Wednesday was a slow news day, so I got to take in a talk by Madelaine Drohan, the Ottawa correspondent for The Economist. She was giving a public talk at UBC Okanagan. She basically said the Canadian media’s coverage of the economy has been irresponsible and inaccurate. Part of the problem I gather, is that our own industry is serious crisis mode and we’re projecting our anxieties out onto the greater world. Well, she didn’t really say that, and I didn’t really report that, but that’s what I got out of it. What I really liked, was her conlcusion that no one really knows what’s going to happen with the economy. It’s what I suspected: all economic forecasting involves taking wild-ass guesses and economists are kinds of witch doctors.

Read my story: Media blamed for alarmist slant on the economy

I also took the time to kick start my coverage of the BC-STV referendum that’s going to be part of the upcoming provincial election. It’s something people need to think about because it could dramatically alter the way our government looks and functions and it was on the ballot the last election and fell only two per cent short of the 60 per cent it needed to pass.

This story just introduces the yes and the no side. In the next almost two months to go I intend to do a bunch more stories trying to explain how STV works and what the effects of implementing it might be.