Canadaland
According to Brown, he made four unsuccessful pitches to mainstream Canadian outlets for a media criticism show[ before launching his own independent, weekly podcast, Canadaland, in October 2013. [14] Initially sponsored by Toronto-based FreshBooks, then briefly by Audible.com and later Squarespace. the show struggled to cover costs, prompting Brown to launch a Patreon, campaign in October 2014, revealing it drew about 10,000 weekly listeners. [15] [16]
In 2014, Brown and Toronto Star , reporter Kevin Donovan published a series of investigative reports detailing allegations from several women of non-consensual violent conduct and workplace sexual harassment by Canadian radio and television host Jian Ghomeshi. [17] [18] [19] In Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation, Donovan credited Brown with parts of the investigation but described serious culture clashes, objecting to his habit of finishing interviewees’ sentences and saying he was “reluctant to ask his sources tough questions.” [20]
Ghomeshi’s criminal trial began in early 2016, and on March 24, 2016, he was acquitted of all charges, including four counts of sexual assault and one of choking, after the judge ruled that inconsistencies and “outright deception” in the testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution’s case. Later, a remaining separate assault charge was withdrawn when Ghomeshi signed a peace bond and issued an apology to the complainant, without admitting guilt. [21]
Following the Ghomeshi story, Canadaland continued to grow in popularity, gaining crowdfunded financial support through Patreon.
Brown later expanded the brand with new shows, including Canadaland Commons on Canadian politics and The Imposter on Canada’s arts scene (both now discontinued). [17]
In October 2023, shortly after the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Brown began posting more on social media about antisemitism in Canada. [22] He also lashed out at a number of mostly female journalists on Twitter and on his site, which led the Canadaland Union to write and post a public letter on X saying they thought Brown had published "a series of misleading and targeted statements, through both personal and official channels" that fell below the standards of journalism a media critic should project. [23] [24] [25] He also received significant backlash for his implied stance on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He estimated Canadaland wound up losing nine percent of its supporters in that period. [26] In October 2024, Brown edited an interview against the wishes of the show's host including cutting a line stating that Canada bore responsibility for selling weapons to Israel, which has led to the deaths of Palestinian children. While reporters Justin Ling, and Paris Marx called the edits political, Brown claimed the edits made the piece stronger. [24] The host, the editor-in-chief and several staff quit in the next few weeks. Subsequently, when asked why his editor-in-chief left, Brown confirmed he personally wanted final say on everything that was published by his company. . [27] On October 7, Brown sat down with the Israeli Ambassador in an interview focused on anti-semitism in Canada. [28] The podcast contained several errors which Brown did not correct. His remaining staff separately published a 3000-word "analysis" listing the points that "lacked context, were unsupported by facts, or were false." [29]
