Episode Details

In this episode, Regan Boychuk and Mark Dorin discuss the critical role of media in shaping public perception and the importance of discerning trustworthy news sources. We explore the systemic biases in mainstream media, particularly in the context of Alberta’s oil and gas industry, and how these biases impact public understanding and policy. Our guest, Regan Boychuk, an independent researcher with extensive experience in political science and journalism, shares his insights on media analysis and the importance of good faith in journalism. The need for independent research and the role of alternative media in providing accurate and unbiased information is discussed.

Introduction to Regan Boychuk and Oil and Gas Liabilities

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, where we break down heavy ideas into small buckets anyone can handle in our work and at play. We seek the wisdom of the elders, individuals, and communities that share our knowledge and care for our water, air, land, life, and resource needs. Caring for our homeland will be our guide.

Jenny:

Awesome. Thank you, Alex. Okay, we’ll start with an update on what we’ve been doing. A couple of weeks ago, Alex and I did episode one of The Gravity Well, where we talked about why we’re doing this. We see that people are in crisis. Either it’s a social crisis, having health issues or a belonging issue, or they’re feeling they’ve been displaced because there’s flooding in their community or a fire, things like that. Or financially just pinched and not feeling safe, let’s say because you’re financially stressed. We’re trying to be a place for people in that space. We took a course together. Alex and I took a complex decision-making course. It was a five-week course, but it helped us have a framework to have discussions so that we could have at least a similar style to a topic.

It’s easier for people to take in small bits of heavy information and be able to say, okay, that was okay. Right? Build like a muscle. The idea is that we want people to learn how to use these skills. When I think about news how we intake information and how we know what is for our benefit when we read something, how do we know that it is serving us not only today, but in the long run that it’s a good thing to be doing? How do we know that? And it’s difficult right now. Regan and I have been working together since last spring, and we met online on Twitter. I saw, well, actually to be fair, I saw you talk on Ryan Jasper’s show Real Talk, and I was like, oh my God, I need to speak to this person because we have a very similar understanding of the liability problem in Alberta.

Jenny:

Liability, the oil and gas sites that need to be cleaned up in our province. There are only so many people who understand the problem because it’s one of those things that it’s like Fight Club. We don’t want to talk about liability. Nobody talks about liability. It’s one of these things that’s not talked about, but it’s a massive problem. Regan has been working on this for years, and I don’t want to go too far down that path, but that is to say that we will be talking to Regan a lot throughout the year. This conversation is to help me understand the research you’ve done along with this and how long you’ve been at it, we’ll get you to start there. Help us know that amount of effort, already. And then we’ll just walk through some questions about how you look to information and help decipher [the truth]. And we’re going to share how we do it too as we speak so that there’s a flavour of how I break down the same challenge, how I would do it or things like that. I think you understand, right? Does that work?

Regan:

Yeah, sure. My name’s Regan Boychuk. I’m an independent researcher. I have a graduate degree in political science and have been studying Alberta’s oil patch for 20 years. I went to journalism school. That’s when I started to get, I didn’t go to universi