Call the Question

We kick off Series 2 of Call the Question with Joanna Chiu, bureau chief of the Star Vancouver newsroom of the Toronto Star. We've been fans of Star Vancouver's sassy newsroom personality from the get-go, from the reporters' hilarious tweets, to the massive scoops, to the smart analysis on major issues, like Tessa Vikander's LGBTQ2+ and trans rights reporting, Melanie Green's reporting on Islamophobia, and much more (listen to the pod for more newsroom star name-dropping). We talk with Joanna about diversity in newsrooms, how her team hustles for the story, and the intentional approach they all take to doing things differently. We also talk about one the hottest stories of the year (still going): the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, where Joanna reported from earlier this summer. In WTF, Maria drops the hammer on the recent surge in Downtown Eastside trash talking and poverty shaming, and slams the resurgence of the discredited "broken windows theory" of how to "clean up" a neighbourhood.