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 […]
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 […]
Good stuff, kid
Don Obe reflects on his career and his longtime love affair with New Journalism, which has taken him from Maclean's to Toronto Life to, in 1983, the founding of this magazine.
By Michael Thomas Don Obe has just learned, after an in-person meeting with Peter C. Newman, that he is going to be an associate editor at Maclean’s. It is early 1972. Since Maclean’s has the same level of prestige in Canada as The New Yorker in the United States, this is big news. Everybody wants to work at Maclean’s because that’s where a […]
Ten Years of Popping Off
Early last April, the Ryerson Review of Journalism hit the newsstands and the newsrooms of every major media company in Toronto. On the cover was a dramatic black-and-red illustration of a powerful hand squeezing blood out of a Maclean’s magazine. The headline read: “Strong-Arm Tactics: How the Life Gets Squeezed Out of Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine.” […]
