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Jessica Johnson

@jessicajohnson.bsky.social
643 followers 198 following 398 posts

Co-author, “What Should the CBC Be?” (@mediatechdemocracy.bsky.social 2025). Adjunct professor @uoft.bsky.social. Former EIC @thewalrusca.bsky.social. I post here about writing, journalism and books.

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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 13h
Lots of pragmatism going on right now.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Prepare for butts.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
That was my thought when I watched it recently as well: so many butts. “Do we have a butt in this scene? How can we put one in?”
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
And that’s the thing. Carson could have chosen to write only like this, in a relatively accessible form of poetry. She would still be one of the best poets in the world.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
What’s a good first introduction to Anne Carson? You could do way worse than to start with The Glass Essay. It’s not really like her other work, but as a poem, it’s magnificent. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48636/...
poetryfoundation.org
The Glass Essay
Night drips its silver tap down the back. SHE She lives on a moor in the north. Spring opens like a blade there. I travel all day on trains and bring a…
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Geryon! I think our brains keep track of fictional characters and each other in the same place.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
For many years I chased Carson for interviews until I realized it wasn’t worth it. The message on her voice mail just said, “Carson is out.”
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The book is beautiful. Looks like a great night!
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
And now I study public media, which isn’t the answer to everything. You want a plurality of media sources in a culture. But as journalism struggles financially, free public media might be the only reliable journalism some people have. It’s important to protect it.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I’m deeply worried about the effect of this shift on democracy. In my 2022 @thewalrus.ca Talk, I talked about information inequality—the idea that only those who can afford to pay will have access to reliable news. youtu.be/YMWHJVgzX1U
youtu.be
Jessica Johnson: Future of the Media
YouTube video by The Walrus
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This is a good and important topic. Readers, as a rule, hate paywalls. If you are using social media platforms for free, though, you’re participating in a culture where media outlets have to put up paywalls. We didn’t need them before Meta, Google, etc.
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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Let's talk eels & colonization! In the early 17th C. London was growing fast and needed more eels.The surrounding countryside couldn't provide enough. The Dutch importers could...but the English were nervous of the strong Dutch monopoly. So where did they look? Ireland. 1/5 🗃️🧪
Meme. Photograph of a Monopoly board game in Dutch. You're looking at the starting corner, seeing 2 squares in either direction. The directions on the square read:

Ontvang
Bij het passeren
f2000. - salaris
START

So now you know the (or at least a) Dutch word for start.

The game board is sitting on what is probably a table made of a light wood or wood substitute. You can see the grain running  left to right, or right to left. Or perhaps east to west. It's hard to tell with grain. The board itself is edged in red, but fear not. It's only red paint, not blood. A blood-edged board would be a far darker shade of red. And a far darker game, over all.

Meme text reads:
"Who wouldn't be
Nervous?"
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Jacob Two-Two was surprisingly disturbing. Specifically, Master Fish and Mistress Fowl.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For transparency, I am wearing a cotton jacket and felt cold this morning, now OK. We have entered the point of the fall where it is winter and summer on the same day. In my opinion.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
First parka sighting of the season, outside Toronto gas station. Other individuals are wearing shorts. It is 15C.
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Toronto Star @thestar.com · 01/10/2026
Opinion: Those outside the uppermost echelons of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s team see a government that moves quickly, travels everywhere and makes announcements often — but nobody is quite sure how it actually works, beyond whatever part they can reach out and touch, writes the Star's Justin Ling.
thestar.com
Justin Ling: Who does Mark Carney really listen to? I asked the insiders
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Rebecca Gao @rebeccaga0.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There is an immeasurable amount of AI slop that these candidates are putting up that the candidate tracker team @thelocal.to is wading through. Read our human generated and fact-checked work here: thelocal.to/candidate-tr...
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Thank you for sharing this! It’s like traveling back in time.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s Failure to Lead Is Costing America and the World (Gift Article)
Trump’s flailing presidency leaves Americans with the thinnest of hopes for this week’s summit: that he does not further damage the national interest.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Life begins at 40, they say.
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Westwood Creative Artists @westwoodcreative.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Congrats to @davidarobertson.bsky.social for LITTLE SHOES, winner of the 2026 Sheila Barry Best Canadian Picturebook of the Year Award! . A beautifully told and comforting picture book about a boy's journey to overcome the generational trauma of residential schools. . www.vclr.ca/announcing-t...
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APTN News @aptnnews.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
As the trade war between Canada and the United States continues to escalate, Tina House shares with us a look at how these tariffs are affecting Indigenous owned businesses in British Columbia.
youtu.be
How the trade war affects Indigenous business in British Columbia | APTN News
As the trade war between Canada and the United States continues to escalate, Tina House shares with us a look at how these tariffs are affecting Indigenous owned businesses in British…
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The location is sort of ingenious.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
These are beautiful photos of Toronto, a self-denying lakeside town.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I think jet lag is worse on a return trip (from Europe to North America, in my case) because it’s the second time you’ve turned around. The first time, you at least understand your tiredness. The second time your body has no idea what’s going on. It strikes at weird times and surreptitiously.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is close to my heart. When a translator friend told me even they didn’t have a Canadian dictionary I looked for one as a gift. The only copy was used, in a bookstore across the country. Excited to see this new edition.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Back in Toronto after a week away and awoke to the sound of a coyote screaming at 3:30 am. I forgot what the local normal was.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I learned in a @thestar.com story by Daniyah Yaqoob today that @peacebychocolate.bsky.social has a new chocolate bar
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
“In a July Nanos research poll of 1,104 Canadians, about 74 per cent said they were not likely to buy American alcohol if it returned to store shelves, up from 70 per cent when the same question was asked a year prior.” www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...
theglobeandmail.com
If U.S. booze returns, will Canadians buy it or ‘let it rot’?
More than a year since bans took hold, consumers who were forced to expand their horizons have often liked what they’ve found
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I wish every headline were like this. www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/eco...
bnnbloomberg.ca
Why is the U.S. mad about who sells cheese in Canada?
Cheese has once again become a hot topic in the Canada-U.S. trade dispute.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 17/08/2026
Hayden Panettiere: an actor so magnetic that entire shows were rewritten for her
theguardian.com
Hayden Panettiere: an actor so magnetic that entire shows were rewritten for her
She starred in her first soap opera at 4 – then the hit show Heroes was totally reworked to allow her character, Claire the regenerating cheerleader, to live on. We celebrate the star, who has died age 36
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
This is the first time I’ve heard this perspective and it sort of makes sense (gambling, even)
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Travel over land! 😳
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APTN News @aptnnews.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Following the death of Amanda Nobiss, who was found dead in Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation earlier this month, over a dozen animal rescues in Manitoba are now sounding the alarm on what they say is a public-health crisis.
aptnnews.ca
Manitoba animal rescues call public-health crisis after death of a dog rescuer - APTN News
Following the death of Amanda Nobiss, who was found dead in Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation earlier this month, over a dozen animal rescues in Manitoba are now sounding the alarm on what they say is a…
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Interesting premise.
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Adam Sternbergh @sternbergh.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
ten years ago: cinema is doomed, no one will go out to movie theaters anymore, home theaters have just gotten too deluxe now: I've been hoping to drive 200 miles to see that new movie at that one theater with the obsolete projection techology but the tickets are sold out six weeks in advance
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
It also needs to be widely taught and modeled. Even in Canada, it’s not widely known.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Canada’s sexual violence law is designed to simplify this through active consent: “Everyone involved must actively, willingly, and continuously give consent to the sexual activity.” www.canada.ca/en/women-gen...
canada.ca
Sexual violence and consent - Canada.ca
Learn about the role consent plays in a relationship, and the difference between consensual sex and sexual violence.
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Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Thank you @jamellebouie.net - it’s been driving Canadians bananas to see the light response from democrat & anti-Trump Americans to this particular vibe (and why the broken trust goes far deeper than just Trump now. Generational wounds to the relationship.)
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Who among us, etc.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Engrossing summary of events of the last year—and how many countries (not just Canada) are reexamining their economic relationship with the US. I read it on Apple News+ and it should be on public library systems (sorry this is not a gift link). www.wsj.com/world/europe...
wsj.com
The Canadian Who Steered Europe Away From the U.S.
Facing threats from Trump, Carney emerged as a central figure in a project to reshape the Western alliance.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
As urine ferments, it breaks down into ammonia, which cuts through the lanolin (grease) inherent in wool. Thus, no need to feel Western traditions have been lost. Simply pee into a bucket, let it sit for a while, and then soak some cloth in it. Practice on your tweed jackets and hats.
Someone retweeted the video and wrote: "Now women sit on the couch and doom scroll on their phones." Someone retweeted the video and wrote "I'm noticing." They attached a screenshot of the women waulking and then a screenshot of the women in Australian who were negatively painted as "girl bosses" and "women in HR." Someone on Twitter retweeted the video and wrote: "But Europe supposedly has no indigenous peoples or cultures that have the right to be preserved."Someone retweeted the video and wrote: "The only thing missing is 20 million muslims and their 80 million inbred kids."
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I’m at my mom’s house, checking in on her. I took a walk and saw two trans inclusive Pride flags on her block here in Biddeford, ME. It’s hard to be far from friends tonight on Pride, but it helped to learn community is near—just one of the ways these flags work. Thanks to everyone who flies them.
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Lanrick Bennett @lanrickbennett.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Just a typical day riding my bike through the Distillery District. Until… He told me this is how he picked up his wife years ago. #BikeTO
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The problem with LLMs is that they replicate the accuracy of humans. I miss normal Google.
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I love this essay!
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Eva Holland @evaholland.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Delighted to find my old pal, the brilliant Rachael Maddux, writing about her very long book gestation in today's @talkscratch.bsky.social:
talkscratch.com
Strange Currencies: On the Costs of Self-Publishing
"If my book was going to exist, it was — it had always been — entirely up to me."
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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts
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Jessica Johnson @jessicajohnson.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Taken to extreme it could mean AI summaries have to be accurate or be held liable for their mistakes—just like traditional media. Or they could cite their sources. Which I actually think is the easiest cleanup to the current mess for everyone.
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