Windows Dressing
Did reporters fall too hard for the Microsoft sell?
From the Guildnet BBS, an electronic hangout for journalists of the Canadian Media Guild, the first message for August 25, 1995: From: COLIN PERKEL To: ALL Subject: Microsquish I’ve been feeling a tad uncomfortable with the way we’ve all reported the Win 95 launch-and can’t help feeling the line between editorial, advertorial and advertising became […]
Abort, Retry, Fail
Data error in technology reporting: accuracy and balance not found
“The fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.” That quotation from Edward R. Murrow is […]
The First Casualty
Toronto Serbs and Croats each get war news from their own ethnic media. But they aren't really getting home truths
Back when multilingual radio was still young in Toronto, there were three travel agents. The first, Franceska Starchev (a Slovene), also had an import business. The cost of advertising on a number of ethnic programs on CHIN was, she figured, equal to the cost of creating her own program, and so Caravan of Friendship was […]
These Guys Mean Business
No one used to think the scrappy little Post belonged in the same ring as the heavyweight Globe. Now they're in a knockdown dragout that's too close to call
For a blitzkrieg in the making, it was announced in innocent-enough language. On August 9, 1995, a modest advertisement in the Report on Business section ofThe Globe and Mail stated that editor Margaret Wente was searching for “several outstanding journalists to help expand ROB’s business coverage.” For years, newspapers had been laying off staff. Now […]
An Officer and a Journalist
J.D. MacFarlane led the Toronto Tely in the country's last great newspaper war. When it ended, he was lost
The wire machines flash bells-the sound that signalled the biggest stories had been ringing all afternoon. The high-pitched noise penetrated every corner of the crowded Toronto Telegram newsroom. The area where the machines were located, just off the big, high-ceilinged newsroom, was packed with reporters smoking and staring silently at the the four teletypes. There […]
Tricks of the Trade
A "Prostitute prof"? Toronto's scandal-hungry tabloid couldn't have invented a better hook. But reviewing the true story, who was really guilty of perversion?
John Miller’s phone rang on the morning of November 1995. The chair of the journalism school at Ryerson Polytechnic University picked up the receiver and found himself speaking with Toronto journalist Judy Steed. There wasn’t any small talk. Steed had something on her mind. “Is it true that Gerald Hannon teaches journalism there?” she asked. […]
Voice of a Nation
Pained by media coverage of Oka, Mohawk Kenneth Deer launched his own paper. Someone had to tell the truth
Heading south from Montreal, the slick and stylish downtown core gives way to a swirl of highway and then to the Mercier Bridge. It’s a long, concrete, well-trafficked link from the island of Montreal to the south shore of the St. Lawrence. The bridge passes over the river, a strip of land, then the deep […]
What a Long Straight Trip It’s Been
From rag to respectability: the real dope on Canada's oldest underground weekly
Charles Campbell, managing editor of The Georgia Straight, is checking the final on-screen version of the Vancouver weekly’s Christmas issue. Outside the huge picture window of the second-floor office, located above a Regency Lexus dealership, two men are scrubbing and vacuuming luxury cars in the December rain. They test-drive the cars, says Campbell, and tell […]
The Cook, the Spy, the Prof and the Scribbler
To the Mulroneys she's the Duchess of Dirt, to her daughters she's the Queen of Unusable Chinathe many faces of Stevie Cameron
Last spring, eight people were kneeling on the chancel steps at the front of Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Heads bent, eyes closed, they listened as the minister delivered the service of ordination, admitting them to the congregation’s elders. One of the eight was writer and journalist Stevie Cameron. Shaking slightly from kneeling-years of […]
Chain Reaction
Bullied by the giants, the little weeklies are counting on their small-town savvy
Rick James walks through the century-old, red-brick building that houses his weekly newspaper, The Canadian Statesman, and describes what it looked like in days past and what it ‘ll become in the days ahead. In one room, pages for the following day’s edition of the weekly paper lie on the light green veneer of drafting-style […]
