Pierre Bourque

Who is Pierre Bourque?

Pierre Bourque, a journalist and former politician in Ottawa, Ontario, operates the online news aggragator site Bourque Newswatch.

In March 1991, Bourque was appointed to Ottawa City Council and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton to fill a vacancy after Marc Laviolette became mayor, but lost to Richard Cannings in the election of that November. He ran then for Parliament in the 1993 Canadian election as a Liberal candidate in the Montreal riding of Rosemont, and lost to Bloc Québécois candidate Benoît Tremblay. He subsequently ran for Ottawa city council again in 1994, but was not elected.

In 2001, the Ryerson Review of Journalism criticized Bourque and Newswatch. RRJ said Bourque had not written some of his books but only acted as a researcher. In addition, many of Newswatch's breaking stories had often been inaccurate. RRJ also reported that, despite Bourque's web traffic claims, a random sample indicated that Canadian Internet users had not visited the Newswatch site and that no major Canadian journalist used Newswatch as a source.

Newswatch has also been criticized for allowing advertisers to purchase headlines and to "torque" them to highlight a positive news story about itself or a negative story about an opponent.