Highway of Tears Revisited
Since 1969, 18 women have died or disappeared along a notorious B.C. road. So why is intense, investigative coverage fading along with them?
Travelling west on Yellowhead Highway 16, Vancouver Sun reporter Neal Hall took in the loneliness of the road, especially desolate in 23-below December weather. The isolated landscape was beautiful as the sun climbed and dipped, blushing the tips of the mountains in pink hues. After driving for an hour or more and not glimpsing a […]
Full Moon
Obsessive. Temperamental. Brilliant. Looking back on the life of the late Barbara Moon, a storied magazine editor, whose quest for perfection haunts writers still
In the summer of 1994, David Macfarlane was among eight journalists at the Banff Centre in Alberta for the prestigious, month-long literary arts journalism program. A freelancer since the late 1970s, and, he jokes, notorious for missing deadlines, Macfarlane had managed to get his draft in on time after warnings from Barbara Moon, his editor. […]
State of Disarray
Chinese stations in Canada well serve their audience with popular fare from Hong Kong and the People’s Republic. Why the same can’t be said of their amateur news shows
“This job is really boring,” the reporter sighs soon after she begins transcribing an interview for a weekly news show in one of Fairchild TV’s editing suites in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The elevator-sized room is walled by a file cabinet, a ceiling-high shelf of Beta tapes and a sticker-infested desk with an analogue editing system […]
Battle Ready
Freelance writers march into war. The cause: increased rates, rights and respect. The enemy: publishers like Transcontinental. Who will retreat first?
Charles Oberdorf moves slowly to the stage. The veteran magazine editor and writer, tethered to an oxygen tank with a nasal cannula because of emphysema, looks older than his 67 years. Before him, the biggest names in the magazine industry cluster around tables with white linens, awaiting the presentation of the 31st annual National Magazine […]
The Calm after the Storm
It’s easy to lose your way in Saint John. Many summer mornings the skyline is shrouded in a heavy cloak of fog blown in from the Bay of Fundy. There are entire weeks when the cloud barely lifts, and the city becomes a ghostly whitewash. Some say flowers die in August from a lack of […]
Lost
Mir Mahdavi fled a death sentence. His so-called crime: battling corruption in an Afghan paper. Now he’s safe in Canada, shut out from his profession—and he’s not alone
By 8 a.m. most days, Mir Mahdavi is walking his customary 15-minute route from his home in western Kabul, greeting the same friendly faces and stopping in the same grocery store for cigarettes before arriving at the three-storey apartment building that houses Aftab (“The Sun”), the weekly newspaper of which he is founder and editor-in-chief. There he makes […]
Rider on the Storm
In the mind of Doug Kelly, the Post of the future will further divide readers and critics. But can a niche audience support a national newspaper?
Betty’s, a downtown Toronto bar, is all warm wood tones and squeaky floors, its seafoam walls barely visible through a collection of framed sports memorabilia. Last October, it was the site of a celebration commemorating the National Post’s 11th anniversary. Once the spoiled child of media baron Conrad Black, the paper had more extravagant parties […]
On the Eve of Destruction
In the mind of John Stackhouse, the Globe of the future could involve tearing down much of what readers value most. Will it mean brighter days or trigger an unmitigated disaster?
Visitors to The Globe and Mail’s Toronto headquarters often comment on how sedate the place is—nothing like the frenzied, shouty bullpen newsrooms of pop culture. It’s more akin to a mid-sized corporate office; a grey and workmanlike place where serious people are engaged in serious work, putting together a very serious newspaper. So by Globe […]
I’m dyin’ up here!
Why Canadian magazines have come to bury humour, not praise it
The Set-up Definition: the premise of a pre-arranged outcome A writer and an editor are lost in the desert. They’ve been without food or water for days, and it’s beginning to look like this is the end. Then, they see a shimmer on the horizon. They run toward it. It’s an oasis! An editorial team […]
Anatomy of a Tragedy
After an incident involving a former Ontario politician and a bike courier, newsrooms leapt into action. A blow-by-blow account of what journalists got right and wrong—and a PR firm’s mysterious role in revealing the real story
Only three people know what happened on that Toronto street on the night of August 31, 2009. One is dead, and the other two aren’t talking publicly until the trial is over, if they ever will. The best version of events the rest of us can put together is this: At about 9:45 p.m., the […]
