Canadian University Press must reinvent itself to stay alive
The world’s oldest student news service is losing members because it no longer gives large papers what they want
By Amy Grief When the sports editor at the Queen’s Journal requested media passes from the school’s athletics department in August, he received one instead of the usual eight. Back in March, the previous sports editor, Nick Faris, reported on how Queen’s University Athletics selected its varsity team of the year after nullifying an original […]
Missed opportunity: the Rice video was about domestic abuse, not sports
When a football player hit a woman in an elevator, journalists were quick to write about it, but too many wrote about the wrong issue
By Alanna Kelly There are many viral videos that The Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti refuses to watch, but she had to see the video that showed Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée Janay Palmer. As disgusting as it was, it showed an issue that people needed to talk about. The couple had just left […]
Sketches of Obe
A digital wake of salutes and stories for the Review founder, pioneer of Canadian literary journalism and rebellious spirit
Don Obe 1936-2014 No better magazine editor ever put pencil to paper than Don Obe. And that’s when he would have stopped me. “Awkward sentence, Paul,” he would have said. “And what kind of pencil? Short? Stubby? 2B? HB? Eraser? Details, Paul, details.” I met Don at this time of year in 1961 […]
Government secrecy thwarts coverage of spill at B.C. mine
Without access to inspection reports, journalists can’t report what really happened at Mount Polley
By Cormac McGee Out at the Mount Polley mine site in south-central British Columbia in mid-September 2014, Gordon Hoekstra found himself with a few hours to kill before his flight back to Vancouver. The mine’s dammed tailings pond—which holds fine rock particles left over after the ore is extracted—had breached a few weeks earlier on […]
Legacy of a Legend
This is a special guest post about Don Obe, the founder of the Review, by Tim Falconer, the current instructor on the Review. Don Obe died yesterday. He was an old newspaperman, so I hope he would appreciate a lede without euphemism or bullshit. But he was best known as one of the most influential […]
Social media and television news: never the twain shall meet
After seven months on air, CTV's Kevin Newman Live gave up trying to bridge the gap between online interaction and traditional broadcast journalism
By: Erica Lenti It started with a shaky, selfie-angled smartphone shot. Kevin Newman, then 54, held his device up for the opening monologue of his new TV show the same way a teenager would at the club—arm raised, head slightly tilted. He then began the broadcast straight from his smartphone. The night’s top story, Newman […]
Stories Behind the Shots – Peter Bregg
Peter Bregg has been capturing Canadian history on the run through his lens for 48 years. He is the first photojournalist to win the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Watch now to learn about the stories behind the shots he takes.
Fade to black: Is it over for the newspaper film critic?
Times are tough for those who write about movies for a living. Their numbers are dwindling while the internet is full of amateur reviewers. And that’s bad news for the pros and their readers
By Miro Rodriguez Peter Howell celebrated his 13th birthday at Toronto’s Glendale Cinerama in 1969 watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s still his favourite movie. The next year, he used the money he earned delivering the Toronto Telegram to buy a book called The Making of Kubrick’s 2001. “Whatever early instinct I had to be a movie critic was […]
If local news will be the saviour of Canadian journalism, what are you going to do about it, broadcasters?
With the Local Programming Improvement Fund set to dry up next year, television networks must find ways to cover news outside big cities without blowing the budget. But cheaper isn't always better
By Harriet Luke Last month, convicted killer Kyle Halbauer talked to reporter Dan Zakreski about how he started dealing cocaine. The exclusive CBC Saskatchewan interview was a revealing look at Saskatoon’s drug trade and it’s the kind of in-depth story that managing director John Agnew would love to do more often. But the report was possible […]
Do Rob Ford reporters have a transparency problem?
Recent Ontario Press Council hearings called out the use of anonymous sources in the coverage of Toronto's mayor, leaving readers questioning journalism’s trustworthiness
By Luc Rinaldi On a summer afternoon in August 2011, Globe and Mail investigative reporter Greg McArthur sent an email to his editor with the subject line, “Ideas.” Inside, he suggested: “A portrait of Rob Ford as a young man—who is Rob Ford, really?” Alongside freelancer Shannon Kari, McArthur called Ford’s high school classmates and hunted down yearbooks. […]
