The Poynter Institute's Howard Finberg imagines a retrospective look at today's turmoil in the U.S. MSM from the perspective of a perch in 2018.

Jim Bobby captured this moment.

From The Globe and Mail:

Stephen Hurlbut's 30-year career with CITY-TV news abruptly ended yesterday with no explanation from owner Rogers Media.

In an e-mail, Rogers advised CITY-TV staff that Hurlbut, who started as a camera operator, "has left Rogers."

"Our plans to increase our investment in strong local programming including news are not impacted by today's development," wrote Leslie Sole, chief executive officer of television at Rogers, adding that, in the interim, Hurlbut's duties in Toronto would be taken over by CITY-TV news director Tina Cortese.

Hurlbut, who most recently was national vice-president news, local information programming, could not be reached yesterday.

From The Globe and Mail:

The Ontario Court of Appeal made a landmark ruling that frees the news media to publish contentious allegations that benefit the public interest.

In a 3-0 ruling, the court yesterday said that it is high time for Canada to join other Commonwealth countries in recognizing that an individual's reputation cannot trump the public right to know - provided journalism is practised responsibly.

"The defence rests upon the broad principle that where a media defendant can show that it acted in accordance with the standards of responsible journalism in publishing a story that the public was entitled to hear, it has a defence, even if it got some of its facts wrong," Mr. Justice Robert Sharpe said. ...

Several media lawyers urged the court to create a public-interest defence that would bring an end to a chronic newsroom apprehension that has killed many a potentially important article over the years.

"This is a very important decision in terms of getting facts to the public," said Globe and Mail lawyer Peter Jacobsen, who helped argue the case.

He said that the decision ranks alongside a major freedom of expression case, known as Dagenais, which established the importance of press freedom under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "This is going to allow editors to be much more confident that, once they have jumped through all the hoops, they can publish," Mr. Jacobsen said.

Here's the ruling.

From the BBC:

Was it lese majeste or just a good laugh? Scurrilous libel or a witty commentary on a topical issue for Spanish parents?

El Jueves poked ribald fun at the royal couple

A court in Spain has convicted Manel Fontdevila, cartoons editor of the popular satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, and cartoonist "Guillermo" of "damaging the prestige of the crown".

Both men received a hefty 3,000-euro (£2,100) fine.

Their offence was to have published a cartoon last July making ribald fun of the heir to the Spanish throne, and of the government's scheme to encourage women to have more babies by giving mothers a special payment for each new birth.

It was a caricature of Prince Filipe having sex with his wife, Princess Letizia, and telling her: "Do you realise that if you get pregnant, it will be the closest thing to work I've done in my life?"

The problem, writes William Horsley of the European Union of Journalists, is that such a case is emblematic of eroding media freedom in Europe:

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