The Globes New Glossy Taps into Toronto’s Life
For very close to 20 years now Toronto Life has been unchallenged as Toronto’s city magazine. Toronto Calendar provided some rivalry, at least in the listings area, but it merged with Toronto Life about four years ago. Avenue, a controlled-circulation magazine for those who frequent Yorkville, was started in 1981 but has recently suspended publication […]
A Non-Explosive Issue
W5 established that Canadian uranium was helping to fuel the American war machine. It also established that when it comes to scandal, Canadians tend to prefer tuna
Had the story been ready on time, it would have kicked off W5’s 19th season opener on CTV. It was-or at least it had the ingredients of-a very good piece of journalism, one of those coveted stories that makes news as it breaks news. The only reason it did not open W5’s new season last […]
Fact Do Not Speak for Themselves
Looking over the pallid prose that poses as print journalism in this country, it seems to me that most news and feature stories that get published contain a good deal less than meets the eye. We must do better. It is simply no longer enough to arrange facts into logical sequences, or to report events […]
Making It Hot for the Sun
The charge was 'racism.' The countercharge was 'censorship.' And when the opposition grew as fast as the Little Paper itself, both sides ended up shedding a lot more heat than light
Toronto is having a nice day. Despite the time of year-it’s July 24th-the air is as fresh as the sky is blue. Later on, it will get hot, but at least it won’t be humid. Which is always a blessing, especially for those who crowd into buses, streetcars and subways to begin their daily journeys […]
Peake’s Performance
(FLASH) “Right hand a bit lower on your bum Suzie.” (FLASH) “That’s it, head up, smile.” (FLASH) “Good now turn a little to your right and show us what you’ve got.” (FLASH) “Fantastic!” The studio on the second floor of the Toronto Sun building is small, dark and cool. But the air is filled with […]
Strolling to the Rescue
The journalists at Metroland's 17 papers believed that their future lay with unionization. What they didn't figure, however, was just how long it would take for the future to arrive.
The management team begins to file in at 9: 15 on this warm October morning. By 9:30 a.m. half the room is full. The only two women in the crowd almost disappear into the sea of more than 30 men who sit anxiously in their grey and navy suits. They are the editors and publishers […]
Monitoring the Media
After some static The Media File is coming through loud and clear
Vince Carlin sat in Studio T, deep in the heart of the CBC radio building in Toronto, smiling patiently. Across the table, Trent Frayne, sports columnist for The Globe and Mail, and Brian Williams, sports anchorman for CBC, exchanged one-liners while fidgeting with their headsets. In the background, the voice of Edmonton Journal sports columnist […]
Getting it Wrong
Was the CRTC dictating news content? The editorialists thought so...
The Globe and Mail‘s editorial ran under a grave headline: “The State as editor.” The writer insisted the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had no business imposing a 45-percent Canadian content quota on the news broadcasts of two Windsor radio stations, citing freedom of the media as guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. […]
Under the Gun
How TV news delivers a captive audience to terrorists
For 17 days during the TWA hijacking in beirut last June, terrorists took over the airwaves as the networks battled each other for the inside story. In the months that followed, American networks came under fire for giving up their editorial control in exchange for drama. Meanwhile, networks that relied heavily on the American footage, […]
Scribble Scramble
The life and times of an unregenerate freelancer
The first piece I published in Toronto Life appeared in October, 1973. Actually, it was the first piece I’d published anywhere, except for a precious little effort in Performing Arts in Canada, which examined wrestling as a clue to society’s ills, and another that wound up hacked to bits in Maclean’s, one of whose editors […]
