Nora Loreto on Spin Doctors: How Politicians and the Media Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic [video]

Nora Loreto, writer and editor of the Canadian Association of Labour Media (CALM), kicked off the first lecture in the Human Rights & the Media Lecture Series on January 18. Loreto spoke on her new book, Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic. The talk is now available for viewing here.

This winter, the Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University’s Department of Human Rights, St. Thomas University’s Department of Journalism and Communications, the NB Media Co-op and RAVEN invite the public to the Human Rights & the Media Lecture Series. We will hear from scholars of the media and law, media makers and grassroots activists on how our media landscape is changing. We will hear about what they are doing to make this media landscape a more safe, just and equal space.

About Spin Doctors from Fernwood: “As Canada was in the grips of the worst pandemic in a century, Canadian media struggled to tell the story. Newsrooms, already run on threadbare budgets, struggled to make broader connections that could allow their audience to better understand what was really happening, and why. Politicians and public health officials were mostly given the benefit of the doubt that what they said was true and that they acted in good faith.

This book documents each month of the first year of the pandemic and examines the issues that emerged, from racialized workers to residential care to policing. It demonstrates how politicians and uncritical media shaped the popular understanding of these issues and helped to justify the maintenance of a status quo that created the worst ravages of the crisis. Spin Doctors argues alternative ways in which Canadians should understand the big themes of the crisis and create the necessary knowledge to demand large-scale change.”

Upcoming Lectures

Register for the Zoom link here.

February 1 – Elizabeth Dubois, Associate Professor of Communications, University of Ottawa, on Political Bots: Understanding Communication Strategies Using Automation and AI.

February 8 – Erin Steuter, Professor of Sociology, Mount Allison University, on Won’t Get Fooled Again: A Graphic Guide to Fake News.

February 10 – Aditya Rao, a human rights lawyer, on Hate Speech and Human Rights in Canada: The Fight Over Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

February 15 – Hilary Young, Professor of Law at the University of New Brunswick, on Civil Recourse for Non-Consensual Disclosure of Intimate Images.

February 22 – Laura O’Brien, UN Advocacy Officer for Access Now, on Defending Peaceful Assembly and Association in the Digital Age: Takedowns, Shutdowns, and Surveillance.

March 17 – Fenwick McKelvey, Assistant Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy in the Department of Communication Studies, on how our lives and communications are influenced by AI.

March 31 – Siti Maimunah, a rapporteur for the People’s Tribunal at COP26 in Glasgow and member of the COP26 Coalition, on telling the stories of people of the Global South affected by climate change.

April 12 – Kaitlyn Layden, with the New Brunswick Coalition of Persons with Disabilties, on engaging the media to advance the rights of people with disabilities.

For more information, contact Tracy Glynn at tglynn@stu.ca.