So You Want To Be A Restaurant Critic?
Good lord, don't be silly
If we’re not being vilified as grim reapers with the despotic power to make or break a business, we are mocked as culinary dilettantes who couldn’t poach our way out of a papillote. Aw, you cluck. Those poor gluttons, force-fed with foie gras and truffles night after night. What hardships they endure! Okay, I’ll admit […]
5 Reasons to Love Service Journalism
Service is the fast food of the magazine industry. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a full, nutritious meal
For years, Lise Ravary had practiced a version of her short speech, so it was hardly impromptu. After a quarter-century of involvement with the National Magazine Awards as both judge and board member, the thought had become too difficult to ignore. Yet again, women’s service magazines had been bypassed in favour of more “respected” magazines. Maclean’s, Toronto […]
The Russian Enigma
Why Canadian reporters sent to Moscow will never understand the country’s soul
This hostile, icy metropolis is exhausting. Every stereotype—the constant military presence, the babushkas begging in the crowded Metro, real fur, stray dogs, dirty slush, the Christmas trees next to statues of Lenin—overwhelms the senses almost instantly upon arrival. Many Moscow buildings carry plaques: this or that historical figure lived here. This land explodes with stories […]
Face to Face
One veteran reporter and one young upstart compare notes on life in the hot zones
An award-winning journalist, Brian Stewart began his career as a political reporter for The Gazette in Montreal, before joining CBC in 1971. Now 65, Stewart has reported from innumerable war zones and ravaged countries, including El Salvador, Ethiopia, Beirut and Sudan. Graeme Smith, 28, is technically The Globe and Mail’s Moscow bureau chief but spends most of his […]
Holy Mackinaw!
Industry accolades came fast and furious for the "revolutionary" plays of former Hamilton Spectator editor Dana Robbins. The locals were not as impressed. Now east-end boy David Estok has the ball. But is he taking his team in the right direction?
For some people, home smells like baking bread, apples and cinnamon, maybe even hay and manure. For David Estok, it smells like ink. When he arrived for his first day as editor-in-chief of The Hamilton Spectatorand climbed up the back stairs, boxes in hand, the smell of the ink from the presses down the hall hit […]
South of the Border Down Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile and Argentina Way
CBC's Connie Watson is Canada's only English-language correspondent in Latin America. She scrambles from country to country, but too many of her stories go unheard. Why?
Outside the central market in La Matanza, an industrial town on the edge of Buenos Aires, a crowd of journalists and camerapeople stands on a wet three-tier bleacher. Correspondents from BBC, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation and Al-Jazeera are among about a hundred journalists waiting for the presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to take the […]
Quick-Change Artist
After outsider Giles Gherson made a fast exit, the brass brought back a Star man through and through. Editor-in-chief Fred Kuntz's task: change the landscape—and do it fast
Fred Kuntz specializes in landscapes. He’s always been serious about painting—to the point of mounting a two-week show in 1992 at Gallery 360 called “A Winter’s Walk.” The exhibit showcased a series of 24 Toronto streetscapes; 16 sold. The rest, along with some related lithographs, still sit in the basement of his Port Credit, Ontario […]
The War Inside
War correspondents can be "Totally fucked up. They can't face reality. They can't face the down of not having the adrenaline pump." An in-depth look at the hidden aftershocks of covering bloody conflicts up close
Neil Macdonald and Patrick Brown, two of CBC’s most distinguished foreign correspondents, are acting up: “This is ridiculous!” “It’s all psychobabble!” The pair has briefly returned to Canada to attend the annual CBC correspondents’ conference. The year is 2002 and they, along with at least 50 English-and French-speaking CBC reporters and their producers, are sitting […]
Addicted!
Feeding the craving for celebrity doesn’t stop with the tabloids anymore. The Globe and Mail and National Post are now increasingly hooked on it. So are their readers. An investigation into journalism’s dark side and the rise of anorexic arts coverage
Jen McDonnell was unaware that alerts were bombarding her BlackBerry one Friday night last February. She was with friends at a bar on College Street when she got the call from a colleague. CNN had already caught wind of the news. McDonnell rushed home to cover the story, drafting a news brief on her BlackBerry […]
The Trouble with Harry
Harry Rasky was one of Canada’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. So why is he so unknown today?
The archives on the third floor of York University’s Scott Library aren’t exactly welcoming. The buzzer-only admittance, white tables and fluorescent lighting suggest a trip through the Cuckoo’s Nest rather than any hallowed halls of academia. “I’m looking for the Harry Rasky archives,” I tell an archivist. “Sure,” she says. “What did you want to […]
