Media Release June 16, 2025: Re City Admin Weaponizing CAJ Guidelines

The standards for a news outlet should be the mission to know the people, issues, and history of a community. It should employ journalists who have years of experience documenting daily life in a city which they care deeply about.

A qualification of what a news organization is in Medicine Hat should include the ability to point out Lovell McDonnell while he’s doing maintenance on the little league field named after him.

Yet, it is what the murky Facebook algorithm designates the Medicine Hat Owl which is one of the standards city administrators judge our organization.

The City of Medicine Hat is taking actions to thwart the abilities of the Owl – both against our journalists and our business.

The municipality’s rules are discriminatory, hidden, arbitrary and vexatious when it comes to dealing with our organization. 

Despite having the powers and resources of the state, they portray themselves as victims.

City administrators have provided anonymous drive-by smears to a local news outlet about our organization which were published without providing an opportunity for the Owl to respond.

That’s fine. But the Owl will not be lectured on journalistic ethics by organizations who take such actions.

If the City of Medicine Hat wishes to have a policy regarding journalists, the Owl’s position is it should be fair, applied equally and made public.

We seek that as a business and an organization which believes Hatters deserve a voice and have a right to be informed.