Daily Science Fare
Bringing the test tube to the boob tube, The Discovery Channel's flagship show makes science sizzle
Jay Ingram and I are staring at a photo of a viewer’s fanatical cat. “This cat only pays attention when I’m on the show,” he says with a laugh. “Other cats watch the show too, Jay,” I say. My best friend’s cat, I explain, likes staring at the screen of The Discovery Channel, although Mojo […]
Show me the money
That's the plea of freelancers who want their cut of new media profits. But publishers say there's not much dough to be divvied
Bit. Bit. Bit. The electronic pulse fires across the matrix, sending digit after digit down the gold and copper wire, to the server’s snaking cord and the fibre-optic cable that runs right out to the sea. Bit. Bit. Bit. The currency of information shoots around the earth and the value of the writer’s words increase […]
United We Falter
Three years ago, while it was still owned by Thomson Newspapers, the Niagara Falls Review’s newsroom was organized by the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild. Mark Skeffington, a general reporter at the Review for four years, was its union steward. The paper’s first contract came into effect just over a year later, around the same time […]
www.clueless.@nd.hopeless.ca
Net Newspapers of the Great White North
My best friend in the whole wide world just bought Space Invaders for his brand new Atari 2600. The game is so cool. He saved up all the money he got from delivering the weekend newspaper just to buy it. Me, I couldn’t do a paper route. Gettin’ up in the morning—before the street lights […]
Equality, Fraternity, Opportunity
A leading group of black journalists has joined to spread some network news
On the evening of January 20, 1994, Angela Lawrence sat in disbelief as she watched a TVOntario program featuring a panel discussion on diversity in Canadian newsrooms. Among the four panelists was radio and television commentator Dick Smythe, who argued that the dearth of newsroom diversity was due to a lack of qualified candidates in […]
Publish or Perish?
Struggling against a social shift to the right, threatened by financial perils on both sides, will Canada's acclaimed magazine of the Left escape a dastardly end?
By the end of his first day as This Magazine‘s new business manager, Trevor Hutchinson knew that the historic left-wing magazine was in serious financial trouble. He began his new job by studying the accounts of the Toronto-based title, starting with payroll. He concentrated on the figures for a few minutes, and then looked at […]
Raggedy Sandy
A distracted and dishevelled bon vivant, Alexander Ross pioneered a whole new way of seeing the world of power and pinstripes
To understand Alexander “Sandy” Ross, the man who engineered the rebirth of Canadian Business magazine and almost single-handedly created the consumer market for business writing in this country, you must understand that at age 51, at the height of his career, his jazz band fired him for speeding. Try as he might, Sandy just couldn’t […]
Glam, Bam, Thank You, Ma’am
Celebrity scribblers long for a real connection with the stars. All they get is a quick roll in L.A.
Atop a warehouse, high over Santa Monica Boulevard and just under the shadow of the Hollywood sign, a ghetto blaster blares the chorus of Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Girl.” The view is panoramic, and each surrounding building looks like a confection of sugar cubes, glazed with pale pink frosting. Late afternoon sunshine casts a warm, […]
Condition: Confused
Why medical reporting suffers from acute ignorance, massive hysteria and intensive carelessness
When The Globe and Mail‘s medical reporter Wallace Immen was covering the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans last November, a PR representative from one of the pharmaceutical companies was anxious to speak to him. Paul Taylor, another medical reporter at the Globe, was working on the assignment desk that morning […]
Back of the Pack, Baby!
For all the ground that women have gained, they still catch-up in the world of jock journalism
Alison Gordon is telling me a story. She is telling me of the time between 1979 and 1983 when she covered the Blue Jays for The Toronto Star, which made her the first female baseball writer in the major leagues. When you are a writer and cover a major league team for a daily, she […]
