"As Canada was in the grips of the worst pandemic in a century, Canadian media scrambled to tell the story. Newsrooms, already run on threadbare budgets, struggled to make broader connections that could allow their audience to better understand what was really happening, and why. Politicians and public health officials were mostly given the benefit of the doubt that what they said was true and that they acted in good faith. This book documents each month of the first year of the pandemic and examines the issues that emerged -- from racisms, to residential care, to policing. It demonstrates how politicians and uncritical media shaped the popular understanding of these issues and helped to justify the maintenance of a status quo that created the worst ravages of the crisis. 'Spin Doctors' offers alternative ways for Canadians to understand the big themes of the crisis and create the necessary knowledge to demand large-scale change."--Back cover.