Simon Bredin was the Spring 2015 chief copy editor of the RRJ. The Inside Man
Evan Solomon was an outsider with plans for a new kind of political television, but Ottawa’s toxic partisan culture changed his show—and him
Evan Solomon was an outsider with plans for a new kind of political television, but Ottawa’s toxic partisan culture changed his show—and him
John Macfarlane and The Walrus: a lovely coda
One day early on in my internship at The Walrus, the magazine’s managing editor Kyle Wyatt ushered me and three other interns into the boardroom. “You are all very, very lucky to be working right outside the office of John Macfarlane,” Wyatt said, his voice dropping conspiratorially. So we were understandably nervous when Macfarlane sat […]
Doug Ford and Ezra Levant: when do you stop listening?
The student press was briefly consumed by controversy last week when the Canadian University Press (CUP)—whom we wrote about this year—announced that Ezra Levant would be a keynote speaker at its national conference. The Link at Concordia was less than pleased about this, citing Levant’s propensity for getting sued and generally being awful. CUP mounted […]
Don’t let words get in the way of commentary
“Pedroia…makes the play…throw home, two out, over to third, it gets away, Allen Craaaiiiig…is gonna come to the plate, here’s the throooowwww, he IS-” Well, what is he? In the brief and excruciating interval between Allen Craig reaching home base at the end of game three of the World Series and the obstruction call becoming […]
Controlling the answers—and the questions
In the acid trip that is Yellow Submarine, The Beatles stumble upon Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD—the “nowhere man.” One of the first things Jeremy says is, “Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo! So little time, so much to know!” Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a well-known Beatles fan, must have been watching this at […]
Friday Funny: CBC ombudsman answers the question we’ve all been waiting for
CBC ombudsman, Esther Enkin, posted the results of her investigation into a complaint against a column in which Neil Macdonald likened Republicans unto Miley Cyrus. The 1,300-word (!) review is worth a read, but for those of you who need to know in a rush, here’s the important part: “It is true the word describes […]
Star exclusive!
The front page of today’s Toronto Star is a fairly typical one: the Star leads with a major municipal story and surrounds it with smaller stories from provincial and federal politics. One of these stories is labeled “Star Investigation”; another, “Star Gets Action”; and, of course, “Star Exclusive.” As the RRJ wrote in 2010, these […]
It’s Conrad Black’s world—we’re all just living in it
In 2010, while the subject was still in prison, a friend of mine emailed me the above photo and wrote: “I love how the Post puts this in every weekend. I’m never sure if they mean he’s writing something, or that, like Arthur, Lord Black will return to us in our hour of great […]
The fashion week coverage we deserve
It’s fashion week in Toronto again! This means that David Pecaut Square will be a reliable chaos of bustle and colour any given night this week; you won’t have to turn too far to find a camera looking for a good photo. Outsiders to Canada’s—or, for that matter, any—sartorial scene have a predictable reliance on […]
Friday Funny: ”We regret the hilarious error”
We know we should feel bad for the USA Today copy editor responsible for this headline, but the schadenfreude is too strong. (via Reddit) A typo with the word “typo” in it is right up there with that time the Toronto Sun misspelled “correction”…in a correction. The New York Times takes its corrections seriously: earlier […]
