Peter Menzies
Peter Menzies writes on culture, media and communications. While he now works in the cultural industry and advises tech companies, he has in the past served as vice chairman of telecommunications for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). He was publisher and editor-in-chief of one of Canada's major daily newspapers, the Calgary Herald.
Bio last modified February 24th, 2021.COVID’s Media Monologue
Bad news sells but Peter Menzies wonders why journalists eager to echo alarms about pandemic case numbers ignore the social devastation of lockdown policies.
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We Better Hear the Hoi Polloi
January 11, 2021Politicians and bureaucrats caught flouting COVID restrictions should get over their embarrassment and heed the pandemic suffering of working people, Peter Menzies writes.
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Newspapers Must Face the Facebook Music
December 14, 2020Print journalists’ pleas for the government to keep social media from eating their lunch are as fact-free as claiming the Pyongyang Times is a bulwark of democracy, Peter Menzies argues.
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Great Reset? Or Grand Unravelling?
November 30, 2020Prime Minister Trudeau has mused that COVID-19 will allow for Canadian society to “re-set” on a number of fronts. Peter Menzies says we’ll have to avoid coming apart at the seams first.
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COVID's Contagion of Disbelief
November 18, 2020Drug companies touting new pandemic vaccines should be causing huzzahs. But Peter Menzies warns septic skepticism in the body politic must also be addressed.
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Masks Speak to Common Humanity
October 30, 2020Peter Menzies encounters fellow citizens who insist that refusing to mask up against COVID strikes a blow for liberty. No, he writes, it’s lone wolf rejection of the Golden Rule.
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The Perils of Facing Down Facebook
September 15, 2020Canada’s federal Heritage Minister needs a better grip on who he’s dealing with before shaking his fist too often at Mark Zuckerberg’s social media colossus, Peter Menzies writes.
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When Mass Kneeling Replaces Faith
July 27, 2020A generation raised without religious faith is suddenly dropping to its knees to plead its causes. Peter Menzies asks whether it’s the spirit moving – or another triumph of marketing.
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No Diving Allowed
June 15, 2020As yesterday’s heroes are toppled and today's rules are re-written tomorrow, Peter Menzies advises on how to leave logic behind and chill in the shallow end of history.
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Shadow and Light in the Post-COVID Church
April 30, 2020Two long-time journalistic and personal friends, former CRTC commissioner Peter Menzies and Convivium's Peter Stockland, weigh the future of faith life in a Canada where churches have been shuttered by government order.
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Counting Out Majorities
March 2, 2020Peter Menzies wonders whether anyone else has noticed recent signs of an end to the Canada where majority democratic interest had to be considered at least.
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What About Western Canadians?
October 10, 2019The federal election debate demonstrated a deficient representation of 31 per cent of Canadians, writes Peter Menzies – almost as if their issues do not merit discussion.
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#SOMUCHMUD
September 19, 2019The federal election has begun with more mud than Saturday bath night at a pig farm. Alas, Convivium contributor Peter Menzies says, too many reporters are jumping in and further sinking journalism’s #credibility.
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Nature of Light
September 17, 2019I love late summer days.
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No Competition, Please. We’re Canadian.
August 14, 2019Whether it’s air travel or Internet, the time-honoured Canuck reflex is to boldly pacify the masses with the security blanket of quasi-monopolies, contends Convivium contributor Peter Menzies.
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Losing Our Way on the Internet
July 11, 2019Convivium contributor Peter Menzies argues new federal legislation to control political advertising on the Internet is a classic example of good intentions gone horribly wrong.
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Where Weather Waters Faith
June 21, 2019When late spring rain fell on parched southern Saskatchewan this week, Peter Menzies writes, those who work the land smiled skyward knowing the downpour wasn’t mere water: it was a baptism for summer’s bounty.
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Charter Freedoms and Digital Hate
May 23, 2019Canada has a proud legal history of combating hate, Convivium contributor Peter Menzies notes, but he warns this week’s Digital Charter walks a precarious line between vigilance and suppression.
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Alberta Comes Home
April 29, 2019With its recent election results, writes veteran journalist Peter Menzies, Alberta has ended its four-year hard-left flirtation and returned to being a place of community without collectivism, where all are welcome, and no one asks “Who’s your daddy?”
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The Land of Living Skies
October 29, 2018My mother grew up not far from where this photo was taken in The Land of Living Skies - Saskatchewan. Mum was raised mostly in Rouleau, about a 40 minute drive southwest of Regina on the flattest piece of land imaginable; a place where in the winter the wind, as Colter Wall sings, will cut you half in two.
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Journalists Hurting Journalism
September 18, 2018Those who moil in the media have always been privately infatuated with their own opinions, but the current cohort seems obsessed with telling the public what to think, admonishes former Calgary Herald Publisher Peter Menzies.
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Post-Truth Possibilities
March 23, 2018Reflecting on a paper he wrote almost 10 years ago ago as a Senior Fellow for Cardus, veteran Canadian journalist Peter Menzies concludes that trust is adrift on a sea of lies but, hey, it’s still better to light a candle than curse the dark.
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Convivium Readers Respond: Media Defined Faith
July 14, 2017Convivium readers and long time contributors respond to Publisher Peter Stockland's compellingly written defence earlier this month of how faith is inextricably tied to his identity and vocation as a journalist.
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After the Flood
January 28, 2016The floods that plagued Calgary might be a distant memory for some but they remind one Alberta writer about the stark boundary between government and love of neighbour.