The Mission
The 180-year-old United Church Observer remains a shining light among religious publications. As congregations dwindle, however, how long can it continue to tackle controversy and wrestle with the meaning of faith?
After a Sunday service in December, about 70 people from the Bloor Street United Church congregation gather in McClure Hall for their monthly luncheon. Barb Janes, Pat Janes, Bev Peters and two other churchgoers sit at a table, munching from plates piled with vegetarian lasagna, salad and dessert treats. Their conversation swerves from the federal […]
Helter Shelter
As the economy and the housing market falter, can decor magazines remain standing?
The cover of the December 2008 issue of Style at Home, the 12-year-old shelter title published by Transcontinental, features an elegant white-on-white tableau tastefully accented by what a coverline deems “glamourous greenery”-a 30-inch wreath of salal and camellia leaves accented with silver apple ornaments-all set off by a pair of lamps with gold shades and, for […]
Cold War
Face off at Air Canada Centre: a conflict between ownership and the press that’s just as tense as the action on the ice
It seemed like a good idea at the time. On a mid-September day in 2007, Toronto Star reporter Kevin McGran walked into the Toronto Maple Leafs’ dressing room to file his daily story, but, along with a notebook, he carried a hand-held video camera. The paper, as part of its push into the digital marketplace, had recently […]
Play Ballsy
The new trials and triumphs of female sports journalists
In 1979, Alison Gordon went on her first road trip as a journalist covering the Blue Jays for the Toronto Star. The Jays had been good to her, the first woman to follow and report on the baseball team, but she wasn’t sure how other teams would react. At Arlington Stadium, during a game against the […]
CH-CH-CH-CH Changes
A successful news organization fades to black
It’s a cool day in October 1976, and Connie Smith is working toward making history. In a time when television news stories are recorded on film and edits are spliced together, Smith starts her first day at CHCH TV, where she will become the first female anchor of weekday news in Hamilton. On this day […]
The Long Goodbye
Former Toronto Life editor John Macfarlane had his retirement plan all set. He'd edit books. He'd sit on boards. He'd travel. Then an ailing Walrus came to his door
I was a summer intern at an Alberta business magazine-you can’t be an intern and not be lowly. I was making a list of rich CEOs, people with the kind of money a student of magazines shouldn’t think about if he wants to stay sanely out of business school. Then the news of The Walrus reached across […]
A Canadian in Paris
Gladys Arnold was an eyewitness to history, sending home reports on the Nazis’ rise, meeting de Gaulle, working for the Free French and earning a modest reputation as a trailblazer in Canadian journalism
It was mid-October 1939 when Gladys Arnold sailed aboard the luxury liner the Washington, on her way back to France. There was a strange atmosphere on the ship. The truth hung low over the almost 300 passengers’ heads; they were sailing into the unknown. Watching land fade into open sea, Arnold wondered whether she would ever […]
Hot Topic
When a Hasidic synagogue in Montreal asks a local YMCA to cover its windows so worshipping youth wouldn't be exposed to sweaty women, is that news? The small story that ignited a huge debate
The second-floor workout studio of the Du Parc YMCA in Montreal has four large windows with a view across an alley to a Hasidic synagogue. Built in 1912, the Y is functional, not fancy. It’s a place where strings of toddlers shuffle in and out of play areas throughout the day and teenagers shoot pool […]
Deconstructing Barry
Inside the mind of illustrator Barry Blitt: how he created that controversial New Yorker cover, the reaction it provoked and what he thinks about his Obama fist-bump now
The nightmare that would culminate in such e-mail venom as “I hope your wife gets ovarian cancer” and “Your mother should have aborted you” began on an early summer evening in rural Connecticut. Two middle-aged men sit in the loft of a refurbished barn, riffing off Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” Every Sunday they get high […]
Passages to India
If outsourcing copy editing protects the odd daily, is it so bad?
“Bangalore,” I say. “India.” “Um, okay,” he says, quickly. “I’m just about to go into a news meeting. Can you call me back?” “Yeah,” I say. “How long will that take?” “About an hour.” So I call him back in an hour. And then 15 minutes after that. And then seven more times over the […]
