Why Second Reading exists

Most Canadian news is now produced by newsrooms that receive money from the federal government, from a federal tax credit, or from a fund that a federal statute created.

A story is shaped by what a newsroom chooses to report and by what it leaves out. When a newsroom's payroll depends on one of those pipes, the reader deserves to know that before reading.

Second Reading gives the news a second look. One story a day: what funded newsrooms reported, what was already on the public record, what independent outlets and writers said, and the gap between them.

The full map of who pays for Canadian news, with every figure sourced, is on the Landscape page.

What "funded" means here

A newsroom is funded, in our usage, if it sits on at least one of four pipes: a parliamentary appropriation (CBC/Radio-Canada); a Canadian Heritage program such as the Local Journalism Initiative or the Canada Periodical Fund; the Canadian journalism labour tax credit; or a payment from the Google pool under the Online News Act.

Independent means an outlet or author outside all four. Some titles sit in both columns. Postmedia and Global News are funded. When a title is on a pipe, we name the pipe.

What each issue contains

One story, one page, in the same order every time.

1. 1.
   The numbers. The load-bearing figures, each with its source.
2. 2.
   What funded newsrooms reported. Quoted, not characterised. If only one of them ran it, we say which.
3. 3.
   What was already public. Primary documents only: Statistics Canada, the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Hansard, court decisions, access-to-information releases, earlier reporting.
4. 4.
   What the independents said. Named, linked and attributed.
5. 5.
   The gap. Two sentences. What each side did not include.
6. 6.
   The caveat. The strongest honest point against the issue's own framing. Never cut.

How stories are chosen

Each morning we review what independent outlets and writers across online platforms are saying about Canadian news, rank the candidates by attention and freshness, and pick one. The funded desks are checked the same day.

That method has a known lean. Independent Canadian media skews to the right of the funded newsrooms, so most gaps we find will run in one direction. We say so rather than pretend otherwise, and some issues deliberately run the other way.

The underreported log

Some claims raised by independents never become a daily issue but are worth noting. The Underreported page is a dated log of claims we checked and found accurate, where the funded desks' coverage was absent or marginal on the day we looked. It is deliberately short.

How Second Reading is funded

Second Reading takes no public money, no journalism tax credit, no Google money and no platform money. It is published by Webhaller Inc. and paid for by its publisher. If that changes, this page will say so.

Corrections

Every claim links to its source. If a number is wrong, write to editor@secondreading.ca. The issue is corrected in place and the correction is listed on the issue it amends.

Second Reading is published in Canada by Webhaller Inc. It is the domestic sibling of Audin's Atlas, which runs the same comparison across sixteen state and public broadcasters worldwide.