Patti Tasko unveils 2010 CP Style Guide
Alec Bain speaks to Canadian Press editor Patti Tasko about the 16th edition of the Canadian Press Stylebook and how the new guide tackles the internet and new media
Alec Bain speaks to Canadian Press editor Patti Tasko about the 16th edition of the Canadian Press Stylebook and how the new gCP Style Guide is redefining journalism while remaining loyal to traditional journalistic policy.uide tackles the internet and new media. Every two years the Canadian Press comes out with a national guide for Canadian journalists on […]
Editors in Distress
Low pay, high anxiety, long hours and short-staffed. The life of today’s magazine editor
The building that once housed James Lawrence’s Harrowsmith and Equinox magazines was a classic three-storey Victorian farmhouse constructed out of traditional red brick; there were wood-panelled walls and floors that creak. In the late 1980s, when Doug Bennet, then editor of Masthead magazine, a trade title covering the magazine business, visited Camden House Publishing, located […]
The Star, the Atkinson Principles and outsourcing
The Toronto Star is considering outsourcing its editing. Joe Atkinson was "committed to the rights of working people"—including his own staffers’. Whose core values will prevail?
Dan Smith, chief steward, editorial, for the Toronto Star, and Kathy Vey, an active member of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, are handing out black-and-white stickers to staff on December 3, which SONG has declared Core Values Day. Some of the stickers say, “Star to the core!” or “Editors are core!” or “I’m hard core!” […]
Why Didn’t I Know this Africa?
What Canadian newspapers too often don’t show you
In the 1970s, there was Idi Amin. The vicious dictator made big news in the West with his brutal murders, rapes and torture of Ugandan citizens. Amin was ousted in 1979 and a few years of further instability ensued. In 1986, the current president, Yoweri Museveni, took over. The Globe and Mail praised him for being part […]
Drawn but not Quartered
The crisis in art criticism
“Here we have the usual Roy Arden stuff—garbage, rubbish, scraps—very boring, of course,” Brussels-based curator Dieter Roelstraete harrumphs in front of Canadian art star Roy Arden’s black-and-white photographs. Arden’s body of work is part of a group showing in Antwerp, Belgium, called Intertidal: Vancouver Art & Artists, that Roelstraete has co-curated. Wait—the curator just called […]
Risky Business
To prosper during the Great Recession, Canadian Business got a major makeover. New editor Steve Maich thinks he has the winning formula, but do the numbers support his optimism?
Canadian Business editor-in-chief Steve Maich sits at a two-seater table at a Timothy’s coffee shop in late October 2009, a short walk from Rogers command central, the hulking mass at the north end of downtown Toronto. He strikes what I can only assume is his signature pose, the same one he has in the portrait accompanying […]
Beyond Repair
CBC hoped its news renewal would revitalize the sputtering network, but how much can you do with the same broken engine under the hood?
In the din of the newsroom, an orchestra of hammers struck the first note. Old sets were hastily torn down and replaced by transparent desks, luminescent backdrops and television screens. As the sound of buzz saws and workboots grew louder, so did the pressure to meet the on-air deadline. Newscasters rehearsed their standups on unfinished […]
Much ado about Precious Little
The digital age was supposed to usher in an exciting new era of “citizen journalism.” The result so far: some very useful news tips, great on-the-spot images of breaking events and an avalanche of lovely weather shots
At the end of the 20th century, a promising new phenomenon appeared—amateur reporters and commentators who came to be known as “citizen journalists.” They presented their writing on the internet, called web diaries, weblogs or simply blogs. The people maintaining these sites were writers unhindered by conventional journalism practices who wanted to tell stories from […]
