Panelist Bios

Moderator Ken Alexander is the editor of The Walrus, a general-interest Canadian magazine for the sophisticated reader. He has been a high school English and History teacher, wrote “Towards Freedom: The African-Canadian Experience” and is working on his second book, and was the senior producer of the CBC current affairs debate show “Counterspin.” Ken lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.

Paul Knox has been chair of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University since July, 2005. He spent 27 years as a reporter and senior editor at The Globe and Mail, most of it covering international news. He was a foreign correspondent based in Mexico (1985-88) and Brazil (1988-91). He wrote the Worldbeat column on international issues from 2001 to 2004, including several pieces on the Arar affair in the fall of 2003. At Ryerson he has taught Media Ethics and this year is co-teaching a course titled Critical Issues in Journalism.

Paul previously worked on the Vancouver Sun and the Belfast News Letter. He received a BA and MA in political science from the University of British Columbia and studied at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in 1983-84. In 2000 he received the Maria Moors Cabot prize from Columbia University for reporting on the Americas. He has written on Latin America, culture and media for several publications and has prepared numerous broadcasts for Radio Canada International. He is an active member of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

Brian MacLeod Rogers practises media law and litigation, with an emphasis on libel, privacy, copyright, freedom of expression and Internet-related issues. He represents writers, newspapers, magazines, book publishers, producers, broadcasters and electronic media and has an extensive practice of pre-publication/broadcast review. He has appeared before tribunals and all levels of courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2005, he acted as counsel for a coalition of 51 international, U.S. and Canadian media-related organizations intervening successfully in the Ontario Court of Appeal in Bangoura v. Washington Post on the issue of jurisdiction and Internet publication.

He is currently counsel to journalist Ken Peters of The Hamilton Spectator, who is appealing a finding of contempt for protecting a confidential source. He was founding president of Advocates In Defence of Expression in the Media (Ad IDEM), the Canadian Media Lawyers Association, and was the first Canadian member of the Defense Counsel Section, Media Law Resource Center, a U.S.-based organization for which he co-authors annual surveys on Canadian libel and privacy laws.

He has authored and edited articles and books on media law, constitutional law and civil litigation and co-founded the media law course at Ryerson University's School of Journalism, where he continues to teach. He was on the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression from 2000 to 2005. He graduated from Queen's University (Hons. B.A.) and University of Toronto (LL.B.) and was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1979. He is located in the offices of Wardle Daley, Barristers, a litigation boutique firm in Toronto.

Marci McDonald is an award-winning journalist who currently serves as a Contributing Editor of Walrus Magazine, for which she has written three cover stories-including her most recent, "Jesus in the House: Is the Religious Right Taking Over Stephen Harper's Government?" The first, "Blind Trust: Inside Paul Martin's Empire," in the magazine's introductory October 2003 issue, won not only a gold medal in the investigative reporting category of the National Magazine Awards but first prize for an investigative magazine piece from the Canadian Association of Journalists. Another on Tom Flanagan and the Calgary School, entitled "The Man Behind Stephen Harper," won a gold for politics and public policy the following year.

After beginning her career at the Toronto Star, McDonald spent nearly two decades outside Canada, first as a bureau chief for Maclean's Magazine in Paris and Washington, then as a senior writer for US News & World Report, where she covered both business and politics. In Canada, she has been a frequent contributor to Toronto Life and Canadian Geographic, among others, while in the US her freelance features have appeared in the Washington Monthly, the Washington Post Magazine and Editor & Publisher. Her work has been included in two anthologies, Canada from the Newstands: A Selection from the Best Canadian Journalism of the Past Thirty Years, edited by Val Clery and The Presence of Excellence: Twenty Five years of Selections from the National Magazine Awards, edited by Don Obe.

A winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, McDonald produced a five-part series on Canada-US relations for the Toronto Star which led to her 1995 book, Yankee Doodle Dandy: Brian Mulroney and the American Agenda. She is also the co-author of Maureen Forrester's autobiography Out of Character.

Andrew Mitrovica is one of Canada's leading investigative reporters. He is a professor of journalism at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, and has worked for CTV's national news and W5 programs, CBC's the fifth estate, and the Globe and Mail, where he covered the national-security beat. He is also a frequent contributor to the Toronto Star. A multiple award-winner, Mitrovica is the author of Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada's Secret Service (Random House, 2002).