The Dead Candidate's Report - A Memoir.

Episode 7 - A Private Fidelity.  Supporters loyal to the disgraced candidate urge her to run  for Parliament as an independent. But first, she must confront the contempt of voters who now believe she is an antisemitic conspiracy-monger.

Episode 8 - The Pundits, the Prime Minister and the Polling Booth, Allegations of bigotry have succeeded and as Hughes watches her televised defeat on election night, she realizes she is part of a select group of truly bizarre losers.

9. Memories of McCarthy Unwilling to live with the odious label of anti-Semite, Hughes traces the tactics used to defeat her to their roots in McCarthyism. In the fifties, communists were the target. Six decades later, "truthers" who challenge the official story of September 11,2001 are smeared in an eerily similar witch hunt.

10. Looking for the Exit  Canada's election of 2008 is history, but it continues to corrode the daily life, the family and mental health of The Dead Candidate. Slowly, grief and confusion give way to anger. She accepts advice from Tony Robbins and finds hope in her rights as a Canadian.

11 The First Lawyer The dead candidate takes her defamation case to a highly respected lawyer. The names on her defendants list (which includes Canada's prime minister) cause him to "scare her for her own good." He warns that her powerful opponents can afford to fight forever and may well beat her senseless.

12. All the Justice Money Can Buy Hughes learns why seeking justice in court is like following a drowning with a firing squad. She mortgages her house to pay legal bills. Her lawyers dodge a gag order. After almost five years of struggle and fatigue, matters take a stunning turn.

13 Disappeared. Again. Vindicated! The Dead Candidate's Recovery Team releases the news that she has been cleared of all charges during the election of 2008. The story sinks like a stone. Hughes decides to demand accountability from her indifferent colleagues in media.

14. The Last Nice Country in the World Her old life is beyond reach, but a new one takes shape. Lesley Hughes has witnessed first hand that the free press in Canada turning its back on democracy and on its own freedom. She contemplates writing her story in a book and the advice is universal: don't do it!

Episode 15 - The Media is the Minefield Mother Theresa was right to distrust and avoid contact with what is now called Legacy Media. But journalists in the new, more diverse Information Age will still need individual courage if they intend to find and share the truth as their work demands. 

Episode 6 A long ago interview with espionage writer John le Carre foreshadows the difficulty  of getting reliable truth from intelligence agencies. Hughes is dragged into the impenetrable fog lingering over September 11 and the bloodshed that followed. 

More pieces of the puzzle come together. Two previous columns rise to haunt the award winning journalist Lesley Hughes. The first defied George Bush' official story behind September 11, 2001. The second urged Canadians to stay out of the American retaliatory war on Afghanistan. Both conflicted with opinions in leading legacy media.

Episode 4 A single anonymous blogger emerges as the source of Hughes' disgrace. Opposing candidates demand as apology which Hughes cannot give. Her humiliation is widely celebrated in social media and Canadians believe her dismissal is a righteous triumph.

Episode 3 Hughes' credibility, her past and her future are gone amid accusations of conspiracy mongering and antisemitism. National media portray her a poisonous conspiracy monger allegedly hostile to Israel and the Jewish community.

When Canadian journalist and broadcaster Lesley Hughes considers a run for a seat in Canada's parliament, she is painfully aware that the political arena is a treacherous place. What she doesn't know is that she may pay a price beyond her imagination in a ruthless game in which she may lose everything...

Hughes' exciting and promising campaign is abruptly shut down when she is sideswiped by media telling her she's been dumped by her party as an unworthy candidate, unfit to govern. The scrum capturing her shock leads national radio, tv and newspapers.

Veteran journalist and broadcaster Lesley Hughes is pursued as a candidate in Canada's 2008 federal election. She struggles to reconcile a deep distrust of politicians with her passion to run for a seat in Canada's parliament. Without candidates, she realizes, democracy is not possible.