Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?

From Canada: 

• Canada's top court to hear Vice Media fight RCMP demand for reporter materials [National Post]
• Give Competition Bureau Teeth to Protect the Public Interest, Says Hedy Fry [The Tyee]
• No newspaper is safe including London Free Press: Postmedia CEO [CBC]
• The Postmedia/Torstar newspaper deal is cynical and destructive [CAJ]
• Union urges feds to help news media after Postmedia, Torstar shutter local papers [iPolitics]
• Torstar and Postmedia swapped 41 newspapers total this week, and are closing most of them [J-Source]
• What Canadian journalists can learn from the life and career of Gord Downie [J-Source]

From The U.S. and beyond:

• The news industry has a sexual harassment problem. #NowWhat? [Nieman Reports]
• Can co-working with virtual strangers enhance your freelancing business? [Freelancers Union]
• Global press freedom plunges to worst level this century [The Guardian]
• How to Stay Productive During the Holidays [Freelance Writing Jobs]
• How to write about Nazis [Poynter]
• 10 lessons from 10 years of freelancing [Freelancers Union]
• IFJ survey: One in two women journalists suffer gender-based violence at work [IFJ]

Recently on Story Board:

• The Born Freelancer on Drawing a Line in the Sand: Every working freelancer will eventually confront employer demands so egregious, so patently unfair, that they will be forced to draw a line in the sand and say “no.” Most of us are hesitant to do so for fear of the consequences...

Spot a story you think we should include in next week's Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.