Suicide Notes
I contemplated killing myself five years ago. Now, to help others, I call on all journalists to break the silence on our final taboo
My heart thumps as I scramble out of bed and grab the phone. Anita Murray, my assignment editor at the Ottawa Citizen, tells me the police have pulled a body from the Rideau Canal. The third day of my internship had been reserved for training until police discovered the “floater” around dawn. I find nothing at […]
At the Corner of Hope and Hype
I pissed off Jay Rosen. The New York University professor is a celebrity in the online journalism world—he has over45,000 followers on Twitter and is renowned for his 2001 book on public journalism, What Are Journalists For? and I’d been trying to reach him for months. The guy’s a leading expert on hyperlocal and collaborative journalism, and I […]
Goodnight, Andy. Good Morning, Matt
Andy Barrie was the voice of CBC Radio Toronto for 15 years. He helped take it to the top. Can his successor, the subdued Matt Galloway, keep it there as a thoughtful refuge on a dial dominated by sports jocks and morning zoos?
With only 10 minutes left in Metro Morning’s live outdoor broadcast, the show’s host has disappeared. At 8:20 a.m., the table where he and his colleagues have been sitting is completely abandoned in Toronto’s Simcoe Park, above which the Canadian Broadcasting Centre looms, and yet Matt Galloway’s voice continues to resonate over large speakers. It’s Bike to […]
London News Is Falling Down
But just how far will it fall?
Nick Paparella is famous for sinking his teeth into his stories. He declares the winning rib recipe at Ribfest, barbeque sauce dripping down his chin, and digs his spoon into his bowl at the annual charity chili cook-off. Today, he’s taking a bite out of one of farmer Bill Millar’s first red strawberries of the […]
Alas, Poor CityNews. We Knew it Well
How Toronto's pioneering local station went from everywhere to nowhere near as good as it used to be
Hmm…she looks good.” CityNews producer Amar Sodhi watches former anchor Anne Mroczkowski in a promo for Global Toronto News Hour on a flat-screen TV, one of two above his computer showing rival networks. It’s 6:30 p.m., halfway through Citytv’s suppercast on a hot May evening. His station is throwing to a commercial break, but Sodhi’s eyes are on Mroczkowski, […]
12 Days of the RRJ: Bonus – A News London
Alyssa Friesen speaks with A reporter Nick Paparella on why local news matters to London and what would be lost if the station went off the air.
In London, Ontario, A News at 6 p.m. is more popular than Global, CBC or CTV’s national newscast. But the station is losing millions of dollars each year and has to deal with corporate decisions that seem indifferent to local needs. Alyssa Friesen speaks with A reporter Nick Paparella on why local news matters to […]
Poles Apart
Canada’s leading Polish-language newspaper is immigrating to the web in English. Its mission: attract the second and third generations and establish a new model for ethnic media
It’s early April, and Tomek Kniat stares at his computer screen in the basement of his Scarborough, Ontario, home. His usual desktop image of a polar bear with gentle eyes is covered by a graph that zigs sharply higher and higher, reaching peaks that were foreign to Kniat only three or four days earlier. Is this […]
Swerve Ahead
Shelley Youngblut created a vibrant, compelling magazine for the Calgary Herald that can serve as a model for other cities. Find out the secrets behind her editorial and financial success
Shelley Youngblut had a problem. How can I get people like me to feel they can do home improvement? She was working on art ideas for a cover story titled “What’s the Worst That Can Happen?” So, when the Swerve editor-in-chief saw someone dressed as Mike Holmes at a Halloween party, she thought, Wouldn’t it be funny to put him […]
Lost and Bound
Now that literary journalism is all but gone from magazines, many writers are choosing to walk a perilous tightrope to books. Good luck with that
Andrew Westoll was on a mission. His motorboat, loaded with food and supplies, pushed upriver. Along the banks of the Sipaliwini River the foliage was dense, the layers of varying shades of greens and browns occasionally reverberating with bird cries. He was deep in the neotropical jungle of southern Suriname, the least-travelled country in South […]
Not All Smurfs and Sunshine
The Brooding Moral Universe of Writer Chris Jones
Updated February 2, 2011, 12:41 p.m. Chris Jones dials a number in Scottsburg, Indiana, and Gail Bond answers with her slow Midwestern twang. “My name is Chris,” he says. “I’m a writer with Esquire and I’d like to write a story about your son’s journey home.” Gail’s voice tightens and she begins to cry. Then Chris cries, […]
