…but first, a word from The Incline.

I want to thank all my friends and readers who contributed to my fundraiser for this year’s Pride and Remembrance Run in Toronto. So far, I have raised 99% of my goal, which is absolutely amazing! The Run supports some wonderful queer support programs in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area that do extremely important work. Pride is a lot of things: a protest, a party, a vigil, a learning experience, a chance to connect with friends and allies. A core part of Pride for me is building community and reminding each other that we are here for one another, through the good times and the bad. So thank you for your support and your generosity.

I suppose if I hit $750 in donations, I may have to do something special…

If you would still like to donate, you can do so at the link below. The Pride and Remembrance Run is a registered Canadian charity, so any donation over $20 earns you a tax receipt!

The Fourth Estate

It should have been another sleepy Tuesday in late May. But, when word leaked that two major political events were going to fall on the same day, the scene at City Hall transformed into one of frantic excitement. Staff began buzzing, reporters raced to the scene, and residents across Hamilton were glued to their devices, refreshing their social media feeds for updates.

Quietly, as if to cut her opponent off at the pass, the embattled 58th Mayor of Hamilton, Andrea Horwath, quietly slipped downstairs from her second floor office and, in a modest room with election staff, filed her re-election paperwork. No backdrop of supporters like in 2022, no weeks long media circus, no flashy announcement. When she emerged to the gathered reporters, she put on a smile and said she was here to work for Hamilton. She didn’t need the pageantry and the show of some grand unveiling. This time, it’s 2026 and the Steeltown Scrapper has a job to do. It was deliberate and calculating, putting her approach to the job in stark contrast to that of the man who was poised to, within hours, join the race alongside her.

The reporters packed up and raced east. The second event would start any moment now. Winding their way through the city, they clacked out the first part of their stories and readied themselves for their next interviews.

They all arrived at the same time, descending on the corner of King and Jones in Stoney Creek in a flurry of cameras and microphones and notepads. As expected, this event looked to be far more choreographed. Smiling supporters decked out in matching red shirts, all holding signs with the candidate’s last name and slogan, huddled behind a lectern. A trio of councillors milled about awkwardly, periodically checking their phones with blank expressions on their faces. Some of the more astute amongst the assembled reporters noted the symbolism of their presence and the location of the press conference, some 300 metres from the parking lot that was, thanks to Horwath’s mayoral veto, soon to become a new housing development.

A few minutes behind schedule, the candidate appeared, flashing his trademark boyish smile and waving to the crowd. He stopped to shake the hands of some of the more recognizable faces in the crowd and, like his former boss, tried his hand taking a selfie with some young supporters in the lineup. He stepped to the waiting mics and made his speech. It was as everyone expected; Hamilton had lost its way, the mayor was not up to the task, and the voters of this fine city deserved the seasoned leadership that only he could provide. He had the credentials, after all: 26 years on council and four on Parliament Hill. That would be the core of his campaign. Chad Collins would get the job done.

When some of the reporters returned to City Hall that day, they spotted Horwath meeting with a group of students who had some to 71 Main West as part of a civics class trip. She was caught off guard so, when a reporter lobbed a question about Collins’ announcement at the mayor, she fired back, saying she had done more for Hamilton in four short years than Collins did in 26. His was a campaign that would be coordinated by backroom boys and the political elites, she said, while she would bring her message to the people. Her staff quickly intervened to move the chief magistrate along, but not before she could take another jab at her main opponent, reminding the press that, while he was busy defending Justin Trudeau and losing, she was standing up for Hamilton and winning. The media had their soundbite, and the tone of the election was set.

It was an exciting burst of activity and a striking portent to a long and brutal five months.

…or it would have been, had any of that actually happened.

***

Like many aging millennials, I rely too heavily on Instagram as a platform. I try to avoid the cringe habit of posting on main (apparently a once-a-year wrap up is enough for the primary feed) and, instead, use it to connect with friends, send memes and clips from old TV shows, and view all the two week-old runoff from TikTok.

The platform is not perfect. Indeed, in many ways, it is actively bad and growing worse by the minute. Case in point: at the beginning of this month, news broke that a “flaw” in parent company Meta’s AI support assistant allowed hackers to gain access to any Instagram account they wanted just by asking it nicely. Tisk tisk tisk bad computer.

But social media sites like Instagram have become enmeshed in our everyday lives. Just a couple of weeks back, StatsCan released figures from their “Insights on Canadian Society” series that showed 54% of Canadians get their news from social media platform. That’s two percent more than TV, 16% more than radio, and a whopping 33% more than print media. For those under 35 (wow, it couldn’t just be “35-and-under”? Thanks for making me feel old, StatsCan), a staggering 78% get their news from social media.

This is despite the fact that, since 2023, Meta has effectively banned legitimate Canadian news on its platforms in response to Bill C-18 - the “Online News Act” - which they felt would hold them responsible for news posted to their site. So while over half of Canadians are getting news from social media, the largest major news outlets in the country cannot post their stories to those platforms.

Kind of makes one wonder where people are actually getting their news from then…

Enter small digital news creators.

These plucky little producers are often little more than an Instagram page with compelling graphics, snappy headlines, and an ever-present prompt to “check link in bio” for more.

There are a few local accounts that follow this model - the social news aggregator - as well as a bunch of digital content creators who work much harder to make themselves appear like formal news outlets. And one social news aggregator has been appearing on my feed a lot, lately.

***

Over the past month, I have been subjected to regular ads for something called the “Hamilton Digest”. They’re visually simple, yet eye-catching, thanks in part to their strategic use of the Hamilton Ti-Cats colours and because of their ambiguous messaging that leaves you curious.

After being served a Hamilton Digest ad for the billionth time a few weeks ago, I decided to take a look at their profile page. Billing themselves as “Hamilton’s heartbeat 💛”, they purport to offer “news, food, events & stories from The Hammer”. Their Instagram page is the advertising side to their real operation, which is a newsletter housed on Beehiiv (like The Incline is).

Each of their posts is expertly branded, featuring consistent fonts, banners, and a healthy heaping of emojis. And their headlines are designed to draw you in.

“🛣️ Hamilton did it again,” reads one, with the subhead “😬 But not in a good way” (that was about Barton Street being named “Canada’s worst road” by the entirely unbiased Canadian Automobile Association). Another headline informs readers “🔫 Gun still missing…⚠️ Downtown concerns continue”. A March banner announces “🚒 Massive fire in Stoney Creek,” and “🔥 Six homes destroyed”.

But the one that (obviously) caught my eye was posted on May 26. It features a photo of Mayor Horwath with the headline “🗳️ Hamilton’s election race grows” and the subhead “🔥 Six candidates now running”.

This was interesting to me for a few reasons, not the least of which was, on May 26, there were still only five registered candidates for mayor. The caption itself contained more interesting information. “Former MP Chad Collins has entered the race,” it announced, also noting that “Mayor Andrea Horwath has officially filed her nomination, and six candidates are now running.”

Big, if true.

After seeing this, I quickly searched for a link to Collins’ announcement. I was surprised by the idea that Collins would have a major announcement about his political future and that it wouldn’t be covered by any mainstream outlet or reporter. Sure, at this point, his candidacy would be a long shot. His pathway to the mayor’s chair was already extremely narrow even before the Liaison Strategies poll from October of last year showing him 35 points behind frontrunner Keanin Loomis AND before Rob Cooper’s surprise mayoral candidacy cut off his chance to stake out the centre-right-to-right-wing spot on the spectrum of mayoral contenders. But he was in local politics for over a quarter century and was elected to Parliament. People with that kind of cred - and who have been subject to the kind of breathless and consistent mayoral speculation as he has - get at least some kind of coverage for their political announcements.

But there was absolutely nothing about it anywhere online. The post also bounced around in a few group chats I’m in, but no one seemed to know what the source of the information was or why this online news source was reporting it as though it were a fact.

The actual reference to the election was buried in a post on the Hamilton Digest’s newsletter that wrapped up news stories from May 19 to 25. After two hockey stories, a piece on the YWCA’s Oakwood development (which, itself, seems to combine the CBC, Spec, and CHCH articles on the project), and a story about the May 18 hit-and-run in Stoney Creek, we come to “🗓️ Election Update: Six Candidates Now in the Mayoral Race”. The listed sources are the City of Hamilton’s website and the Wikipedia page on the election.

I thought that it was possible that I had just missed the news and that I would get confirmation by day’s end. But the day came to a close and the City of Hamilton’s candidate listing page failed to note Horwath’s entry into the race. In the weeks since, only one new person - perennial candidate Nathalie Xian Yi Yan - joined the mayoral race. No word from Horwath, no word from Collins.

And then, on June 9, another municipal election post from the Hamilton Digest announced again that “Chad Collins officially entered the race”. Another post, another claim that Collins is in it to win it. But, still, no official announcement. By now, a cursory Google search shows one story about Collins running for mayor - from the Hamilton Digest itself.

So what’s going on here? Why is a relatively new Instagram page billing itself as a source for “news, food, events & stories from The Hammer” that advertises widely on the platform pushing a misleading news story? And where does the Hamilton Digest fit in with the growing constellation of small digital news sites marketing themselves toward Hamiltonians in this moment when news from real, legitimate sources is growing harder and harder to find?

By all indications, the Hamilton Digest is a project of local digital marketing specialist Michael Horvath. Online, Horvath is listed as the CEO of Digital Envy, a local digital marketing agency. Earlier this year, he branched out into the world of artificial intelligence and launched AI Envy, which, according to Horvath’s LinkedIn, adds AI automation to “proven lead generation foundations”. I’m not up on business lingo, so all I have in my head is dialogue from Glengarry Glen Ross. The leads are weak! Always be closing! Alec Baldwin saying slurs! David Mamet being horrible!

In November of 2025, Horvath announced the launch of Hamilton Digest, pitching it on his Instagram as “Hamilton’s best newsletter.”

shots fired, I guess.

Hamilton Digest began posting on Instagram on November 13, 2025 and, four days later, published the first edition of their newsletter on Beehiiv. In the time since, the newsletter and posting schedule has been remarkably consistent, with over 360 posts in the approximately 30 weeks they’ve been at this. Alternating between news roundups, event listings, sports stories, and restaurant promos, the newsletter seems to have no political slant whatsoever and does a good job of aggregating already popular news stories for maximum appeal.

All this is to say: I don’t believe their Collins/Horwath posts were made maliciously. But given that the founder of the newsletter has a business centred on using AI and that the preponderance of information available online about both Collins and Horwath being interested in a mayoral run may have influenced an AI-based application, it is absolutely possible that the information in those Hamilton Digest posts may be an AI hallucination (meaning an AI response that includes false information as fact).

I ran the section of the Hamilton Digest that discusses Horwath submitting her nomination and Collins joining the race through AI detection programs just for a little confirmation. Unfortunately, these are not perfect programs and can easily be tricked or simply fail. So it makes sense that the section in question got scores of between 0% and 100% AI-generated between 5 programs.

There are other explanations. Collins has been a rumoured mayoral candidate for years and, last Halloween, he told the Spec’s Scott Radley that he would make his decision early in the new year. Now, with nearly half of 2026 done and the midway point in the nomination period fast approaching on July 6, we haven’t heard a peep from the former MP. The last time he was mentioned in the city’s paper of record was on February 25 when Radley wrote about Loomis’ announcement and that was only to reference how far back in the polls he was last year.

But the point is that he has been mentioned as a possible candidate, meaning it would be theoretically easy for someone to misinterpret all the rumour as confirmation. Same thing with the point about Horwath already registering; she made her announcement, said she was in, and the only thing left to do is fill out the paperwork.

The Hamilton Digest references to Collins as a mayoral candidate and Horwath as having already registered could be an AI hallucination or just a simple misunderstanding. But I don’t see it as being some kind of malicious attempt to mislead people or disrupt the campaign.

Still, it isn’t great that this is where we’re at. It shouldn’t be a challenge to determine the accuracy of the information being presented to you. In that same “Insights on Canadian Society” survey released by StatsCan that found 54% of Canadians get their news from social media, a solid 47% reported “they were finding it harder to distinguish between true and false news or information compared to three years prior.”¹ When people are confused, they tune out, and when they tune out, it becomes easier and easier to manipulate the democratic process. Fewer people vote, there’s less scrutiny of powerful actors, and it is easier to mobilize a small group of committed extremists.

People are eager to learn more. These small digital creators and online current affairs blogs wouldn’t exist if people weren’t interested. And, as of late, it sure seems like a lot of them are floating around in our local media ecosystem.

***

Hamilton’s media ecosystem is modest - certainly more modest than befits a large urban centre of around 570,000 people.

At the top of the order are Hamilton’s two largest news-forward organizations: the Hamilton Spectator and the CBC.

The Spec got its start on July 15, 1846 as the Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce. The modest four-page publication’s first column piece was an “Ode to Queen Victoria”, a plodding and strange poem that equates the then-monarch with Catharine the Great, Elizabeth I, and Cleopatra. The remainder of the front page was dedicated to stories about life in India, legislative debates about the efficiency of the colonial post office, tidbits from Europe, a piece about a large ship docking in Boston, and a wrap up of the proceedings of the British House of Commons. Riveting stuff. In fact, in the first edition, there was very little local news at all. More space was dedicated to a piece on maize than to what Hamilton’s elected officials were doing in the colonial legislature. That said, there were a few third page ads about new local dry goods stores, veterinary services, and an appeal to the local cultured set to come to the “second and last appearance of the celebrated unrivalled ventriloquist Signor G. Valentini,” at the Theatre Royal.²

Originally right-leaning in its sympathies (allied with the Tory Family Compact…it was the Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce after all), the Spec was purchased in 1877 by the arch Tory himself, William Southam, who would use the paper to start a publishing empire, gobbling up small local papers and large metro dailies until his death in 1932.

The Spec was joined by a number of competitors throughout the years. When it was founded, it was in direct competition with the Hamilton Reform Banner, a paper advocating for the “Reform” faction in Upper Canada (roughly the equivalent of today’s Liberals and the political centre-left more broadly). In the late 1850’s, the Hamilton Times burst onto the scene, by all indications a replacement/continuation of the Banner.

In 1889, our city got the Hamilton Herald, a paper determined to be an affordable alternative to the city’s big evening dailies, charging only 1 cent in contrast to the Spec and Times charging two. First published on August 1, 1889, the Spec ran a small blurb about their new competitor, employing their snarkiest and most dismissive language to highlight the occasion: “The Hamilton Herald is the name of a journal which made its appearance in this city yesterday, under the management of Mr. John M. Harris…For a cheap paper, it is a very good one…Here’s hoping you may never regret it, Johnny.”³

The light-hearted ribbing quickly turned into outright distain. By the mayoral election of 1910 - in which the Herald was backing the candidacy of the Liberal George Harmon Lees and the Spec was supporting the Conservative John Allan - the Spec had declared war on their opponent, deriding the Herald as “the disturber newspaper organ”, “wrathy”, a “dictator”, and a paper without conscience: “There is no level to which it will not descend, no trick to which it will not resort to accomplish its purpose,” the Spec’s editors seethed.⁴

In 1920, the Times was suddenly bought out and a surprise announcement appeared in the Spec. Instead of publishing the usual multiple editions of the paper (which was the style at the time), the Times would focus on one morning edition of the paper each weekday. “Well, Well! The Times Change and The Times Changes” read an add in their competitor’s paper, which included the strange request that interested parties fill in an included “charter subscription” and mail it to the Times’ new owners - the Ontario Newspapers Corporation Ltd. - at the corner of Hughson and King William. Promising an “independent”, “broad-visioned” and “up-to-the minute” paper, the new Times would be a morning paper for discerning readers.⁵ They managed to run a handful of ads soliciting charter subscribers before quickly announcing that The Times was folding for good. The money, they said, just wasn’t there. Within a year, the paper’s editor would join Southam and some of the paper’s modest archive would be transferred to the Spec.⁶

The Great Depression would do in the Herald 16 years later. On March 31, 1936, the Herald ran its last edition and turned out the lights. After it became the only game in town, the Spec was more gracious in its assessment of their one-time rival: “With the discontinuance of publication of the Hamilton Herald, the community loses an old, familiar friend, and an honoured institution which has given great service to the city and the Dominion,” the editors wrote, before acknowledging their acrimonious past and saying that, despite their differences, “there has never been a time when feelings between the two local papers have been other than those of mutual regard and respect.”⁷

After World War II, an upstart operation called the Hamilton News tried to enter the market. But a decade of unopposed domination of the local media landscape allowed the Spec to grow into an unassailable behemoth. When local union officials urged their members to turn to the News for alternative commentary, the Spec brushed off their challenge and the rumours of a growing “newspaper war”. In April of ‘48, the Spec issued a one-line retort, saying that “one kind of ‘paper war’ we would welcome is on Hamilton’s public grounds and streets,” meaning they cared more about Hamilton’s war on litter than some imagined scrap between two newspapers.⁸

In 1954, the News was bought by a local brewing magnate, Andrew Peller. A Hungarian immigrant, Peller had commercial interests across the city and branched out into publishing with his new venture “Pelmar Enterprises”, which he founded after he sold his Peller Brewing Co. the previous year. Pelmar aimed to take on the Southam group but, in two short years, the News would close up shop. Today, the site of Peller Brewing Co. is the Collective Arts brewery on Burlington Street and the family name is more recognizable for the business he launched in 1961: Peller Estates wines.

After 1956, the Spec stood alone as Hamilton’s primary news source. Its ownership bounced around throughout the years, finally settling with Toronto Star publisher Torstar in 1999 where it remains today.

***

In 2012, the CBC launched its digital service in Hamilton. Though the 2012 iteration isn’t the first time the CBC had a footprint in the city; the same year Peller bought out the News, local media pioneer Ken Sobel (who got his start in local radio with the now-defunct CHML) launched CHCH TV as a CBC affiliate, which it remained until 1961.

And so, for the past 14 years, Hamiltonians have had the Spec and the CBC providing news-forward coverage for the region. CHCH still has a local newscast and some of the area’s remaining radio stations provide local news, but their focus is on general entertainment, rather than conveying current affairs.

But there are other media players in the city. McMaster’s campus newspaper, The Silhouette, for example, has been an institution since 1930 and has covered major news stories in the area in the past. The Sil trained some of Canada’s best and brightest, though was always a thorn in the side of student politicians, campus administration, and the community at large. In recent years, the paper has suffered due to repeated cuts, shrinking its literal size, circulation, and publication schedule.

Local independent journalist Joey Coleman’s The Public Record serves as a timely account of civic affairs that are often overlooked or ignored by larger publications. With an emphasis on small committees, council attendance, and local planning issues, Coleman’s reporting is invaluable to those seeking a more specialized look at local goings on.

Coleman and I actually have a long history together; my first encounter with the city’s preeminent independent journalist occurred when I was, myself, an editor at The Silhouette in 2010. Coleman burst into the dingy basement office the paper had on campus to chastise me for my hyperbolic comparison of an award issued by the student union to the Victoria Cross, the British and Commonwealth decoration issued to those who demonstrated “valour in the presence of the enemy”. I had just learned about instances where the VC had been issued in a history course I was taking on the World Wars and made the clunky comparison in a moment of haste on the evening of our publication. Coleman took me to task for this, simultaneously teaching me about the importance of the VC and indicating to me that he was a person never afraid to speak his mind. Each of our encounters in the time since has included a health amount of good-natured ribbing, as of late focused on the rivalry between my attending the prestigious McGill University and his affiliation with that plucky little school called the University of Toronto.

***

There are other, more partisan publications in the area. The right-wing online blog the Bay Observer is a notable player, and one about which I wrote extensively a year ago.

The similarly right-wing Hamilton Independent is a blog run by a loose network of people in the Hamilton and Niagara area (they have a “sister publication” called the Niagara Independent). All of the regularly-involved parties have direct connections to the provincial Progressive Conservatives and the federal Conservatives (many contributors are former staffers and, in one case, a former cabinet minister), the right-wing Fraser Institute think tank, and conservative Christian organizations across North America. The only one of their contributors who is local is Kevin Geenen, a one-time Ontario Progressive Conservative nomination contestant in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek and the fifth-place finisher in the Ward 5 council race in 2022. Despite the paper-thin covering of local news it republishes, it is primarily an outlet for right-wing talking points. Their opinion pieces have called the Toronto Star a “leftist” newspaper, praised the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling that declared anti-gay conversion therapy “free speech”, claimed the actions of the Carney government are akin to “what happens in Communist countries”, and openly lauded the current American president for “outsmart[ing]…[and] bamboozl[ing]” those “elitist” mainstream reporters from the media and its “liberal bias”.

***

Less rigid in its ideological orientation is “The Hamiltonian Inc.”, a blog hosted on the classic platform Blogger that bills itself as “Hamilton’s Tastemaker in Local Politics and Community”. The Hamiltonian is run by Cal and Teresa DiFalco, a deeply engaged local couple whose commentary on civic affairs has been a staple of the Spec letters and commentary section for around two decades. The DiFalco’s are former provincial civil servants who became involved in local politics around 2006.

The Hamiltonian began publishing in 2009, reading more like a traditional blog complete with first-person observations and perspectives. It quickly became a site-to-watch in the early days of local online commentary. In 2010, The Hamiltonian, along with the now-defunct urbanist site Raise The Hammer, landed in hot water when they republished a lengthy letter from fringe mayoral candidate (and blogger) Mahesh Butani accusing then-Spec current affairs columnist Andrew Dreschel of racism.⁹

That blip didn’t derail the DiFalco’s. In 2013, Teresa was named Stoney Creek Citizen of the Year, which she followed with a bid for Ward 10 councillor in 2014. Running on a standard platform of fiscal responsibility, more assistance for seniors, promoting small business, supporting term limits, and opposing LRT, DiFalco placed a respectable second against incumbent councillor Maria Pearson, chipping away at a significant lead that would, by 2022, result in Pearson’s loss to current councillor Jeff Beattie.¹⁰

After the 2014 election, The Hamiltonian transformed into something more closely resembling a local news outlet. While some of its archive is now gone, their articles from 2015 to 2018 are a mix of commentary from local food journalists, some interviews with local politicians, posts about city press releases, and a healthy amount of focus on LRT. Then, rather abruptly, The Hamiltonian stopped publishing right before the 2018 municipal election. Cal DiFalco began writing about civic affairs again in 2024, submitting a piece to the Spec calling on the City of Hamilton to adopt zero-based budgeting. The Hamiltonian relaunched in February of 2025 and has, in the time since, secured interviews with civic politicians across Hamilton, as well as launching a series profiling registered candidates in the upcoming municipal election.

***

Other players mill about the local media ecosystem, though focusing on some combination of lifestyle, news, sports, clickbait, and paid promotions. These are outlets like “inthehammer”, a branch of “INsauga”, a digital media enterprise out of Mississauga. Founded in 2012, the company promotes itself as “one of the largest digital-only media companies” in the country that helps readers “connect to their city, engage with their community, and…find out everything from local food to shopping, and lifestyle content to real estate.” It operates a cluster of regional branches in Peel, Halton, Durham, and Niagara regions, as well as in Toronto and Hamilton. Like many of these organizations, their regular “stories” are sandwiched between sponsored posts.

While the INsauga family focuses on their website, other similar operations have remained firmly on Meta platforms, utilizing Instagram and Facebook to target their audiences.

“Northly Hamilton” is a Facebook-focused venture of the Northly Group, which specializes in what it calls “viral, youth-driven marketing for Gen Y & Z brands.” This buzzy, tech-bro-coded operation is primarily focused on using its pages to promote brands that seek out their services. The Northly Hamilton Facebook page will feature eye-catching video of house fires, clips from the Ti-Cats home opener, and a promo for a new wing restaurant all squished together.

While Northly is a little more tabloid-esque and sharp, Urbanicity is a more established and polished promotional network that operates in a similar way. Urbanicity is part lifestyle blog, part real estate agency, featuring many of the same “stories” as Northly (clips of local actress Caissie Levy winning at the Tony Awards were prominent on both Northly and Urbanicity’s Facebook pages) but trading the wing restaurant promos for links to houses currently for sale.

Rounding out the “lifestyle” pages is the “The Hammer” or “OnlyInHamilton.ca”, which, when it was launched as a Facebook page in 2015, was originally called “What’s Up on Concession Street?” or, alternatively, the “Concession Street News”. “The Hammer” (I’ll just call it that for simplicity’s sake) is run by local businessman Phil Bradshaw, who started it as a newsletter intended to be a “positive spin” and “good news” outlet during the lengthy road reconstruction in the historic mountain commercial district eleven years ago.¹¹ Bradshaw is a two-time municipal candidate, running in both the 2016 Ward 7 by-election and the 2025 Ward 8 by-election. Interestingly, in both instances, he placed 13th.

The web portion of The Hammer now features a business directory, event calendar, and blog. The social media side of things is an collection of photos from Bradshaw’s camera roll of his tours through the city and screenshots of news stories or weather updates. There is some political commentary sprinkled throughout and the occasional photo of a political leaflet or poster, but The Hammer appears to mainly be a homegrown version of the aforementioned lifestyle aggregators.

***

So let’s circle back to where we started. Hamilton’s media ecosystem is complicated right now. We have the major players - The Spec and the CBC - at the top, providing verifiable news from trusted, legitimate sources (even if you sometimes disagree with their perspectives and their editorial content). But they can’t promote their content on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram due to Meta’s news blackout in protest of Bill C-18. And while CHCH and local radio stations do have newscasts, we know that the majority of Canadians get their news from social media, including a supermajority of the youngest Canadians.

Independent news aggregators/lifestyle blogs/marketing operations can operate on social media more easily than the big players because their strategic diversification has meant they don’t get slapped with a news label and added to the ban list by Meta. That means that the majority of people in the community are getting their news from these sources.

But INsauga’s focus is on buzzy content and lifestyle news for suburbanites around Toronto, Northly Hamilton is all about viral content to promote brands, and Urbanicity is primarily a real estate operation. Small, local players like The Hammer exist to showcase local businesses and occasionally comment on current affairs, but don’t provide detailed news reporting. The Bay Observer and Hamilton Independent are right-wing operations that blend some focus on the news with conservative commentary. And the Hamilton Digest, while dipping its toes into many of the above categories, repeatedly published information about our upcoming municipal election that is, by all accounts, inaccurate.

That, unfortunately, is where we’re at with the state of local media. Social media is where people get their news, but general reporting from trusted sources is absent while the majority of local operations that still have a presence on Facebook and Instagram are either predominantly trying to sell you a product, sell you conservative views, or might just mislead you in the process of trying to sell you any of the above.

There was never a perfect time in Hamilton for the media. Even in that brief golden period around World War I when Hamilton had three papers or in the late 1920’s when we had two papers and two local radio stations, or in the 1950’s when we had The Spec, the News, and a CBC-backed CHCH, things weren’t perfect. Some papers were bigger than others. They ran partisan editorials and advertised heavily and featured blistering attacks on politicians and candidates and their supporters.

Today’s landscape is just a little more complicated. The rise of AI means that more news stories are getting harder to trust. The pivot away from formal newsrooms and toward viral marketing content creators means current affairs aren’t analyzed with substantive depth and controversial topics are ignored, lest they throw off an upcoming brand promotion deal. Pages and organizations that claim to be a source for news spend time informing you and advertising to you in the same indistinguishable breath. It is becoming harder to determine what’s true and what’s not, what’s an ad and what’s news, what’s right-wing propaganda and what’s objective reporting.

***

So, no, as of June 11, 2026, Mayor Andrea Horwath has not filed her nomination papers to run for reelection and former MP Chad Collins has not announced he is joining the mayoral race. I’m not telling you that as a journalist because, for the millionth time, I’m not a journalist. I’m saying that as someone who used the skills they picked up while studying for their PhD to research the claims using trusted sources to fact-check and confirm what I had read.

But it shouldn’t take a PhD to understand the local news. It shouldn’t take years of schooling to decipher the truth from sources purporting to inform you. It shouldn’t be hard to get the facts about what’s happening in our city and in our democracy.

These small virtual content creators have a responsibility - just as the more established journalists and mainstream media sources do - to provide the facts, disclose their paid partnerships and revenue streams, and be up front with the people who rely on them for information. Facts matter, even when your main goal is advertising or paid promotion.

The media is called “the fourth estate” because they were once considered to be a crucial pillar of society, an essential element of our society alongside the common people and the nobility and the clergy. But it is getting harder to tell who is part of the media and who is simply trying to sell something using the news as a cover. That’s deeply harmful to democracy.

We deserve honesty, real media choice, and, above all else, the truth.

-30-

1  StatsCan. “Study: Shifting perceptions of misinformation in Canada: Trends in exposure, detection and trust, 2025” May 13, 2025 - Link.

2  Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce, July 15, 1846 - Spec archive link.

3  “Current Topics” Hamilton Spectator, August 2, 1889 - Spec archive link.

4  “Loves Unionism as it loves Temperance” Hamilton Spectator, December 31, 1910 - Spec archive link.

5  Times ad, Hamilton Spectator, October 14, 1920 - Spec archive link.

6  “Suspension of Morning Times is announced” Hamilton Spectator, November 11, 1920 - Spec archive link.

7  “The Hamilton Herald - Editorial” Hamilton Spectator, November 11, 1920 - Spec archive link.

8  “Current topics” Hamilton Spectator, November 11, 1920 - Spec archive link.

9  Andrew Dreschel. “Tossing around racism crosses the line” Hamilton Spectator, June 2, 2010 - Spec archive link.

10  Mike Pearson. “Teresa DiFalco enters Ward 10 race,” Stoney Creek News, July 10, 2014 - Link; Teresa DiFalco. “Trust essential in local government” Hamilton Spectator, September 29, 2014 - Spec archive link; “Ward 10 profile” Hamilton Spectator, October 24, 2014 - Spec archive link.

11  Jeff Mahoney. “Concession’s year of living dangerously bears fruit,” Hamilton Spectator, October 19, 2015 - Spec archive link.