Canadian news, read twice.

What Second Reading is

A lot of Canadians get their news from CBC and a handful of other mainstream sites. A first-day piece usually leads with the official announcement and a résumé. Parallel coverage in smaller outlets and by independent authors often includes facts that are already on the public record: Auditor General findings, older CBC stories, court filings, opposition framing. Readers who only see the first-day piece never see the gap.

Each issue is one story, one page, in the same order every time.

1. 1.
   The numbers. The load-bearing figures, each with its source.
2. 2.
   What CBC reported. Quoted, not characterised.
3. 3.
   What was already public. Primary documents only: Statistics Canada, the Auditor General, Hansard, court decisions, freedom-of-information releases, CBC's own earlier reporting.
4. 4.
   What the independents said. Linked and attributed.
5. 5.
   The gap. Two sentences. What each side left out.
6. 6.
   The caveat. The strongest honest point against the issue's own framing. Never cut.

What it is not

It is not "CBC always lies." Most days CBC covers the underlying fact and drops the charge sheet. The product lives in that difference. It is not a party newsletter either. If an issue would please one side and nobody else, it is not finished.

How topics are chosen

Each morning we look at what independent media and authors on various online platforms are talking about, rank the candidates by volume and freshness, and pick one. CBC.ca is checked the same day. That method has a known lean: independent Canadian media skews right of CBC, so most gaps found will run in one direction. Some issues deliberately run the other way.

Corrections

Every claim links to its source. If a number is wrong, write to editor@secondreading.ca. The issue is corrected in place and the correction is listed on the issue it amends.

Second Reading is published in Canada by Webhaller Inc. It is the domestic sibling of Audin's Atlas, which runs the same comparison across sixteen state and public broadcasters worldwide.