The Catch's First Birthday (And Announcement)
Looking back on The Catch in its first full year
A year ago, on November 12, 2022, I published the first article on my Substack, The Great Twitter Exodus. At the time, I was unsure about what exactly The Catch would become. Would it be an avenue for comedy? For reporting? I was unsure. I just knew that I needed to spread life rafts from the bird site if I wanted to ensure my relevance.
What’s changed since then? Well, plenty of things. Firstly, I have since been banned from Twitter. The reason? They won’t tell me. The email I got included two https:// links that had nothing beyond that. I can only guess at what did it, but I believe it was when millionaire Tim Gurner said that he wanted to see unemployment jump 50 per cent in order to crush “arrogant” workers. I posted a Spongebob quote tweet in response, modified to include the word “guillotine.” The timeline lines up, and it was just a photo, which would explain the https:// in the email.
Shortly after writing that, I was reinstated for some reason, and the meme in question is still up, so I literally have no idea what it was. I won’t return, by the way. I’ve made my home on Bluesky, and until there’s a viable (non-Meta) alternative, that’s where I’ll stay to continue conveying news and articles.
I also was struck down by a severe escalation in my tinnitus, which led to a little over a month of a hiatus from publishing. For a brief update, I’m still dealing with it, but it’s more that I’ve learned to mitigate my response to it, and deployed tactics to help me cope when that doesn’t happen.
But those are the negatives, what are the positives? Well, I’m proud to say that The Catch has just over 100 subscribers. For a newsletter that focuses on Canadian news, that I do for free, that’s a big accomplishment. It’s no secret that the Canadian demographic on the internet is laughably small. I could have made this a general news criticism newsletter to appeal to the US audience, but what would that contribute? True, there’s independent Canadian media that covers the news industry (notably CANADALAND), but very few take the Herman & Chomsky/Parenti materialist approach. Their books Manufacturing Consent and Inventing Reality, respectively, are surely foundational in criticism such as this, however they were each intended for a US audience, and are each approaching 40 years old. With the rapidly deteriorating Canadian news media landscape, Canadians need the tools to improve their news media diet themselves in the modern day.
That’s what I’ve hoped to do with The Catch. While I’m happy, and very much motivated, to continually cover how capitalist news media fails us, the intent is to cultivate a discerning eye in my readers. My hope is that The Catch fills the void of news media literacy that is intentionally created by the capitalist system, in order to keep the status-quo going.
This attitude is what led to some of the proudest moments for The Catch. To date, as far as I’m aware, I was the only person to note that Evan Dyer at CBC News uncritically published the Great Replacement Theory while reporting on Cuba.
After the entirety of the House of Commons stood up and applauded someone introduced as having fought Russia in WWII, I published a summation of the news media’s covering for the Nazi veteran. I consulted with my friend of Jewish and Ukrainian heritage to make sure I tackled a difficult subject with the grace needed. I believe it’s one of my best.
When Israel’s genocide of Palestine began its latest violent iteration, I was watching Rosie Barton Live, and caught her egregious interview with Palestine Delegate to Canada Mona Abuamara. This was merely a piece of the puzzle in Canadian news media’s anti-Palestine bias, which I followed up with an analysis of their coverage on the mass protests in support of Palestine later.
But while these may constitute some of my more popular articles, there were some that went under the radar, that I’m particularly proud of. I wish I could fit them all here, but I’ll include one I feel is necessary.
The news media’s continual refusal to cover COVID for the crisis it continues to be, led me to summarize their abysmal coverage at the beginning of this year. As you may have noticed from my news-round ups, they continue to sideline the pandemic. This, unfortunately, makes the article still relevant.
Gratitude and Announcement
Alright that’s enough self-satisfaction (it is NNN after all). If you made it this far, I appreciate it. If you’re a regular reader, I can’t express how grateful I am. If you’re a subscriber, I truly want to thank you for subscribing. As a (relatively) new name in the Canadian journalism industry, it’s an unfortunate reality that my “brand” is something I need to cultivate. Subscribing to this newsletter is a fantastic way to keep that going, while you (hopefully) get something valuable in return.
So for The Catch’s first birthday, I have only one request. If you value the analysis, round-ups, and occasional original reporting that goes on here. Please, share it with your friends. If people you know are disillusioned with our news media, tell them about a completely free publication that helps sort through the noise. While I do plan (eventually) to introduce paid options for subscribers, weekly news media analysis will always remain free and accessible.
These paid options will likely be done once I have selected another service. I have recently explored other, non-Substack platforms, to move this newsletter to in the future, but that won’t happen until (at the very least) I finish with school. The reason for this is that Substack, as a company, makes its living off of transphobes and bigots like Bari Weiss and Jesse Singal. No shade to any journalist who stays, or makes a living here, but I am luckily in a position where I could transfer to a different service without losing anything financially, since I have yet to turn on paid options. Regardless, whenever that happens, I will migrate everything on the backend, so you won’t have to change anything.
But that’s enough thanks and technical stuff. Here comes the fun part.
I have been slowly working to build the candidates for an awards show! Presenting… The Catch’s Inaugural Weasel Awards, or… The Martens!
The Martens will be presented to journalists, or news organizations, that particularly offended the senses in 2023. I’m currently working with four categories, including Worst Journalism of the Year, and I’ll be opening up suggestions for categories (and/or nominees for them) in the Substack chat. But I’ll also take suggestions on any social platform you can reach me on.
That being said, there is one category I’ll absolutely need your help with: The People’s Choice! What did the readers of The Catch find particularly odious in news from 2023? I’ll gather nominees and create a poll once enough have been gathered. So keep an eye on your inbox for those details, which will probably come by the end of November, early December.
That’s all for today. Thank you once again for reading. I can’t convey how much it means to me.