Friday Funny: Don Cherry’s many talents
In light of Marissa Dederer’s story this week about athletes who become analysts, we wanted to highlight the varied backgrounds of some famous Canadian broadcasters. For example: did you know that, before he coached the Boston Bruins, Don Cherry attended the Royal Conservatory of Music? Remember to follow the Review and its masthead on Twitter. Email the blog editor here.
The best Canadian magazine cover in 2013 is….
Congratulations to the good people at Spacing, whose 10th anniversary issue has been dubbed the best Canadian magazine cover of 2013 by our readers. Sarah Fortunato’s City Hall cake (with art direction and design by publisher Matthew Blackett) garnered 26 votes from our readers. We also tip our hat to the people at Maisonneuve, whose […]
Comforting the comfortable: Dylan Farrow, Woody Allen and The New York Times
By Aya Tsintziras I was standing in line at the movies recently with a friend when she mentioned she still wants to see Woody Allen’s latest movie, Blue Jasmine. All I could think about was Maureen Orth’s November 2013 Vanity Fair piece on Mia Farrow and her children—specifically, the allegations that Allen sexually assaulted Dylan Farrow, their daughter. As it […]
Freedom from information: the symptoms of a national transparency problem
Last month, the Nova Scotia government gave its freedom-of-information (FOI) watchdog, Dulcie McCallum, two weeks’ notice. What it didn’t give her was a reason why. McCallum, who held the post for seven years, was shocked by the decision and said it showed disrespect for her office—not to mention everything it stands for. If the officer […]
The stories we miss without a real 30-year rule
While Canadian and American journalists often lament the annual slow news days in late December and early January—when legislatures have risen and everyone else is at home—reporters in the United Kingdom never want for stories at that time of year. In the past month, British journalists have carried out the ritualistic writing of stories […]
Fetishizing the form’: on the importance of word counts
Last week, The New Yorker published a 17,000-word piece on Barack Obama by editor David Remnick. I haven’t read the feature yet, so I don’t know much about it, but I know how long it is because: Gawker noted it in a story about quote approval. So did the Washington Post. So did The Wire […]
Friday Funny: MSNBC, where the ‘B’ stands for ‘Bieber
From the department of “Things That Make People Complain About ‘The Media,’ Whatever That Means.”
The silence over Mohamed Fahmy
Mohamed Fahmy is a Canadian citizen, working in Egypt as Al-Jazeera’s acting bureau chief. Before working for the Qatari broadcaster, he was with CNN. He is, then, kind of a big deal, and the kind of journalist of which the country ought to be proud. Fahmy is currently holed up in Cairo’s Tora prison, which […]
Globe and Mail cuts horoscopes, entering an Age of Aquarius, or something
This week, Venus formed an aspect with Mars, and The Globe and Mail announced that it will no longer run horoscopes in its print edition (except on Saturdays). We’re not sure whether those two events are related, or even what the first means, but it’s good news nonetheless. The first newspaper horoscope appeared in a […]
Going to Sochi? Leave your phone at home: advice for reporting in Putin’s Russia
With journalists set to descend on Sochi for the Winter Olympics, privacy experts are raising red flags about Russia’s omniscient security apparatus. As The Guardianfirst reported in October, Russia is “modernizing” its SORM system, which the country’s security agency, the FSB, uses to monitor phone and Internet communications. (The agency does not need judicial approval […]
