Kevin Metcalf - Journalist Profile | Connect with top journalists

Beats

Biography

Kevin Metcalf is a freelance journalist and the current editor of Warp.media. He styles himself as a polemicist and activist based in Toronto, Ontario.. In 2011 Metcalf took work with Greenpeace Canada as a fundraiser and worked two years in various capacities representing the organization to the public. In 2013 he trained as a volunteer activist, direct action scout, received media training and trained as a member of the organization’s climb team. Metcalf helped to participate in and organize actions and events around the #FreeTheArctic30 campaign, which sought to pressure the Russian government over its arrest of Greenpeace activists and seizure of one of the organization’s ships. In 2013 Metcalf was elected to a volunteer role as development director of the fledgling climate action group Toronto350. In this role he helped run fundraising events and coordinate protests with nationwide reach, and drafted a plan to bring several hundred activists from Toronto to the 2014 Peoples’ Climate March in New York city. 2013-2014 Metcalf volunteered with the federal Liberal party, participating in various nominations and two byelections, as a vote scrutineer and volunteer canvasser. In 2014 while enrolled in the Community Action Research program at X University, Metcalf began work on a journalistic project mapping proposed oil pipelines using open source data from energy company project filings. 2014-2016 he curated an online archive of pipeline data at Pipeleaks.org and ran workshops on mapping for activists and journalists at the University of Guelph Social and Environmental Symposium, and the Toronto Peoples’ Social Forum. In the summers of 2014 and 2015 Metcalf attended the ‘Rebel, Rebuild, Rewild’ action training camp run in Wakefield, Quebec. Metcalf helped found two campaigning groups, the Toronto Coalition to Stop Bill C-51 and later, Stop C-51: Toronto, which he served as Operations Coordinator. C-51 is now known as "The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015". In 2015, Metcalf and his colleagues in the Toronto Coalition against Bill C-51 volunteered for the campaign of New Democrat candidate Jennifer Hollett. His participation was cited in an article in the Walrus, written about Hollet’s opponent, Chrystia Freeland. 2014-2016 Metcalf was employed as a salesperson with a renewable energy company, Bullfrog Power, helping to promote good climate policy door-to-door, selling a mixture of renewable electricity and natural gas offsets to consumers. In March of 2016 Metcalf attended a demonstration by anti-racist activists at the Toronto Zionist Center, when the Jewish Defence League, a Zionist extremist group, hosted a spokesperson for PEGIDA, an anti-Muslim group. In the summer of 2016, Metcalf traveled by bus to Cleveland and Philadelphia in the United States for the Republican and Democratic national conventions. There, he participated in and filmed street protests on numerous issues linked to black liberation, economic justice and the climate crisis. Around this time, Metcalf began to publicly self-identify as an Anarchist. Metcalf attended, helped organize, promote and film dozens of anti-racist demonstrations between 2016 and 2019. In the spring of 2016, he launched a Facebook page ‘Tracking Hate and Racist Extremism Around Toronto’ (THREAT) intended specifically to counter a rising trend of Islamophobia and document the early and close relationship between far-right Islamophobic groups and the Kahanist organization, the Jewish Defence League. In September 2016 Metcalf was hired as the communications coordinator for the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, a nonprofit campaigning against Bill C-51 (Anti-terrorism Act, 2015). While in his role with that organization, Metcalf attended and filmed the first-ever event held by supporters of the controversial university professor Jordan Peterson on October 16, 2016 at the University of Toronto Campus. In November of 2016 Metcalf and a friend disrupted and filmed a philosophy pub night hosted by an alt-right group at the University of Toronto. This was the first disruption of an alt-right event in Toronto, and constituted the first antifascist action in the city following Donald Trump’s election. In January of 2017 Metcalf traveled as a journalist to Washington D.C. for the January 20 inauguration of Donald Trump where he witnessed first hand, police kettling and arresting hundreds of activists and several journalists at the intersection of 12th and L streets. The following day, Metcalf participated in the record-setting crowds of the Women’s March on Washington. In April of 2017, while filming at a protest in Toronto, Metcalf was assaulted by members of the Jewish Defence League upset over things he had written. Those members were later charged for their participation in the assault. Members of the 3% Militia were also present and participating in the attack. In June 2017, Metcalf was targeted by a notorious anti-Muslim internet personality, Kevin J. Johnston, who accused Metcalf of participating in a “gang assault” on him, during a far right demonstration in Ottawa. Metcalf had been several blocks away when this occurred, filming an interview with CBC. In the winter of 2018 Metcalf traveled to Ottawa, Ontario to run a training workshop and provide an overview of the experiences of Toronto’s antifascists, for the group Ottawa Against Fascism. 2017-2018 Metcalf helped shape CJFE’s response to the changing landscape around hate and free expression. He wrote multiple articles about free expression issues and drafted numerous petitions and protest letters addressed to many governments in his role as communications coordinator. A March 2018 protest letter sent to then Minister for Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, protesting Israel’s killing of journalists and protesters triggered a backlash from Zionist journalists and conservative opponents of the organization. Metcalf was fired from CJFE in a widely covered incident. 2018-2019 he tracked the rise of the Yellow Vest movement in Canada, wrote about a campus defamation lawsuit by a conservative student leader with alt-right ties, and won his own defamation lawsuit against the notorious anti-Muslim bigot Kevin J. Johnston, over several videos Johnston had made discussing Metcalf 2017-2018. Since 2018, Metcalf has been involved in national antifascist campaigns, was arrested for protesting Maxime Bernier at a Dave Rubin event at Mohawk College in Hamilton, ON. Metcalf was also instrumental in helping to guide the founders of the Canadian Antihate Network and support them in the organization's infancy (though they would, perhaps prefer to deny his early support or involvement). Nowadays, Metcalf administers http://warp.media and works full-time as a landscaper, biding his time until he can return from wandering in the desert to work in journalism again.

Content

Total articles 1

• Available on paid plans

  Amnesty’s Israeli Apartheid Report Won’t Help Palestinians

  By Davide Mastracci Verified, Kevin Metcalf, Michael Bueckert

  Feb. 07, 2022

As seen in

Company Info

Freelance

Freelancer.com is the largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace in the world, connecting over 81 million employers and freelancers across more than 247 countries. Founded in 2009 and based in Sydney, Australia, the platform allows employers to post jobs while freelancers can bid on these projects. It is publicly traded on the Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker ASX:FLN. The platform supports a variety of work categories, including software development, writing, design, and marketing. Freelancer.com also offers contests for creative work, where employers can award prize money to winning entries. Users can choose from different membership plans, including free and paid subscriptions, which provide various benefits. The mobile app enhances project management and communication for users on the go. With a diverse customer base that includes individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises, Freelancer.com plays a significant role in the global online economy.