Going Long (and We Mean Really, Really, Really Long)
The Hamilton Spectator's Jon Wells has but one job—to write extended serial narratives. Mostly they're about crime in his city, but there was one about the nasty industrial inferno that claimed the life of a steeltown firefighter. In conversation, Wells explains how he keeps it all together without losing the plot
The newspaper medium is an easy mark for ridicule. Itscaricature consists of the inverted pyramid, the 5 o’clock deadline and a strict adherence to “just the facts, ma’am.” Yet for a half-decade Jon Wells has worked within the supposedly rigid confines of his daily newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, and repeatedly tested the limits of long-form […]
Community papers connect with local readers in ways big city papers can’t
Small towns rely on their papers for a sense of togetherness—and that’s good for both the communities and the publications
Denise Smith doesn’t use the internet and she doesn’t have a smartphone. The small business associate from Grimsby, Ontario, reads one newspaper a week: The Grimsby-Lincoln News. It’s a community newspaper with a weekly circulation of 23,450 that covers the 238 square kilometre stretch between Grimsby and West Lincoln. There is no business or international […]
The Most Tales: Corey Mintz (Part 2)
Toronto Star food writer Corey Mintz talks about his most bizarre meal.
Is Canada Neglecting Its Journalistic Past?
This country stores its newspaper archives, stack by stack, in a basement and three old warehouses in Ottawa—with little public access. Paper of Record, Bob Huggins’s ambitious digitization project, would have changed that, but it’s history now
Bob Huggins thought he had come up with a nearly surefire plan to make some money and secure a legacy for himself. He would make Canada’s historical newspaper records available to anyone with access to a computer and a public library card. It would be North America’s first large-scale newspaper digitization program, and when he […]
Canada lags behind as online platforms help long-form journalism thrive in the United States
Reports of the death of long-form writing have been greatly exaggerated, especially south of the border, as Kindle Singles, Longform.org, Byliner and Read it Later lead a revival. So what are Canadians waiting for?
Paul Lima says he nearly doubled the profits from nine of his non-fiction books by publishing them as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle website. His feature writing how-to guides sell for two-thirds the price of their hard copy counterparts, but more people buy them. “I’m making money that I wouldn’t have otherwise with the Kindle,” he […]
Online paper’s one-man newsroom beats established paper by exposing a gutted fire department
Since Gagandeep Ghuman launched The Squamish Reporter, he’s shown that good journalism doesn’t require a large staff—just someone willing to rock the boat
Gagandeep Ghuman’s office in downtown Squamish, British Columbia, regularly consists of a seat in a coffee shop, a cell phone and his laptop. Ghuman is the reporter and editor for his online newspaper, The Squamish Reporter. “It’s a one-man newsroom,” he says. In September of 2010, he wrote and published “Playing with Fire,” a story […]
The Most Tales: John Colapinto
John Colapinto, staff writer at The New Yorker, discusses his most sleazy story. Interview by Carly Lewis and Kasia Mychajlowycz
