Joseph Couture

Education

After initially dropping out of university to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Couture went back to school later in life. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in 2010, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology in 2016, both from Western University.

Early career

Couture began working for the CBC’s radio program IDEAS in 1994. His first assignment was to investigate a police investigation into the gay community in his hometown of London, Ontario. His work on the project was the subject of a feature-length "analysis" piece called the "Kiddie Porn Ring That Wasn’t" in the Globe and Mail on March 11, 1995 by then Ryerson journalism instructor Gerald Hannon. The piece reported on how Couture had uncovered the fact that the London police were using the guise of a child pornography ring to harass the gay community in London and throughout the province of Ontario.

Hannon’s piece also reported on the extensive harassment of Couture by the local constabulary. Such persecution of a Canadian journalist was unprecedented at the time and Couture was granted the Hellman-Hammett Award from the prestigious group Human Rights Watch in New York in 1996. The award is named after the famed American writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett who left their estates in trust to be given to writers around the world who have faced political persecution for their work, as they had in their own lives. At the time, Couture was the only journalist in Canada to have ever won the award. So unusual were the circumstances, news of his award was published in the New York Times and as far away as Africa. Hannon’s piece in the Globe provoked such a public outcry on both sides, that both Hannon and Couture were named amongst the top newsmakers of the year. Couture eventually went on to work for CBC television as an investigative reporter for their flagship program "the fifth estate". He also worked for the programs Witness and Newsworld before leaving for a freelance career as a writer in 1998.

Later career

Couture has written for numerous newspapers and magazines in both Canada and the United States, including the National Post and the Globe and Mail. In recent years, he has been a regular freelance columnist for his home town newspaper,the London Free Press.

He published his first book, "Peek: Inside the Private World of Public Sex" in 2008 under the imprint of New York publisher Haworth Press. The book was surprisingly successful for the subject matter and made it onto the Amazon best-seller list in Canada, the United States, Australia and the U.K. He offers regular commentary on the issue of public sex whenever called upon by the media to do so and has appeared in Esquire Magazine, The Advocate, The New York Post and the National Post, amongst others.

He is also a three-time finalist for the Canadian Association of Journalists awards in investigative journalism for his work. His last nomination came in 2015 for a series of reports on the hidden underbelly of London’s street life populated by the drug-addicted, mentally ill and chronically homeless. YouTube banned his documentary “A Look Inside a Crack House”, which was part of the investigative series, in November of 2016. It appears the move was the result of a single complaint after the video had received more than 125, 000 views in more than a year live online on YouTube. Couture pleaded with multiple journalists and freedom of expression groups for help in appealing the YouTube decision, but was frustrated and disappointed that not a single individual journalist or anti-censorship group came to his aid.

Personal life

In his book "Peek: Inside the Private World of Public Sex" he describes himself as "definitely gay" but also with "some curiosity about women." He writes that he previously believed himself to be "one hundred percent gay", but he realized his attraction to both men and women after viewing heterosexual pornography.