Megan Griffith-Greene was the Editor for the Spring 2004 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. Through the Glass, Lightly
Apparently my great-great grandfather was a 'real son of a bitch,' but he sure kept a good newspaper scrapbook
My great-great grandfather’s scrapbook is a tattered green thing filled with cartoons, clippings and articles. The book tracks news curios beginning July 2, 1884 (written in rather fanciful hand in black ink, page one), and ending sometime in 1907. The 25 years in between are pasted on thick yellow pages, warped by years in my […]
The Five Per Cent Delusion
When stock price drives management change at a newspaper – journalists, prick up your ears. In the aftermath of Toronto Star Publisher John Honderich’s resignation over the now famous “corporate desire for change” there remains a creeping cynicism over Torstar CEO Rob Prichard. In the 1990s, as president of the University of Toronto, Prichard was […]
Master and Commander
He's obsessive, feared, optimistic and controversial-and he's got a bold plan to radically transform news at the CBC. Tony Burman's journey to the far side of the media world
Tony Burman can’t sit still. He shifts and fidgets, changes position, taps his foot, leans back in his chair, never losing balance. He gestures wildly as he talks, touching his hair, then his face, snapping his fingers to emphasize epiphanies. He doesn’t seem bored or distracted. Instead the movements seem like a physical manifestation of […]
To Whom it may Concern
A look at the world of letters to the editor and what it takes to get one printed
At the Toronto Star, the drab-brown hermetically-sealed high-rise by the lake, sits a pile of paper. It lies on a desk, a dozen snaking turns down the early-seventies hallways, stuccoed and beige, among the editorial offices. “Dear editor,” each page begins. They go on to document, argue, insist, clarify or plead. But first, they have […]
