The Quest for Holy Joe’s Grail
The crusade against free trade was the latest in a long tradition of dragon slaying at The Toronto Star
On page 20 last November 22, The Toronto Star admitted it had lost. The people of Canada had voted against it, had “spoken convincingly.” An editorial, a quietly disappointed concession speech, signaled the end of the paper’s three-year fight to undo the free trade initiative. It was an emotional fight, one in which the Star […]
The Native People’s Choice
The student's in Western's native journalism program face a dilemma: jump into the mainstream or devote their talents to the community
The Program in Journalism for Native People at the University of Western Ontario changed Juanita Rennie’s life. The intense, 12-month course prepared her and six other graduates of PJNP’s first class for entry-level media positions. Rennie, then a 40-year-old mother of six and grandmother to three, graduated in 1981 knowing exactly what to do next: […]
The Firing Line at the Globe and Other Marketing Targets
A basic principle of journalism is that the duty of the news media is to create an informed electorate. That’s one of the first things taught to fresh young students when they enter journalism school. Sadly, that principle is becoming more and more endangered as journalists allow their priorities to be twisted to suit commercial […]
The McPapering of London, Ontario
How marketing mania put the Free Press in a box
Throughout last summer and fall, reporters and editors at The London Free Press would gather in a corner of the newsroom to examine the redesigned versions of their newspaper posted one after another on the wall of the city editor’s office. These were special editions -printed front-page mock-ups intended to transform the 139-year-old Free Press […]
The Unfriendly Giant
Once upon a time at a string of Ontario weeklies, the people were poor but happy. Then Southam bought them out. Now they're just poor
The two-storey brick warehouse in Stoney Creek, Ontario, that is home to Brabant Newspapers Ltd. is anything but impressive. Inside, the drab walls and exposed pipes are dingy with age and neglect, and when it rains, buckets catch the water leaking through the roof. Fifty miles away in the heart of Yorkville, the posh high-rise […]
The Flip Side of Freebies
Travel writers may get a free ride-but it's often the readers who pay
Charlesrown, the suns truck capital of tiny, slumbering Nevis… is readying, ever so slowly, for another day in paradise. Paradise, of course, is a relative term but for most North Americans it conjures up visions of turquoise seas, palm trees swaying in a gentle breeze and seamless blue skies shimmering in the heat of a […]
Insider an Outsider
Rick Salutin and the price of dissent
Spring, 1988 | Comments (0) – Report an Error Share on facebook Share on email Share on twitter Share on favorites More Sharing Services Rick Salutin’s home is a handsome, three-storey Victorian townhouse in downtown Toronto. Of its seven rooms, perhaps the most striking is Salutin’s office, which takes up the entire third floor. In […]
Theatre of war
The shock-and-shell chronicles of Matthew Halton
It’s his voice that gets to you first. That clear, unhurried voice that manages to convey a sense of urgency with just enough of a clipped British accent to make it sound authoritative. It’s a convincing voice that still demands attention. Even now, more than 40 years later, coming over a speaker system in a […]
Front Page Justice
Though the police had little to go on, the press saw fit to charge
Wayne Riley was relieved when the Ontario Provincial Police held a press conference last fall to answer questions about its investigation into a string of murders in the Ottawa Valley. In the previous four years, six middle-aged and elderly recluses had been gunned down in their homes, some shot through a window. Try as he […]
Toryvision
How the government brings true blue news to the regions
Spring, 1988 | Comments (0) – Report an Error Share on facebook Share on email Share on twitter Share on favorites More Sharing Services As news director of MTN, a small, private TV station in Portage la Prairie, Al Thorgeirson hasn’t the resources to rent satellite time whenever he wants to quiz Manitoba MPs on […]
