Allison Elkin was the Spring 2015 co-chief copy editor of the RRJ. Passages to India
If outsourcing copy editing protects the odd daily, is it so bad?
“Bangalore,” I say. “India.” “Um, okay,” he says, quickly. “I’m just about to go into a news meeting. Can you call me back?” “Yeah,” I say. “How long will that take?” “About an hour.” So I call him back in an hour. And then 15 minutes after that. And then seven more times over the […]
The WoW Factor
The dailies say they must attract new readers or die. So why are they virtually ignoring millions of gamers?
Clive Thompson is burly and about six-two. He’s wearing a full set of chain mail and Soldier’s Wrist Guards of the Eagle and has a large mace-a Giant Mace-strapped to his back like a parade baton. He’s 40, a Canadian expat living in New York, former editor of This Magazine, a journalist and father of two […]
Shadows and Light
The piercing perspectives of photojournalist Rita Leistner
She couldn’t take a plane, so Rita Leistner decided to walk-to Iraq. For a light load, a lot was left behind. She took mostly cameras, a flak jacket and a good pair of hiking boots. Though the risks were obvious, the choice was too: $1,200 U.S. and a one-day hike would get Leistner into war […]
Sticking It to Women’s Sports
It’s a perfect night for hockey. Outside, the October air is biting, but it doesn’t compare to the freezing temperature inside the arena, where a couple of hundred fans await the start of tonight’s season opener. They quickly fill the cold blue plastic seats as the smell of barbequed hot dogs wafts through the stands. […]
Trouble on the Home Front
The demand for shelter books has never been higher. As a result, Style at Home and Canadian House & Home have been duking it out like never before. But as the messy domestic dispute intensifies, fresh ideas and editorial distinctiveness have taken it on the chin
Cobi Ladner’s first inkling of the competition she was about to face came one night in the mid-1990s. Ladner, editor of Canadian House & Home, Canada’s preeminent decorating magazine, was attending the annualSaturday Night magazine Christmas party, where several hundred guests had gathered for an evening of schmoozing and free wine at the magazine’s Front Street offices […]
A Tall Order
His publisher wants a radical reconception. His publisher's boss wants a 12 percent return. When his new Maclean's finally debuts this summer, Anthony Wilson-Smith just wants to keep his bosses happy
It’s a little before 10 a.m. on March 27, 2001, and more than 100 Maclean’s magazine employees are gathered in a reception room at the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto. They’ve trooped up the sidewalk from company headquarters at 777 Bay Street for the long-awaited announcement: the unveiling of their new editor-in-chief. Excitement mingles with relief. Today […]
Small Papers, Big Issues
The street paper movement was started by well-intentioned advocates for the homeless. Surviving on the streets, however, is proving to be a lot more difficult than they bargained for
“Buy a paper, support the homeless,” bellows Hubert Serroul against the cold wind that probably accounts for the unusually small crowd outside Toronto’s St. Lawrence farmer’s market this Saturday morning. Hubert holds a copy of Toronto Street News in one gloved hand. In the other he holds a cigarette bummed off a friend. It’s almost noon and […]
Sex and the City Desk
Sex columnists are breaking out of the back pages of alternative weeklies. But will they make out in the main stream?
Q:After dating this woman for a couple of months, I began to suspect that she was a bed wetter. Is adult bed-wetting more common than one would imagine? Would it be morally shallow of me not to want to sleep with her again? A: Would it be morally shallow not to sleep with the woman again? […]
Trial by Journalist
In Canada, you're innocent until proven guilty. You wouldn't know it from reading Christie Blatchford's columns
Christie Blatchford lives in a 105-year-old house near the eastern fringe of Toronto’s Little Italy, where the right half of her bedroom functions as a small home office. Hanging over an old wooden desk, where her Macintosh PowerBook G3 lies, is a pencil sketch of a judge watching a man give his testimony. The judge […]
O Critic, Where Art Thou?
When Jay Scott died in 1993, the art of thoughtful film reviewing in Canadian papers didn't die with him. The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, and The Toronto Star carry on the tradition, but too many others do not
FADE IN-int. movie theatre Amid a cluster of teenaged contest winners sits a group of middle-aged men with pens in hand. They are lined up along the aisle so as not to elbow anyone while they scratch away at notepads. ZOOM IN-on right side of room Blue light flickers across the men’s faces in a strobe-like effect […]
