Changes in Style
While readers may not notice a publication’s stance on the serial comma or whether it spells smartphone as one word or two, these minutiae are all painstakingly detailed in newsroom Bibles: the style guides. In the case of Canadian newspapers, one of these is likely the CP Stylebook; another is the house style list, assembled […]
Covering the Congo
Tim Butcher remembers being told to move quickly. He was in Katanga, a vast province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sent to Africa in 2000 as a war correspondent for The Telegraph, he knew he was an outsider—a natural target for the rebels. He was traveling on a small motorbike across rutted roads, […]
Access Denied
In December, McGill University filed a motion to deny certain access-to-information requests from its students, journalists at student newspapers at both McGill and Concordia University, and anyone else who may be associated with them. The university says the requests, which went up from 37 to 170 between 2011 and 2012, require too much time and effort. However, […]
Selling out for survival
Flip open the front cover of The Walrus magazine’s January/February 2013 issue. On the inside front cover you’ll see a house ad for all the different outlets at which you can find The Walrus content. Fold out that cover, and across the gatefold you’ll see early evening on the Rideau Canal. Dozens of lamps line […]
Fishing For Clicks
A Canadian journalist has officially written the “worst lede of all time.” At least that is how Gawker has crowned the cringe-worthy introduction to Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno’s article about the victims of a North York General Hospital anaesthesiologist charged with sexually assaulting 21 women. In fact, the lede was horrible enough to get the […]
Journalists Getting Too Personal
I’m sitting in my quiet bedroom, trying to conjure up some modern criticism on today’s journalism. After a long day working at a tuxedo rental store in Brampton, Ontario, for just over minimum wage, the last thing I want to do is spend what is left of my night hunched over my laptop. Have I […]
Could your tablet save long-form journalism?
In a world where information can be condensed into a 140-character tweet, the future of long-form journalism looks grim. But newspapers and digital magazines are hoping the growing popularity of tablet technology will fulfill a desire for in-depth, quality reportage and represent a new revenue stream. Last November, the Toronto Star launched Star Dispatches, a […]
Up against the walls
Steve Ladurantaye, media reporter at The Globe and Mail, is blunt: “If we don’t find a way to add revenue, then there’s not going to be a newspaper in five years. This goes for the Globe and everyone else. You can’t lose money forever.” Which is why, almost two years after The New York Times […]
Regretting the error
Mistakes happen. In the case of the Toronto Star, they happened at least 415 times last year. That’s the number the Star’s public editor, Kathy English, cited in her end-of-year grovel “A Year in Corrections.” Worse, she noted that the paper’s print corrections in 2012 were up 10 percent over the previous year, and that there had been a […]
Talking with Ivor Tossell
Ivor Tossell is a former online-culture columnist for The Globe and Mail, but since the recent publication of his e-book, The Gift of Ford, he has become one of Toronto’s resident experts on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. The Ryerson Review of Journalism sat down with Tossell to talk about how he stayed unbiased while writing about one of Toronto’s most controversial mayors, whether he ever spoke […]
