Speakers raised concerns about increasing hostility towards the press at the latest DemocracyXChange conference at Ryerson.
A speechwriter for former president Barack Obama and the Toronto Star’s public editor were among speakers who expressed concern at the growing distrust in the media at a Ryerson conference Jan. 26 and 27.
Sarada Peri, who served as special assistant and senior speechwriter for the former president, was at Ryerson to give a keynote address at the DemocracyXChange conference held at the Ted Rogers School of Management.
Peri said that Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s hostility towards the Canadian media is “enormously dangerous.”
“When Ford demonizes the legitimate media, it obviously erodes peoples’ trust in facts and actual reporting,” she said in an interview Jan. 27. “What that means is that he’s no longer really being held accountable for his actions, because we rely on the media to report on what our elected leaders are doing.”
She said that Canada can learn from the lessons of the United States in regards to the media being demonized and stressed that journalists need to keep reporting, “as painful as it is,” in the face of harassment both online and in real life.
“As hard as it is, we’re relying on you all to keep going,” Peri said of journalists. “I think part of that, too, is not giving into the ‘both-sides’-ism that some want and just reporting accurately on the truth.”
The conference consisted of two days of various keynotes, panels and workshops centred on different aspects of democracy, such as the role of the media, collective action, disagreement about climate change and civic engagement.
Peri was part of an event called “Populism and its Discontents: Views from the Left and Right” held on Jan. 27. She spoke about populism from a liberal point of view, while Sean Speer, a former economic adviser to prime minister Stephen Harper, rebutted from a conservative standpoint.
Toronto Star public editor Kathy English also spoke about distrust with the media during her keynote on a panel Jan. 26 entitled “Slow Down and Fix Things: Remaking the Media that can Break Our Democracy”.
“It’s not news to tell you there’s crisis of trust in journalism overall,” English said during the panel. “People have always disliked the media. They’ve always distrusted. But a U.S. president who is set to demonize the media and has the tools of amplification to do so I believe is something new.”
English said the current media environment is “both a challenge and an opportunity,” stressing that both news organizations and individual journalists have to prove that they’re trustworthy.
The objective of the conference, an initiative of the Ryerson Leadership Lab, is “for Canada’s emerging democracy sector to connect, learn and share.” It was last held in 2017.
Conference co-chair and Ryerson distinguished visiting professor Karim Bardeesy said hosting the conference during a federal election year was important.
“A lot of people are feeling not so good about democracy given the things we’re seeing worldwide and the rise of toxic authoritarian populism,” Bardeesy said. “Giving people insight and tools to actually make change in their communities is a pretty important thing to do.”
Notable speakers during the weekend’s events included former premier Kathleen Wynne, Parkdale-High Park MPP Bhutila Karpoche and 17-year-old Rayne Fisher-Quann, who organized September’s student walkout in protest of the Ford government’s changes to the sex-ed curriculum.