x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered conversations that matter

Village Media Inc.

In cities and towns across Ontario — and at Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill — our journalists work for you. Their mission is to dig for answers and tell you what they find. This new podcast from Village Media — ‘Closer Look’ — is all about the stories we tell. Every weeknight, hosts Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith go beyond the headlines with insightful, in-depth conversations featuring our reporters and editors, leading experts, key stakeholders and big newsmakers.

news news commentary

All Episodes

21:08

Is it time to ban sports gambling commercials? This...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/09/10

Send us a text Here’s a sure bet: If you watch a sporting event tonight, you’re going to see a gambling ad. They’ve become ubiquitous ever since the Ontario government legalized sports betting across the province in 2022. But doctors are sounding the alarm, warning parents that all those gambling commercials pose a major risk to children and teens. “Such advertising insidiously normalizes a harmful activity, and children are being exposed, to their detriment,” reads an editorial in the late...

en-us

27:49

When did Ontario schools become so violent?

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/09/09

Send us a text By every measure, violence is skyrocketing inside Ontario schools. According to a survey released earlier this year by the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), nearly 75 per cent of education workers experience violent or disruptive incidents in their work area, with more than a third facing these incidents daily. Among educational assistants and child and youth workers, the numbers are even more alarming: 95.8 per cent — nearly every single one — say they ex...

en-us

26:10

Where is Nicole Morin? 40 years later, there’s still...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/09/08

Send us a text Forty years later, it remains one of Canada’s most perplexing unsolved mysteries: What happened to Nicole Morin? On July 30, 1985, the eight-year-old girl left her penthouse apartment in west-end Toronto to meet a friend for a swim. She was never seen again — and not a single piece of physical evidence linked to her disappearance has ever been found. Earlier this summer, the Toronto Police Service marked the 40th anniversary of Nicole’s case by announcing a $50,000 reward for...

en-us

22:07

Hurry! Don’t miss our interview with ‘rock star’...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/22

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's 'Closer Look' podcast: One of the greatest curlers of all time stops by our house for a sweeping conversation about her legendary career and new autobiography. One of the greatest curlers of all time is in our house tonight. Jennifer Jones — six-time national champ, two-time world champ, Olympic gold medallist — is set to release an autobiography that promises to leave no stone unturned about her legendary career. The book is called Rock Star: My Li...

en-us

22:40

Chronic concern: This Ontario town smells like pot...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/21

Send us a text Tonight on our new 'Closer Look' podcast: After multiple legal challenges, years of complaints and thousands in fines, the Town of Pelham is still grappling with the stench from local cannabis facilities. In this case, residents can be forgiven for their blunt opinions. For years, people in the Town of Pelham have lamented the incessant stench of weed in the air — the result of two large cannabis production facilities. Despite hundreds of complaints, thousands of dollars in f...

en-us

19:51

Homeless encampment becomes a ‘heinous’ crime scene

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/20

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's 'Closer Look' podcast: Barrie Police have charged a man with murdering and dismembering two people following an investigation inside a controversial homeless encampment. The details are still trickling out, but what’s known so far is disturbing: A Barrie man is accused of murdering and dismembering two people after a police investigation that centred around a longstanding homeless encampment. Barrie mayor Alex Nuttall called it a “completely heinous...

en-us

19:09

Who should take the heat for sweltering classrooms?

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/08

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's new daily podcast: Amid a summer heat wave, parents are calling on the province to create new regulations to deal with scorching temperatures in daycares and classrooms. As heat waves continue to grip the province, parents are speaking out about the "sweltering" conditions inside some child-care centres. The Trillium, Village Media's bureau at Queen's Park, reported this week that some kids are being left in diapers as a way to keep cool. While some...

en-us

19:47

CLOSER LOOK: Let’s talk about Doug Ford’s tunnel vision

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/07

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's new daily podcast: We dig a little deeper into Premier Ford's big idea to construct a massive, congestion-easing tunnel underneath Highway 401 in Toronto. For a story about boring, this one has proven to be anything but. Premier Doug Ford is determined as ever to dig a massive tunnel underneath Highway 401 in Toronto — telling reporters yesterday that he's spoken with "some tunnelling folks" and has hashed out a realistic plan to ease congestion. Ac...

en-us

19:12

CLOSER LOOK: What happens when your mayor is under...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/07

Send us a text It's not everyday that the OPP launches an investigation targeting an Ontario mayor. But that's exactly what happened this week in North Bay, where Mayor Peter Chirico has been dogged by a spending scandal that has triggered plenty of headlines. The controversy revolves around nearly $16,000 in questionable expenses charged to Chirico's city-issued corporate credit card, including dog food, cigarettes, a golf membership and season tickets to the OHL's North Bay Battalion.&nbs...

en-us

33:10

‘I’m not going anywhere’: Bonnie Crombie tells us why...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/08/02

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's new daily podcast: Ontario's Liberal leader concedes that 'mistakes were made' during the last election, but she has every intention of steering her party into the next campaign. Bonnie Crombie acknowledges that “mistakes were made” during the last provincial election, but the Liberal leader insists she is the best person to steer her party into the next campaign — whenever that happens to be. Crombie — who faces a mandatory leadership review at nex...

en-us

25:07

Steve Paikin has a new agenda keeping him busy

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/31

Send us a text Tonight on 'Closer Look': One of Canada's most recognized and respected journalists talks to us about his beloved Red Sox, his new podcast, and why he's excited to once again team up with Village Media. Don’t use the word retired to describe Steve Paikin. He’s working as hard as ever. The longtime anchor of TVO’s The Agenda, who recorded his final show last month after 19 seasons, has shifted his journalism to the independent kind. The Paikin Podcast dropped its debut episode...

en-us

17:29

We learned some things about the chief fundraiser for...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/30

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's new daily podcast: What our Queen's Park team at The Trillium discovered about the chair of the PC Ontario Fund — and how Premier Ford reacted to the investigation. "He could be the most powerful person in the province." That's the way one source described Tony Miele, the long-serving chair of the PC Ontario Fund — the fundraising arm of Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party. With Miele at the helm, the PCs have dominated other provinci...

en-us

19:04

Car thefts are suddenly way down across Ontario

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/30

Send us a text Tonight on Village Media's new 'Closer Look' podcast: One month after masked men tried to steal a vehicle out of Doug Ford's driveway, a new report finds a major decline in reported auto thefts. Last year, when the provincial and federal governments announced millions of dollars in funding to crack down on car thieves, Ontario Premier Doug Ford had a stern warning for would-be criminals: “We’re coming after you.” They actually came after him, it turned out. But in the end, th...

en-us

21:16

Lots of worry kicking around about World Cup we're...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/29

Send us a text Remember back in 2018, when the United States, Canada and Mexico celebrated their successful bid to co-host the 2026 World Cup? Now that the big event is less than a year away — and U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed a tariff war on his country’s closest trading partner — things have gotten a bit awkward. Offside, to borrow a soccer term. Political tensions, combined with Trump’s immigration crackdown, are threatening to overshadow the largest-ever FIFA World Cup, with...

en-us

18:15

Major project? Maybe it’s time to finally fix...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/25

Send us a text Donald Trump’s tariffs have triggered a lot of talk on this side of the border about building big — and the race is now on to kick-start major infrastructure projects aimed at strengthening Canada’s autonomy and economy. How about a massive upgrade to Highways 11 and 17? That is the pitch being made by the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM), which this week called on the federal and provincial governments to invest in an innovative plan that it says would i...

en-us

18:52

CLOSER LOOK: How scammers are using AI to rip you off

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/24

Send us a text Back in June, police in Barrie issued what has become an all-too-common warning: beware of fraudsters. But this particular story was especially shocking. A local senior had fallen victim to an elaborate scam that ended when he handed over $725,000 worth of gold bars to a stranger in his driveway. “The reality is, sadly, this gold will never be seen again and the dollar value it represents can never be recovered,” police said in a news release. If it feels like fraud cases are...

en-us

26:56

Nate Erskine-Smith tells us why Bonnie Crombie needs...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/23

Send us a text Bonnie Crombie is set to face a leadership review at the Ontario Liberal Party’s annual general meeting in September — and one former rival has some well-publicized thoughts about what should happen. In a Substack post last week, Nate Erskine-Smith — a Toronto MP who finished second in the 2023 leadership race — said Crombie should resign if she doesn’t receive at least two-thirds of support from Liberal delegates. “We need change,” Erskine-Smith wrote, adding “that renewal s...

en-us

12:48

CLOSER LOOK: Is Canadian fentanyl really ‘pouring’...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/22

Send us a text As trade negotiations drag on, U.S. President Donald Trump continues to insist that tariffs are justified because Canada isn’t doing enough to stop fentanyl from “pouring” over the border into American communities. The data doesn’t seem to back up the president’s claim — and neither does the evidence seen by one of Ontario’s top cops. During a recent episode of our ‘Closer Look’ podcast, we asked OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique to weigh in on Trump’s claim. He called i...

en-us

18:18

Trump looms large as Ford hosts fellow premiers in...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/21

Send us a text Canada’s premiers are gathered in cottage country this week for a series of meetings that all revolve around the same man: U.S. President Donald Trump. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, chair of the Council of the Federation, is hosting his counterparts at the Deerhurst Resort in Muskoka — with tariffs and trade at the top of the agenda. Earlier today, the premiers met with First Nations leaders concerned about Bill 5, which gives the province the power to speed up the development o...

en-us

44:11

Canada’s steel industry is fighting for its life

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/07/18

Send us a text Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new measures this week to help support Canada’s struggling steel industry, which has been battered in recent months by Donald Trump’s trade war. The changes include restricting and reducing the amount of foreign steel imports — especially from China, which is notorious for illegally flooding the Canadian market with cheap steel — and prioritizing made-in-Canada steel for major domestic projects. Although welcome news, the industry is still...

en-us

222 results

Similar Podcasts

Expres Ráno

Expres FM

PBS News Hour - Full Show

PBS News

CD Voice

China Daily

Israel Today: Ongoing War Report

Noa Levi

Jeffrey Epstein: The Coverup Chronicles

Bobby Capucci