Keeping Up Appearances
For most women on camera, being young at heart is not enough. A look at the role that youth and beauty still play in TV news
In February, 1991, the CBC’s Toronto station, CBLT, aired a clever, facetious television commercial for its six o’clock newscast. In it, Barbie and Ken style dolls sat at an anchor desk, their plastic hair perfectly coiffed, grins stuck permanently in place. Staring vacantly into space, they engaged in some idle chatter: HE: Over to you, […]
Blocking Papers
With a signed affidavit and an agreeable judge, anyone can silence the media
Until shortly before showtime on October 8, 1991, producers of CBC’s the 5th Estate believed they lived in a society that, above all else, upheld the freedom of the press. They were wrong. At 5 p.m., an Ontario provincial court judge granted an injunction preventing the 5th estate from broadcasting that night’s program, “Evil’s Fortune,” […]
Cop Out
Police seizures are forcing reporters to become partners in crime fighting. And even the Supreme Court condones it
In June 1987, CBC reporter Claude Gervais and a cameraman rushed into a post office in Pointe-Claire, Quebec to film angry strikers as they trashed the interior. The item that later appeared on the news did not show the faces of the strikers a stipulation of the union leader who let Gervais in-but some of […]
Dubious Disctinction
Three lifted passages in an award-winning story forced the press to get off its laurels and reexamine its ethics
Stunned silence filled the meeting room. The 11 governors on the board of the National Newspaper Awards were in a daze. Three of them-Bill Peterson, executive editor of The Star Phoenix in Saskatoon; John Honderich, editor of The Toronto Star; and John Paton, general manager of the Ottawa Sun-had just resigned. They were protesting the […]
Horning In
The harder the times, the harder it is to keep that old devil advertising out of editorial
Rick Spence thought it was an easy call. The editor of Profit: The Magazine for Canadian Entrepreneurs was preparing a special annual issue on Canada’s 50 fastest-growing companies last year, and had selected the top entrepreneur after sifting through hundreds of entries. He got in touch with the nominee and arranged to have a cover […]
On the Blink
A jaundiced glance at Eye Weekly
It was Toronto’s civic event of the season. Last fall’s mayoralty race saw the two front-runners crash head-on, flinging bits of cant and rhetoric, and the city’s three dailies hustling to cover the carnage. To no one’s surprise, The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Sun supported June Rowlands, the conservative candidate promising business booms […]
The Earth According to Suzuki
Testing the methods of a scientist turned journalist turned environmental activist
“This used to be a forest,” says David Suzuki, standing in a wasteland of tangled roots and jagged stumps near Tofino Creek on Vancouver Island. Walking towards the camera, he continues: “It’s a typical example of clear-cut logging, that accounts for well over 90 percent of all trees cut in British Columbia. It’s crude and […]
The True North
Strong and free and ignored
A: Toronto B: Calgary C: Baker Lake, NWT. You’d be right only about the centre of Canadian insularity if you chose A. But we are trying to pinpoint the geographical centre-the exact heart of our nation. If you guessed Baker Lake, NWT, you win this round. And if you already knew that Baker Lake is […]
Paved with good intentions
When I first meet Peter Armstrong, he’s sitting at his desk eating chocolate-chip cookies. “I’ve got about 10 extra pounds of chocolate on me,” he says, laughing. “Do you want one?” As a recovering alcoholic, Armstrong is all too familiar with how one addiction can replace another. In fact, this idea is central to the […]
No Free Lunch Hour
Should reporters be subject to their employers' rules when they're not working
Windsor Star editor Carl Morgan and reporter Alan Abrams were two blocks apart when they spotted each other that lunch hour in March 1989. Abrams, walking a CBC radio picket line, knew he’d been caught in the act. It was an act that would have potentially profound consequences for Canadian journalists. “Oh shit. Here’s Carl, […]
