Advancing the Collective Consensus of Investigative Journalism

This rhetorical analysis examines The Globe and Mail’s reporting on the Alberta MHCare scandal from July 2024 to November 2025 to show how journalists use their own feelings about a topic they investigate to connect with their audiences. The MHCare scandal consists of investigative news stories in Canada that allege a conflict of interest within the Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP) government, implicating Premier Danielle Smith’s former chief of staff Marshall Smith, and formerly titled Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in favouring MHCare Medical CEO Sam Mraiche for healthcare procurement (Cardoso et al., 2025). A framework was developed using previous research on the morality of journalists from the findings of Glasser and Ettema (1989), who argued journalists objectified their morals to connect with a “community consensus of values” (p.9), and investigative journalism categories proposed by Wuergler and Cancela (2024), which contributed to a “self-feeding” journalism ecosystem in French-speaking Switzerland. We used Glasser and Ettema’s moral rhetorical appeals to analyze 20 articles from The Globe and Mail, then divided them into Wuergler and Cancela's four categories to identify which were proactive (sources actively sought) and which were reactive (sources easily acquired from releases, etc.). This addressed the question: What moral rhetorical appeals did Canadian investigative journalists from The Globe and Mail use when reporting on the MHCare scandal? The MHCare case study highlighted the challenges Canadian investigative journalists face, stemming from impediments to access to information and roadblocks within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We found only one proactive story; the rest were reactive, suggesting that only one story is needed to sustain a Canadian investigative ecosystem.