Lean Out with Tara Henley

In January of 2022, during one of Toronto’s never-ending pandemic lockdowns, I launched Lean Out from the tiny kitchen of my 485-square-foot apartment. I had just left legacy media, somewhat loudly. I had been a current affairs radio producer at Canada’s national public broadcaster, the CBC. And I was worried that journalists were getting some of the biggest stories of our age wrong. I was fed up with our incuriosity on a range of hot-button issues, from pandemic policy to race and gender. Th...

In the maelstrom that is modern life, we’ve lost any sense of seasonality. These days, the summer is as non-stop as any other time of the year and the long, sun-drenched days can come and go without any real rest or relaxation. But we remember a time in the not-too-distant past when July and August offered a welcome lull — a time to retreat, to recharge, to reinvent. To dream, even. The summer felt expansive, wondrous. We're convinced that this annual reprieve was essential for maintaining sa...

One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is a crisis in confidence in the mainstream media. In a few weeks, Tara's new book on this topic will be released in the United States and Canada. The Trust Spiral: Why the Media Needs Objectivity unpacks where the press has gone wrong — and what it needs to do to regain the public’s trust. Cardus in Ottawa hosted Tara for an event on June 9, where she was joined on-stage by a fellow Canadian journalist. We are happy to share a portion of that discuss...

It has now five years since the Kamloops band made an announcement of the discovery of the "remains of 215 children” at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, kicking off an intense period of national grief and anger. A month ago, The Globe and Mail editorial board made news around the world, declaring the national press’s lack of scrutiny of the claim a “failure of journalism.” Our guest on the program this week is an award-winning journalist who was early on this story — and he’s he...

It’s Canada Day and many of us are reflecting on our nation and where we are at. We know that we are more divided than ever, but how did we get here? Our guest on the program this week has just written a book on political polarization in the country. He says the roots of our divisions run deep — and the consequences are dire. Eric Merkley is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and director of the Policy, Elections, and Representation Lab. His new book is ...