This is a joint byline for the Ryerson Review of Journalism. All content is produced by students in their final year of the graduate or undergraduate program at the Ryerson School of Journalism. Staying Alive
It's not dead, but it's no longer a print magazine. Marco Ursi tells the RRJ Online about Masthead's move to an online-only format
In late October, Masthead magazine, the self-titled “Magazine About Magazines,” announced its demise. Then in December, after receiving a number of requests to keep the magazine’s internet counterpart, MastheadOnline, alive, North Island Publishing Ltd. said it would do just that. The RRJ asks editor Marco Ursi about the switch to digital-only, how magazine layouts can survive online and what happens […]
Paper Dreams
Indigo, Canada's largest magazine seller has set new environmental goals for the publications on its shelves. But in an economy that makes green paper mills sparse, will magazines toe Indigo's company line?
On November 1, 2007, Kim Latreille received an email from Barnes and Noble, the American equivalent to Canada’s Indigo Books & Music, announcing the company’s plan to display magazines made from recycled paper more prominently than other titles. Latreille, the group director of production for St. Joseph Media, which publishes eight major consumer magazines, including Toronto […]
Beware the Irishman Bearing Writs
The author would be relieved if you burned this story after reading it
I am the son of an Irishman, but I won’t visit my father’s homeland until a man who knows many tough men is safely in his grave. Did I get your attention? You know that there’s a story here and I can tell you most of it. Everything, really, except some names, especially the name […]
25 Years
25 Years of Watching the Watchdogs
Journalists have long been democracy’s watchdogs. The job of a good reporter, editor or producer is to monitor the powers that be and shine a light on issues and events that deserve scrutiny. Since the launch of the Ryerson Review of Journalism, we’ve followed a simple premise: monitor the watchdogs and shine a light on […]
Spring & Summer 2008
June 2, 2008 Re: the Spring 2008 issue Greetings from a Ryerson magazine journalism graduate, class of 1996. I’m a former Ryerson Review scribbler myself—I wrote the John Haslett Cuff cover story, “Sympathy for the Devil,” that year. I just want to pass on my congratulations to this year’s Spring 2008 team. I’ve been living […]
Spring & Summer 2007
December 26, 2007 Re: John Mather’s “Hot Prospects,” Summer 2007 My attention was recently drawn to John Mather’s article regarding the Calgary Herald and its circulation recovery under my watch as editor in chief (1999-2003) and publisher (2003-2006). I cannot speak to the Herald’s circulation and readership trends since then, but its recovery between 2002 […]
Going Undercover
Violence, drugs and police conflicts: A Toronto journalist reveals the perils of immersion journalism
Since I became a journalist 10 years ago, I’ve had three dozen needles poked into my arm over two days, lived homeless for a year, stolen cars, hopped freight trains, panhandled and had the crap beaten out of me more than once. Through dumb luck and willfulness, I’ve wrung stories out of murderers, drug dealers, […]
Spring & Summer 2006
Aug. 10, 2006 Re: Barry Hertz’s “Being John Ibbitson,” Summer 2006 Barry Hertz’s “Being John Ibbitson” is one of the more execrable lumps of prose I’ve read in the past decade. After leaving journalism in 1996 I forgot how easy it is to stitch a series of half-truths, unsubstantiated claims and trivial factoids into a […]
The Dispassionate Eye
A photojournalist speaks of death, detachment and documenting human suffering
In late October 1998, the Kosovo conflict was more than halfway through its tragic course. One day, while cruising the Drenica hills area, I heard about a young boy who had been shot dead. It’s possible that he had ventured too close to Serbian positions without realizing the danger. I wondered who could have shot […]
”It’s Who I Am”
How one aboriginal reporter left mainstream news outlets behind to tell the stories of her people
In August 2000, I was sent to Burnt Church, New Brunswick to cover the daily showdowns on Miramichi Bay between Mi’kmaq fishers and conservation officers. The federal government had set a deadline for native fishers to remove their lobster traps to make way for commercial fishing – a deadline ignored by members of the Burnt […]
