This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're not phoning it in before the long weekend. There are some very serious issues that we need to shed a light on, including that was-it-a-coup-attempt in Russia last weekend that might have changed the game. And speaking of changing the game, is Canada about to be serviced by one big newspaper company? What about the fate of local news? In the back half of the show, nothing major, just the state of our emergency rooms in Canada.
This Thursday, June 29, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Man Who Coup Too Much. Over the weekend, the mercenary Wagner Group marched across Russia towards Moscow in what looked like the opening moves of a coup d'état and then, just as swiftly as it began, Wagner's leader (and former hot dog peddler) Yevgeny Prigozhin decided to call the whole thing off. So what happened? Are we really supposed to believe that Vladimir Putin's favourite puppet Aleksandr Lukashenko brokered a deal? And what happens next on the frontlines in Ukraine?
Stop Local. A little more than a week after they cut 1,300 jobs and shuttered bureaus around the world, Bell Media sent a letter to the CRTC asking them to review the requirement to have their local TV stations produce local news. These requirements have existed since the dawn of commercial television, but now Bell thinks that local news is a lemon that they want to get rid of. Following Bill C-18, and the announcement that the Toronto Star maybe merging with Postmedia, can anything save local news?
The Old Department. It's been one of the worst kept secrets that emergency departments at Canada's hospitals are in trouble. COVID-19 turbo charged the issues they were facing, and in a post-COVID world, hospitals are dealing with staff burnout coupled with constant high levels of activity that fall outside the normal patterns. Then, last week, Dr. Catherine Varner wrote in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that not only are the problems in Canada's E.R.'s persistent, they're going to continue for the foreseeable future. She's going to tell is all about why.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.