Paper Chase
Monday is still out in front in the competitive Victoria market, but it's starting to slow its pace
IT’S SUNDAY MORNING AND, AS USUAL, THERE’S A LINEUP FOR John’s Place, a diner-style restaurant in downtown Victoria. Just inside the door is a box of free Monday Magazines…and most patrons pick one up as they go in. After they get a booth, they order brunch and read the alternative weekly. A couple clad in […]
More Than Meets the I
What's wrong with exposing yourself? A noted author defends personal journalism
LAST OCTOBER, I-AND PLEASE PARDON the personal pronoun-published a book about what it feels like to be a man living in an age when feminism is ascendant. Three-quarters of the book consists of encounters with various men. The rest of the time I play golf, drink, have lustful thoughts about my wife and women other […]
Guild by Association
Why is organized labour such a pain? A noted editor attacks newspaper unions
WILL GREED KILL NEWSPAPERS? asked the 24-point headline on the ad in last spring’s Ryerson Review. It begged the answer that the ad, sponsored by the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild, wanted, and then answered itself. According to the guild, the blame for the so-called dwindling credibility of newspapers must be placed on the desk of […]
The Scud Stud has Come Home
Arthur Kent has been hosting Man Alive this year, but now that he's settled with NBC, is he here for long?
IT WAS EARLY IN THE GULF WAR THAT ARTHUR KENT walked onto a rooftop in Dhahran,–and into a real-life drama whose latest episode was played out in a New York lawyer’s office in the middle of last month. As Scud missiles fell on the city and air raid sirens shrieked, Kent, gas mask in hand, […]
Watson Shrugged
The burden CBC staff expected Patrick Watson to shoulder may have been too much for any mere mortal
LORNE SAXBERG TUNED IN HOPING TO FIND A WHITE KNIGHT. THE CBC Newsworld anchorman was on the evening shift in the national newsroom in Toronto. It was December 6, 1990, and all everybody had been talking about were the devastating “Black Wednesday” budget cuts announced the day before by management. The bloodletting was going to […]
Coming Out in the Newsroom
Why many gay journalists aren't in the closet anymore-and what it means to the way they do their jobs
PERHAPS THE FIRST MAINSTREAM Canadian journalist. to admit publicly that he was gay was Richard Labonte, who outed himself in The Ottawa Citizen in June 1980. Labonte, an entertainment writer and copy editor, wrote about how, at age 14, he was told by parents and peers that his type of love was “wicked”; how he […]
Cloak and Dagger
Michael Coren found fame by slicing and dicing the country's cultural and political elite. His enthusiasm for the cut and thrust is matched only by his determination to shield his family from those plotting a counterattack
The small, fifth-floor office near Yonge Street in downtown Toronto is pure Michael Coren: British pompous, and slightly eccentric. Row after row of old English generals, hunting horsemen, and world war memorabilia hang on the walls; gargoyles and cherubs perch above wooden bookcases lined with literary greats; a huge maroon silk scarf and the Union […]
Front Page Challenge
At some newspapers, when it comes to page—one bylines, some women are being bypassed
GETTING “ON FRONT” IS unofficially the highest accolade at most newspapers and generally one of the surest ways for a reporter to garner respect and gain promotion. Editors use front-page hits to gauge a reporter’s ability to handle highprofile beats and important stories, experience that in turn increases their byline play on the front page. […]
Team Dispirited
The London Free Press may have the most miserable newsroom in Canada. Why? Don't ask the editor
IN JULY 1992, THE GLOBE AND MAIL carried a 65-inch article by John Partridge on the first stage of a reorganization of The London Free Press newsroom that had begun two months earlier. The story’s headline was a clear indication of the largely uncritical tone of the piece: “Bold Experiment Shatters Newspaper Stereo types.” The […]
Tough Sell
In the competition between Marketing and Strategy for revenue and readers, Marketing may lose a lot more than money
ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1992, Colin Muncie arrived at work at 8 a.m., just as he’d been doing for his close to 20 years as editor of Marketing Magazine. Marketing, the weekly tabloid that covers the media, marketing, and advertising scenes, is arguably the highest profile of Maclean Hunter’s trade books-and, at 85, one of […]
