Bell Media
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Founded in 1961
CTV News Ottawa is a television station covering live, local and breaking news and weather for eastern Ontario and western Quebec.
CTV News Ottawa is a founding member of the CTV network. The station launched in 1961 and today has a weekly reach of more than one million viewers. In March 2021, the station was awarded the RTDNA Canada Central Region award for Best TV Newscast in a Large Market.
CTV News Ottawa inherits best practices policies from its parent news organization CTV News.
CTV News' mission is to be Canada's most trusted English language news source. It aims to accomplish this mission by providing relevant, timely, fair and accurate information across broadcast and digital platforms.
CTV News’ newsgathering is structured to be independent of commercial or political interests. Its policy prohibits journalists from accepting gifts, including paid travel, to avoid any conflict-of-interest or appearance thereof. When relying on an organization for a product or access to an event, CTV's newsroom strives to be transparent about the relationship and note it within the relevant work. The newsroom is insulated from advertisers and underwriters by a firewall. All CTV News properties, news directors, producers, editors and journalists are expected to follow the internal CTV News Policy Handbook, which specifies strict adherence to the RTDNA Code of Journalistic Ethics and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics.
CTV News is part of Bell Media, a subsidiary of BCE Inc., and is funded through advertising revenue. CTV News does not receive government funding or subsidies.
As part of Bell Media, CTV News strives to represent ethnocultural groups, Indigenous people, and people with disabilities in a balanced and accurate manner. The station's policy is to seek out diverse voices in the type of stories covered, in sources, on-screen, on the air, behind the scenes and within the workforce. Bell Media says understanding the composition of its workforce is the heart of its diversity and inclusion strategy. Employees are asked to complete a diversity questionnaire that is analyzed monthly. Reports on this data along with their action plans are presented to Bell Media's diversity leadership council, so it can monitor progress against benchmarks and established goals in its efforts to employ and build a diverse workforce.
The CTV News corrections policy covers how errors in news video, online articles and photo captions are corrected, the placement of correction notices and clarifications. Once an error has been made, CTV News journalists will endeavor to promptly correct significant errors of fact in their journalism.
The placement of a correction depends upon how critical the error is when it is discovered and the repercussions of the error. When correcting a significant error in an online article, photo caption, video or other content, the news organization's policy is to post a correction on the story page explaining the alteration in a timely fashion.
When the reporting may be accurate, but the wording used is not clear as it should be, CTV News will consider rewriting the story and/or publishing a clarification.
CTV News' objective is to get everything "on the record." According to the station's unnamed source policy, journalists must guard against those who wish to use anonymity as a means to hide the truth, deride opponents or manipulate public opinion.
There are circumstances when permitting anonymity is necessary to obtain sensitive information vital to the public good or where the source might face harm, legal jeopardy or loss of livelihood for speaking with the news media.
The Trust Project is an international consortium of news organizations building standards of transparency and working with technology platforms to affirm and amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices. It was founded and is led by award-winning journalist Sally Lehrman.
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, was our original funder, through the Trustworthy Journalism Initiative of Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Google followed with their financial support. Our funders also have included Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Facebook. Funders. Trust Project policies and the Trust Indicators are shaped and enforced independently from our funding sources.