In the fallout of the sustained media attacks against the charity, which led to its closure in Canada, the charity and family members of its founders (Marc and Craig Kielburger) have sued some of the principals, who refused to retract or update reporting despite the prevailing narrative being completely debunked following external forensic audits.
Both Canadaland’s publisher, Jesse Brown, and The Fifth Estate (specifically, lead producer Harvey Cashore and lead reporter Mark Kelley) are facing separate lawsuits currently before the courts in Canada and the United States.
In the Canadaland case, Bourrie has followed and provided a fascinating analysis of the case as Brown et al. tried to have the suit dismissed through an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) motion.
Bourrie attended the hearings and reported on Justice E.M. Morgan’s harsh rebuke of the defendants, stating the plaintiffs have a strong case in his dismissal of the motion, writing “…there is substantial merit in the claim against Brown and Canadaland…” and “…there is no reason to believe that Brown and Canadaland have any valid defence.”
In the CBC case, which is being tried in the US, Bourrie pulled no punches in his assessment of the sloppy journalism by Cashore and Kelley. In one piece, Bourrie mocked the Fifth Estate team’s hyperbolic coverage of their trip to Kenya, writing, “Harvey Cashore and Mark Kelley chose to pretend they were on some kind of half-assed James Bond mission. The program is very dramatic. But it becomes bizarre in a sort of gallows-humour way when you compare it to reality.”
In a more recent article, Bourrie examines the potential pitfalls young journalists can face in trying to make a name for themselves. In Jaren Kerr and the Curse of Canadaland, Bourrie documents how Jesse Brown took advantage of the inexperience of a young journalism school graduate, Jaren Kerr (a co-defendant in the WE Charity vs. Canadaland suit), to push his own agenda and narrative.
It’s a compelling and cautionary tale, and the sort of topic that few others in the Canadian media landscape would ever touch. And that’s why Bourrie is such a fascinating and necessary voice in Canadian journalism.
