It’s a Monday evening and Spacing magazine’s creative director, 31-year-old Matt Blackett, is holding an editorial meeting at the house he shares with two roommates and a roving squatter. Sitting on a turned-over milk crate, his wavy hair tamed by a hat, Blackett opens the meeting with his latest rant. This time it’s about Toronto’s deal with Eucan, a company that wants to install monstrous ad-covered garbage cans on the city’s sidewalks. Blackett has just gotten wind that, in order to get citizens on board with the idea, the cans are going to display art and public service announcements during the pilot project. Then, once the project is approved, advertisements will replace the art.

“That’s evilly clever of them,” says editorial collective member Dylan Reid.

“Yeah, there’s a guy we know who was approached by the city to submit art and Mez told him, ‘This is fucking evil,’ Blackett says, referring to his roommate Dave Meslin, coordinator of the Toronto Public Space Committee, the activist organization that launched Spacing.

“Well I guess it’s that old toss-up: money, principles, money, principles,” Reid says, moving his hands back-and-forth.

The young idealists behind Spacing have opted for the latter. While Spacing‘s modest success in the past year has been celebrated – it’s been favourably mentioned in two Toronto dailies, called an “inspiring jolt” byNOW magazine, and nominated for “Best New Title” among independent publications by Utne magazine – the 3,000-circulation, three-times-a-year publication isn’t a money-maker. Spacing‘s often-romanticized coverage of all things public space, from playgrounds to transit to graffiti, appeals to an esoteric crowd. Though city councillors have been spotted perusing the black-and-white glossy, most of Spacing‘s readers live in Toronto’s downtown core, don’t own cars, and never wear suits. The profit Spacing does make (from newsstand sales and fundraising parties) is funneled back into publishing costs. All of Spacing‘s writers, photographers, and editors (including Blackett) work for free.

Since Spacing launched in late 2003, its supporters have been galvanized by the feeling that they’re part of something bigger than themselves: “The anti-globalization movement is evolving into this idea of thinking globally, but acting locally,” explains Blackett. “People have opted to work on the local level instead of going to huge protests and fighting with tear gas.”

Rather than trying to overthrow corporate influence in national politics, the new movement is targeting the things they can change, like postering bylaws or the lack of a bike-lane infrastructure. So instead of “culture jamming” corporate billboards, the new activists are engaging in their own community-based forums of political expression. The optimistic and creative protest form not only rekindles hope among the weary activists, it attracts those who, though aligned with the movement’s issues, were intimidated by its tactics.

Back in Blackett’s living room, Spacing‘s contributing editors – Lindsay Gibb, Anna Bowness, Dylan Reid, and Shawn Micallef – have all arrived. (Managing editor Dale Duncan is away teaching English in Korea for a month.) The group is bandying about story ideas for the next issue. Micallef proposes writing on interactive light-art installations in public space.

Blackett is immediately inspired by the idea: “It’s like those things they set up for the McLuhan festival. On top of the Drake Hotel, they put up a big board with light bulbs on it and there was a switchboard so you could pick which light bulbs to turn on and off. So I spelt ‘fake’ and put an arrow pointing down to the people going into the Drake.”

“There was another guy who did the most fucked-up, wonderful thing,” Micallef says. “He set up light beams in the middle of a park in Mexico City and you could go on the internet and map out how you wanted the beams arranged and they would actually move!”

“That is so cool,” Bowness says, echoing the sentiment of the nodding group.

“Okay, so Shawn, you can write about this, and you should also include that place in Berlin where you could play pong with the lights on the building,” Blackett says.

This light art example is just one manifestation of the new ‘think local, act global’ movement. While all the displays were orchestrated on a local level, collectively they show that, worldwide, people are refusing to quietly assimilate into their grey skyscraper background.

The Torontonian examples of resistance Spacing promotes – road curbs painted pink, transit scavenger hunts, and stories written on posters – might seem trivial, but readers grasp the implications. “By encouraging people to be informed about, involved in, and to fight for their community you are not only strengthening our democracy but providing a ballast against destructive, commercializing forces,” writes Susan Towndrow from Cornwall, Ontario. The Toronto Star urban issues columnist Christopher Hume agrees, saying Spacingrepresents “a backlash to this neo-conservative homogenization of space.”

Hume thinks the backlash is a consequence of more people living in dense urban areas, a theory echoed by Ryerson design professor Andrew Furman: “Enough people are moving back downtown. There’s a new breath of youth that’s changing things.” As a result of living more densely with others, people are moving outside the isolation of their houses and cars. They’re becoming more aware of the public realm, according to Furman, deciding what they like – and don’t like – about it. Both Hume and Furman think younger generations are driving this phenomenon, but Micallef says he’s surprised at the number of “minivan moms and guys in golf shirts” who have approached him, concerned about the lack of playground space for their children or the state of their sidewalks.

Even the city government recognizes Spacing‘s political clout. “Spacing represents a constituency that is very astute and politically aware,” says City Councillor Joe Mihevic. And because Spacing not only shows how public spaces are being ignored and exploited, but also researches ways in which they can be improved, people in City Hall are taking the magazine seriously. Early last year, Mayor David Miller appointed Blackett to sit on the roundtable of his city beautiful campaign, feeling that, “Matt and Spacing magazine are an important voice,” according to Andrea Addario, Miller’s communications director. Miller is also a fan of Blackett’s subway buttons, which mimic the tiles of every subway station in Toronto, and is often seen sporting the “High Park” button.

Still, for veteran activists Janice Etter and Rhona Swarbrick, the idea that Spacing’s ideals are permeating City Hall is na?ve. “It’s one thing to talk about the issues, it’s another to stand in front of a committee and try to get a policy changed,” says Etter who, with Swarbrick, has lobbied the municipal government for the last 25 years to make the city more pedestrian-friendly. “The magazine is really great, but they are preaching to the converted.”

Meanwhile, suburban values are still dominating the amalgamated city: “There’s still a greater demand for car-oriented development than for mixed-use development,” according to Toronto’s director of urban design, Robert Freedman. And while Blackett thinks Miller will rejuvenate the public realm by investing in transit and green space, Etter and Swarbrick put much less faith in the new mayor. “He ultimately answers to the ratepayer groups,” Etter says, explaining that the progressive initiatives that Miller is supporting are small-scale and downtown-oriented. Furman agrees: “The city beautification budget is nothing when you compare it to the public works budget.” And when I ask Addario if Blackett has had any influence on planning policies since he joined the roundtable three months ago, she says, “No, the roundtable has only met twice.”

But it is perhaps premature to judge Spacing on tangible success. After all, as Hume says, “Public space is an intellectual space as well as a physical space.” And once the public can wrest control over the intellectual space through debate and discussion, concrete policy changes will naturally follow. The momentum of this new wave of activism may be slower than the old one, but it’ll likely prove more effective in the long term, as activists have become more articulate, media savvy, and practical in their political aims. As Etter explains, “Once you’ve built up your knowledge about the issues, you feel you have a responsibility not to walk away.”

On Thursday, December 23, 2004, P. J. Harston, editor-in-chief of Toronto commuter daily newspaper 24 Hours, was in his office late. Most other staffers had gone home for the holidays. In walked the pre-production foreman, with the front page of the paper in his hands.

“They pulled your paper off the press,” says the foreman. “Which one?” asks Harston. 24 Hours was printing two editions that day, one for December 24 and a special year-in-review edition for the following Monday, December 27.

“The 27^th,” responds the foreman.

“We sent that off about five hours ago,” says Harston, wondering what happened. Worries run through his mind. Maybe there’s a huge problem. Maybe we got the date wrong or something.

“Janet Jackson’s boob is not covered!” says the foreman. Indeed, it isn’t. On the cover is a photo of the 2004 SuperBowl’s most memorable moment: Jackson’s exposed bosom. Pop star Justin Timberlake had exposed it by ripping her top off in sync with the final verse of the song, “Rock Your Body”: “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.”

An incredulous look spreads across Harston’s face. “They pulled it off the press for that?” he asks. “Why didn’t they call?”

“Well, if you want they can cover it for you.”

“No!”

“You’re okay with having her boob on the front page?”

“What are we, 12?” retorts Harston. “It’s been all over TV, everyone has seen it.”

“Everywhere else they cover it up,” counters the foreman.

“I don’t care. It’s just a boob. When you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, right?”

Harston looks around the conference table as he tells the story to his staff at the first story meeting of 2005. The group sniggers. Of all people, Harston is ideal to be running a freebie newspaper. He was the editor-in-chief at Metro, the city’s other subway paper, until 2003, when Sun Media Corp. snatched him up to start 24 Hours and to steal some of Metro’s readership and market share.

Metro and 24 Hours are relative newcomers to Toronto’s daily newspaper scene, and they’re convinced they have a formula that will capture the picky 18- to 34-year-old audience. The result is a dumbed-down m?lange of bare-bones headline news, full-colour celebrity shots, and lifestyle columns they say are just what the target demographic needs. Unfortunately, readers seem to like this combination, and the papers have circulations to prove it. 24 Hours snags 259,000 readers a day, while Metro boasts a readership of 376,000 papers a day. More than 70 per cent of Metro’s readers in the 18- to 24-year-old range only read Metro, says editor-in-chief Jodi Isenberg.

“Younger people didn’t grow up reading information, but they want to be informed and they want to be informed quickly,” says Isenberg. “They are used to watching television or listening to the radio news to get their information. So these papers are provided as an alternative.”

Bert Archer, city and production editor of eye Weekly, one of Toronto’s two alternative papers, scoffs at the thought. “That’s like saying PBS productions of A Christmas Carol are wonderful because they’re getting young people to come into contact with Charles Dickens.”

Archer admits that he used to think transit tabs were a good idea. “On the subway in London, I could get bits of the big stories – like Johnny Carson died yesterday, where you don’t need to know anything other than Johnny’s dead.”

Now, he says, he’s changed his mind. Because the articles are so short – the longest are 400 words, but most are less than half that – there’s not enough context. “Without any depth, you have a whole tree load of people out half-cocked. It’s much worse to think you know what’s going on – and not – than to be clueless. To be clueless, you at least admit to cluelessness. Then you may be able to be informed by someone or something else.”

Transit tabs – published Monday through Friday, and designed to be read quickly in one sitting – are ideal for commuters, even if the journalism is far from remarkable. They arrived on the Toronto scene in 2000, when Swedish company Metro International SA started to replicate the runaway European success of its subway tab concept in North America. Metro set up its own newspaper here after negotiations for a joint transit-tab venture with Torstar Corp. fell through. The Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun, eager to prevent the Swedish rag from sapping readership, each created transit papers to counteract Metro. The result: three subway papers – Metro, Torstar’s GTA Today and Sun Media Corp.’s FYI Toronto – launched the same week in June 2001. Competition between the three papers was vicious and within months all were bleeding vast sums of money. In 2001, Torstar and Metro International joined forces, figuring it was better to share the profits than make none at all. The two papers merged into Metro Today (later just Metro), and shortly after, Sun Media’s spoiler bid, FYI Toronto, quietly ceased publication. Metro had the market to itself until 24 Hours entered the scene in 2003. The competition heats up again this month, with the arrival of CanWest Global Communications Corp.’s version of the free daily – Dose.

Meanwhile, competition between the two papers isn’t fierce, but it’s there. On the wall of Harston’s office are two large pieces of foolscap paper. The headline of one says “Metro vs. 24 Hours.” The two papers distinguish themselves by the type of news they carry. 24 Hours has more entertainment news, printed on thin magazine-stock paper designed so the ink won’t rub off on readers’ fingers. “We call it a newspaper, but it isn’t really one,” Harston told The Hamilton Spectator in 2003. “What I’m going after is a mix of People andUs in a daily newspaper. We’re not trying to be The New York Times.” That’s why Janet Jackson’s bosom makes the front cover.

Metro, meanwhile, is printed on tabloid-size newsprint and stapled in the middle for easy carrying. Forty to 60 pages in length, it has more bite-size local news and fewer celebrity photos, although it isn’t beyond splashing photos of dogs on the front page and filling the back half with food, music, and television columns.

The headline on the second piece of foolscap paper reads “$-making machine.” Both papers unabashedly chase after females in the 18- to 34-year-old market, although 24 Hours likes to extend its target range a little higher. “24 Hours offers more stories that are relevant to that demographic,” says Harston. “So if it’s a choice between a story on breast cancer or on erectile dysfunction, we’d take the breast cancer story.” Metro also tries to attract women, filling its lifestyle pages with columns about dating, food and reality TV. There is another incentive to target the young female audience – it’s one that advertisers want to attract. “Women are the decision-makers and money-spenders in the household, therefore they appeal to advertisers,” says Harston. Both papers say their editorial to advertising mix ranges from 40/60 to 60/40.

“We’re aware advertising is there, but we don’t let it direct the content,” says Isenberg. “You never want too many – then it looks like a flier.” However, Metro has no problems letting advertisers cover the front page of the paper, like it did when clothing giant H&M bought the front page in preparation for the opening of its flagship store at Toronto’s Eaton Centre, relegating the top headlines to page three.

Archer, however, has a problem with the ads. “The subway papers are ad-delivery systems like a chocolate bar is a sugar-delivery system. They stick a couple of peanuts in there as a way to inject the sugar, but the real point is the sugar,” he says. “It’s the same with the subway newspapers. They have to stick some news content in there to justify its existence.” He continues: “The unfortunate thing is that people do treat them as daily newspapers instead of fliers.”

Some readers don’t mind the mix. Thirty-year-old Amby Sony reads both papers on his way to work, and thinks they’re a great idea. However, not all are thrilled. A 32-year-old office worker at Davisville subway station, who gave her name only as Patty, says the paper gives her something to do on her morning commute, but adds, “I don’t find it particularly stimulating.”

“But the world, it seems, is full of secret obituary readers who are gradually coming out of their closets. Mention at any dinner party that you are an obituary writer and someone always admits to turning to the obituary page first. And they are, er, dying for more.”

My interest in obituaries flourished since I was given an unconventional Grade 13 Creative Writing assignment: write your epitaph. My teacher, Mrs. Ezer, had a reputation for being eccentric – but epitaph? Did she forget she was speaking to a bunch of 17-year-olds who were in the midst of filling out university applications and largely feeling immortal? I followed through diligently, yet my inspiration came only after several afternoon strolls through Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where I read rows upon rows of epitaphs after spending mornings reading obituaries in the dailies.

Now there is a devoted worldwide following of obituary fans who pore over deaths of everyone from celebrities to philanthropists to ordinary people. All obituaries have the potential to intrigue and surprise the reader, and this often occurs from reading the most revealing details written about the subject, such as in the obituary Adam Bernstein of The Washington Post wrote on theologian, author and educator Langdon Gilkey on November 22, 2004: “He could sometimes be caustic in his reminiscences of the South during that era [referring to segregation] once writing that “even in the ‘Bible Belt’ the Bible is a relatively unknown book – sacred of course, but quite unfamiliar.”

The obituary is often the last item written about the life of a deceased person. Its contents tend to be moving because it encapsulates the aura of the person and showcases anything from their personality characteristics to their career ambitions. They are intimate, and give us reason to pause in the mad rush to soak up the day’s most important news.

Despite an emergence of interest in the craft, obituary writing remains a contested form of journalism. This might be because standard forms are still handed out dutifully to members of the deceased’s family by funeral parlour administrators, fuelling the widely held perception that obituaries are simplified chronicles of a person’s life that can be written by anyone.

As Tom Feran from Ohio’s largest newspaper, The Plain Dealer lamented in an article, “Practicing the dying art is a craft that is sometimes too-little appreciated. When I started in the business…obits were part of the training for new reporters, and they usually followed a fill-in-the-blanks, one size-fits-all formula. It was dry as bones.”

Catherine Dunphy, a features writer with The Toronto Star, is astounded that debate still percolates over obituary writing as a form of journalism. “Obituaries aren’t eulogies. They’re about storytelling. There’s a narrative arc to them, and that’s journalism.”

Colin Haskin, obituaries editor of The Globe and Mail agrees, saying, “Obituary writing is journalism – it most definitely falls into the category of feature writing.”

Ultimately, the best obituaries are detailed and vigorous, bringing the subject to life. A good obit evokes emotion and gives the reader a sense of the subject’s character. Before obituary writing became recognized as a craft unto itself – and the recognition of this remains an ongoing struggle – excellence was not expected. Currently, there are more rigorous standards.

Obituaries have been refined over the years. They are in-depth and sometimes critical. For example, in a recent one on the architect Philip Johnson, which ran in the Globe on January 31, 2005, Paul Goldberger described the mixed reviews Johnson’s work elicited: “Because of his frequent changes of style, he was often accused of pandering to fashion and of designing buildings that were facile and shallow.”

Some obituary writers are reserved about including negative commentary, since speaking in an unflattering manner about the recently deceased in a public forum is still considered taboo by some. But the goal isn’t to create a hagiography. The obituary guidelines of the Globe state: “Include no more than one or two gushy quotes from colleagues or family (we’re all wonderful when we’re dead).”

Writing an obituary can be a formidable task. One has only to look at the December 2004 passing of Pierre Berton, a man of significant stature in a nation with a relative absence of heroes. The prolific writer was a Canadian icon, and the outpouring of grief that accompanied his passing confirmed this sentiment. Berton’s years at the Star (1958-1962) were captured especially well by Star writer Warren Gerard: “He was writing a 1,200-word column six days a week, or close to 300,000 words a year. At the same time, he was writing books, skits for Spring Thaw, and was appearing on television and had a daily radio column on CHUM radio.”

The question facing the obituary writer is: How to capture the essence of the subject in a tight and timely format? Carolyn Gilbert, founder of the International Association of Obituarists, believes this is an attainable goal. “The memorable obit will give the reader something special, unknown, or unusual about the person who is the subject,” she says. “If you read the obit and find things you didn’t know about the person, then the obit writer has done his job well.”

Although I haven’t strolled through Mount Pleasant Cemetery since I handed in that high school assignment several years ago, I haven’t stopped reading obituaries. In fact, through the course of this assignment, it suddenly dawned on me: I want to be an obituary writer.

And I got the opportunity to try – writing one for the Globe about a gentleman named Somer James, a seaman for The Merchant Navy of Canada during World War 2. The feedback received from obits editor Haskin after he read my first draft confirmed the craft’s intricacy:

“Quite nicely done though, alas, I think you will have to take another run at it. The piece reads more like a tribute…Don’t lose heart – you’ll soon get the idea. It’s about storytelling, not writing.”

I’m currently awaiting feedback on my second draft.

Tralee Pearce has a flair for uncovering the latest trends. She also enjoys writing about the fun things in life, which is the core of The Globe and Mail’s Saturday Style section. From gazing at intricately designed jewellery at Cartier Boutique to schmoozing with socialites and fashionistas in Rosedale, she admits her life is a bit chaotic.

For the past week, Pearce has exposed her hectic job as a style journalist to me. Surprisingly, it’s less than glamorous. We tried to organize a time when we could go walking down Toronto’s Queen Street West for her “Shopping Survivor” story, but both times she had to cancel – once because she couldn’t make it on time and another because of rain.

Forget the image of Carrie Bradshaw running around town in four-inch heels and designer threads. Pearce wore a long grey winter jacket over a knee-length black dress, dark brown hair tied loosely back, and a big silver purse. She’s lighthearted about her wardrobe, joking, “You see how badly I’m dressed for a style writer.” She calls her long, chocolate brown coat, detailed with buttons and clasps, her Amelia Earhart jacket. Her brown winter hat has fur-lined flaps over the ears and a turned-up fur front flap. The entire ensemble is reminiscent of a 1940s war pilot.

Meeting Pearce for the first time at Cartier on Bloor Street West in Toronto, reinforced how easy it is to get lured into the lifestyle you’re observing. She’s writing what she calls a quasi-promotional story about the boutique and candidly admits, “It’s easy to think you can afford the things you write about, but you can’t let it get to your head.” Of course, that’s not quite what we’re thinking as we gawk at the breathtaking selection of stones and gems, some of which are valued at $100,000.

The promotional piece is for the weekly segment called “Talk of the Town.” Pearce explains, “It’s not a review and it’s not critical. It’s just something people are talking about.” The hook is how Cartier is using panther sculptures from its Fifth Avenue store in New York to attract attention, but it’s really just a come-on for shoppers to visit Bloor West during the Christmas season. The last sentence reads: “There’s been a direct increase in sales,” she says, referring to the kind of holiday magic that dances in retailers’ heads this time of year.

I get a sense that Pearce is acquainted with the wary perception Style creates in some readers, especially because it’s frivolous and advertising-driven. Yet she doesn’t think it should be dismissed so easily. “We treat our material with the same level of intellect as other journalism. That’s sometimes the struggle,” she says. “I strive for intelligence.”

Recently, Pearce highlighted the growing trend of restaurants that offer water lists. One restaurant is offering 30 choices, and her skepticism crept in. “But really, how different could they be? It’s just marketing, right?” writes Pearce. Besides finding out about waters, like artesian water, that tastes thick, and other high-priced mineral, spring, and distilled water from around the globe, Pearce questions its legitimacy. She quotes Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of the McGill Office for Science and Society, who says: “Gourmet water is not a completely bogus business. But having a glass of mineral water once in a while in a restaurant is irrelevant to total intake.” Although trends are consumer driven, Pearce questions them. Carol Toller, a Globe editor, says that although many stories are generated in weekly story meetings, publicists constantly try to entice Pearce to check out new ideas and venues.

Before she became a publicist’s must-send, Pearce started as a volunteer intern at The Ottawa Sun in 1992. By 1999 was writing for the Globe, but was only hired full-time in 2003. “Sometimes I wish to be a general reporter,” says Pearce. Although her byline is primarily found in the Saturday Style section, she also writes for the Focus, Toronto, and Review sections. Her stories range from a Nick Nolte profile, to a piece on New York rebel chef Anthony Bourdain, to a story on her grandmother’s fur coat, and, just recently, to a piece on the trend of poker television. She can’t be classified exclusively a beat writer. “I’m a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none,” she says. “Writing different things weekly allows me to be more open. If you’re open about your inexperience, you can get meatier stuff.”

The pitfall to skipping along the surface is what Pearce calls “professional ADD.” After doing a piece for a couple of weeks, you have to let it go and move on. Keeping story ideas past their due date is a condition her editors have coined “sked-itis,” when a piece sits on the schedule for too long and the idea of it becomes boring.

Boring is Pearce’s most feared emotional response. “I don’t want you to think my job is boring,” she says at least twice. I don’t think her job is boring, but I had misconceptions before meeting her. I imagined her job being more glamorous than hectic. Not that they’re aren’t perks – Jennifer Carter, who runs the local Hermes shop, invited Pearce to a fancy Christmas party at her Rosedale home.

But Pearce is humbled on a daily basis. For one thing, she says the Globe doesn’t have the budget of a fashion magazine. The last photo shoot was in the paper’s cafeteria. For another, the Globe maintains an ethical stance on the constant stream of promotional goods. It requires journalists to return expensive gifts and donates a multitude of free beauty products to shelters.

Pearce is fortunate enough to get out of the office frequently. Sitting and chatting again, this time in a Queen West coffee shop, we get on the topic of generating ideas. Observations, she says, often lead to stories about trends. For example, she noticed that her friends were using their cell phones instead of their watches to keep track of time.

Ideas also come from having a certain social flair, as most of Pearce’s stories come from being out and about, talking to people. “I’m social by nature, so it’s easy for me,” she says. But mostly, Pearce says she is “endlessly mining trends and eventually something new comes out.”

Pearce decides to make a quick shopping stop before hitting the office to continue writing. She says she’s a procrastinator, but, for a Style writer, a shopping detour seems like the most natural distraction.

For the past few months, Lance Hornby, Toronto Sun sports reporter, sat at home every evening and rolled dice. Recording the results, he marked them next to a fake National Hockey League (NHL) schedule. Five minutes later, he had the day’s standings, and player statistics, which took half a page in the next day’s edition. The National Post did its own version of a dice league, and CTV announced in October that it would be airing virtual matches (in video game format), instead of actual games.

With no real games or stats and players running off to Europe, sports reporters have had to spend the entire season finding ways to fill up column inches. While the Canadian Football League and, especially, National Football League (NFL) monopolized coverage in most papers, and on most stations, when their seasons ended, the lack of hockey reporting in a hockey nation became even more apparent. Other than the National Basketball Association season to follow, every sand trap and water hazard Mike Weir finds starts to look like a pretty good story.

Too much coverage of the players being locked out by the owners became tiresome. There was little of no news to report. George Johnson, a veteran columnist and hockey writer for The Calgary Herald, says all reportage during the lockout was the same.

“We’ve pretty well determined which writers are pro-player and which are pro-owner,” he says.

While Johnson doesn’t think there’s been an outright polarization among reporters, he says he’s “a bit irked at some of the pro-player advocates, who see the issue only one way.” He attributes this partly to reporters having loyalty to the guys they deal with on a day-to-day basis – guys who provide them with gossip and information.

Pat Grier, sports editor of the Sun, says it will be interesting to see what happens next season. “Players and coaches are taking names. People know who’s on whose side,” he says.

Damien Cox, sports columnist and a 20-veteran of The Toronto Star, says that “there’s been some very public shots taken simply because one person takes a stance on this dispute different than another. It’s all quite unprofessional, but human.” Personally, Cox tries to stay down the middle and think of new ways of presenting hockey when writing his column – but he hasn’t written about the sport besides labour issues and the World Junior Hockey Championships.

“Hockey fans in general are utterly bored with the issues surrounding NHL collective bargaining,” Cox says. “It’s different from the last lockout. Back then, there was a constant drumbeat of a possible resolution, the solution was more fluid and there were more people offering daily comment, which made for a livelier story.”

Other reporters escaped the lockout coverage by following players that went to Europe. But as Post sports writer Jeremy Sandler points out, time and language constraints don’t always make that a viable option. “You have to stress yourself,” he says. “The lockout slowed things down and you might not have had a story the next day. You have to think more laterally.”

Steve Argintaru, senior assignment editor at TSN, agrees. In order to fill the same 90-minute commentator time slots that normally air during a regular season, the network has been digging for entertaining stories, instead of the usual highlights banter. Argintaru doesn’t consider this a bad thing. “It keeps us sharp creatively,” he says. “It allows us to get out to other parts of Canada that we probably wouldn’t be reaching.”

Argintaru cites sending a reporter to Florida to cover former NHL goal-scoring great Pat LaFontaine running his first marathon. “If there was no lockout,” he says, “we wouldn’t have sent a reporter.”

“Most sports journalists have done other types of reporting,” Sandler says. “Those that thought they weren’t being challenged went to the general assignment desk – but there weren’t many.”

Some outlets, such as The Hockey News and CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, have suffered. Halfway through what would have been a normal season, the Hockey News, with a circulation of roughly 100,000, announced that it would be cutting its output by half and running biweekly, rather than weekly.

“It was a decision made for lots of reasons,” says editor Jason Kay. “We talked to our readers and although they thought we were doing a good job under the circumstances, we thought we would better serve them by going biweekly.”

Although publicists were unavailable for comment, the rumour was the CBC laid off at least 50 people when it replaced Saturday night hockey with Hollywood movies. But CBC Sports Online producer Andrew Lundy says his writers have been busy, and that his No. 1 story has been the labour dispute. Pre-lockout, he says the CBC signed an agreement to be the exclusive broadcaster of Canadian curling, and no one has been laid off. He won’t speculate how many jobs the extra curling coverage would have created.

The lockout has opened doors for more coverage on amateur sports, female sports, and lacrosse, Canada’s other national sport. But “just because it’s there,” says Argintaru, “doesn’t mean it interests people.” TSN covers the four major sports: baseball, hockey, football, and basketball. Argintaru figures that if something doesn’t interest viewers while hockey is on, it won’t interest them while the players are locked out.

“You can’t tell readers what they’re interested in. But that’s what makes people better at finding other stories. You’re used to having it handed to you,” Sandler says.

Finding alternative stories doesn’t necessarily mean replacing hockey with popular sports. Although there has generally been more room for longer football and basketball coverage in print and on air, the lockout hasn’t allowed for any more allocated time or space. Both NBA writer Frank Zicarelli and Sun amateur sports writer Mark Keist say the lockout has had little to no impact on the amount of copy they produce.

Junior hockey was an early favourite to replace NHL coverage, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Terry Koshan from the Sun spent a weekend on the Brampton Battalion’s bus, for instance, but in general there was only a slight up-tick in interest from reporters.

Parker Neil, media and public relations director for the St. Mike’s Majors, says they haven’t received more media attention than normal. “I’d like to think we’re high profile enough to fill some of that void,” he says. “But just because there’s a void doesn’t mean they have to fill it with us.” He would, however, prefer to see some of the major outlets use their space to cover “real hockey that’s being played rather than [dice league] hockey.”

Cox says the dice-hockey tactics “are a waste of time and don’t interest any significant chunk of fans,” but Sandler disagrees. “This is hockey,” he says. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

Whether or not the lockout will have a lasting effect on sports journalism in Canada is up for debate. According to Sandler, nothing significant will change. “When hockey swings back into full gear it will be covered as much as possible,” he predicts.

Cox agrees with Sandler, with a proviso: “It could be that, in the future, Canadian media outlets will be less inclined to commit permanent resources to covering the NHL.”

The dice leagues eventually lost steam. On January 23, the Sun dropped the rest of the season and shifted to playoffs. Grier felt that continuing the entire dice season as a normal NHL season would be too much, and gave the readers what they wanted: playoffs.

“Part of it was meant to mock what the NHL was doing,” Grier says. “The whole venture ran a bit stale.”

To look at him, you wouldn’t know Gavin McInnes is the wealthy head of a “multinational brand.” You might mistake him for an average thirtysomething, though – one whose earlier indiscretions are responsible for a few too many trips to the tattoo parlour. Last year, at a book reading in Chicago, he appeared on stage wearing only what looked to be shit-stained tighty whities and, later, a cartoonish turban and Osama bin Laden T-shirt.

McInnes was in Chicago to promote Dos and Don’ts, a collection he wrote over the 10 years Vice magazine has been in existence.

Vice, a magazine that started in Montreal as a free newsletter called Voice, was originally funded by a Quebec make work program for welfare recipients. Now, ten years later, it’s a successful international giveaway magazine based in New York, running everything from fashion boutiques to a record company.

Vice is supposed to be subversive and, above all, anti-boomer. As McInnes put it in an interview with the CBC last year, boomers “made us leave our homeland.”

It is Vice‘s nature to be controversial – without it, the magazine couldn’t survive. Though McInnes, and co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi, are often criticized by leftists, conservatives, and hipster New Yorkers, the consensus is that Vice gives an accurate account of counterculture.

But it’s not necessarily the kind of counterculture many people are familiar with. In August 2003, McInnes wrote a column in The American Conservative, a magazine run by Pat Buchanan. In the magazine, he called young people a bunch of knee-jerk liberals (a phrase McInnes and his cronies use often) who’ll believe anyone with dark skin over anyone with light skin. He laments the liberal views of most of the people who pick up his magazine, saying they’re “brainwashed by communist propaganda.”

“The AmCon article was about jolting our readers out of their blind obsession with everything left,” McInnes wrote me in an email sent from his Costa Rica home. “The right has a lot of valuable lessons that we can glean.”

The New York Times wasn’t impressed by McInnes’s gleanings. It labelled him a white supremacist (he tells me, “I’m proud of being white, but I’m not a white supremacist”). Critics of the magazine loudly denouncedVice and its sardonic wit. Readers started questioning the scathing comments about the homeless, blacks, women, and others in the Dos and Don’ts section of Vice, which McInnes regularly authors.

Everyone is fair game in Dos and Don’ts. One blurb underneath a group of boys giving the finger reads: “Look at these fucking douchebags. What are they, Armenian Ginos? Fuckin’ grown men who want you to know that status is about holding large bottles of expensive vodka that they won’t actually drink, dressing like Lil’ Bow Wow if he was a Mediterranean homo and telling society to fuck off. They look like Ali G teenagers in a line up of rape suspects. No wonder we’re at war with them.”

About a month after the AmCon column was printed, McInnes wrote a letter to Gawker.com, a media gossip website that published criticism of Vice. The letter denied the authenticity of the American Conservative letter, stating that it was the fact-checker’s fault for not doing enough research:

“I did it for a laugh. ‘In the AmCon piece I made totally bullshit claims…. Any of these things could have been easily disproven, but everyone from The New York Post to Newsweek ran with them. Shocking really. I guess it’s time to switch to a new gag.

“I am sure there will still be some skeptics out there that will ignore the AmCon untruths I just clearly spelled out and will still think I’m just backpedaling [sic]…”

When I contacted McInnes, I’d been warned by Dave Fielding, who wrote a feature on Vice for the Ryerson Review of Journalism in 2001, to watch out for being lied to. Obviously, this was a concern, as McInnes’s letter to Gawker states, “I’ve made a full time job out of antagonizing the media.” If you look at Vice‘s recent “Worst Issue Ever,” it acerbically pokes fun at North America’s preoccupation with celebrity culture. (Some unlucky readers, later called “FUCKING idiots” by Vice editor-in-chief Jesse Pearson, were upset that Vicehad sold out.)

“I have a lot to say about that [Gawker] letter. I feel kind of bad about it. Truth is, I was scared,” says McInnes, “Shane and Suroosh were really pissed at me for talking about white pride to the NYT and I backpedalled.”

To sum up, McInnes writes about his “new” conservative views, then denies them in a letter sent to a website his readers are likely to read (it’s the No. 1 hit when you Google “McInnes”), then tells me he was “scared.”

McInnes tells me he uses loaded words for comedic purposes: “People say, ‘You might write the word nigger but you’d never walk up to a black man and call him that.’ True, but I don’t walk up to old ladies and scream CUNT in their faces either. It’s called swearing – get over it.”

When I ask him about the gay bashing in Dos and Don’ts, he calls me a “Canadian LUG” (lesbian until graduation). It throws me for a loop and is amusing in a stupid way – which is part of McInnes’s appeal.

This odd kind of inclusiveness extends to Vice‘s fashion coverage as well. Looking through back issues, a distinct phenomenon is noticeable: the magazine doesn’t use regular models, but rather ethnically diverse, regular-looking, and elderly people. For all the feel-good-about-yourself mumbo jumbo most women’s magazines dish out, they generally use stick-thin fashion models of a certain age and, usually, ethnicity. Vice, in its goofy way of mocking political correctness, backhandedly redeems itself in the eyes of conscientious readers by saying, “Hey, we just called you [insert racial slur here], but you’re represented in our magazine.”

Originally, McInnes didn’t possess the qualities of the people he lauds in Dos and Don’ts. He stumbled upon this new version of cool – not by dumb luck or a twist of fate (“How did two drunks and a junkie come to own one of the most successful magazines in America,” as the Vice founders like to quip) – but through a welfare scam and shrewd business sense. He made some money, bought some hip clothes, “flew some chicks in,” and built a moat of coolness around him. Lo and behold! Thus reborn, here was the self-made guy columnists could gush over – in a cerebral, ironic way, of course. Vice doesn’t hesitate to post positive commentary about itself from such sources as Nylon, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone – exactly the type of magazines they poke fun at in the “Worst Issue Ever.”

Being called a LUG might be amusing in a stupid kind of way, but still, it bothers me that McInnes is so quick to resort to gay-bashing humour. He emailed me to explain, saying, “For better or for worse, ‘gay’ references are an integral part of good comedy.”

I asked if he uses words like “homo” and “fag” as fallback gags when he can’t think of anything clever to write.

“The only group that gets shit on is the poor. It’s all about class. Not race or sexual preference,” McInnes wrote, sending a link to The Redneck Manifesto, a book by Jim Goad, which laments the unfairness that burdens the white lower class.

McInnes continues, saying, “All this PC fascism has made it very difficult to do normal, uncensored humor (funny humor). Maybe that’s why our writing seems so blatantly racist, homophobic, etc. If this was 1978 we would sound mundane. I kind of like that.

“When I said to Bill McGowan, ‘There’s so much funny and interesting shit out there people are scared to go near it’s like our job has become too easy,’ he replied with, ‘Carpe Diem. It’s a great time to be a journalist.'”

While McInnes makes some fair points – a lot of liberals admittedly get their information from shallow sources like the internet, most of celebrities are lame and detached from real life, and North America is strangely “politically correct” though it hates on the same people it’s out to “protect” – his flippant racism and homophobia doesn’t really inspire change. So what’s the point? Maybe the point is that there isn’t one.

A piano plays softly as images of the wrecked plane fade in and out. A man’s voice solemnly describes an encounter with a young boy who asks why his daddy’s plane is in so many pieces. The photos fade into a picture of a serene sky with a distant lighthouse—the piano keeps playing.

Click

An animated map shows the precise path of the plane before it crashes into the ocean.

Click

Another map. This time with rescue vessels scattered across the waters. See images of the different ships at work while listening to a concise audio explanation of each step.

Click

Scroll through the names of the 229 people who perished in the crash. The soft music is back.

This story is multimedia journalism at its finest. Well, one of its finest. In September, CBC.ca’s The Nature of Things: The Investigation of Swissair 111 received one of three $1,000 special distinction awards at the 2004 Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. The judges praised the piece for its “Powerful storytelling, splendid navigation, [and] innovative touches throughout.”

The Batten Awards are given by the University of Maryland’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. The center, launched in December 2002, is designed to help news organizations use new information ideas and computer technologies to develop different ways to engage people in the news.

These and other awards, like the Online Journalism Awards honouring excellence in digital storytelling, focus on a relatively new form of journalism that is joining the ranks of print and broadcast – multimedia journalism.

What is multimedia journalism?

This innovative form of online news is perfect for the journalist of many talents. It combines the written skills of a print journalist, the eye for captivating images of a photojournalist, the trained ear of a broadcast journalist, and even the computer skills of a web producer. “Multimedia journalistic pieces can be multi-dimensional – offering text, stills, audio, and video – that allows the news consumer to choose which parts of the information package they want to experience, and how,” explains Mary McGuire, a journalism professor at Carleton University. “They allow for a whole new way to consume news.”

But it’s more than adding a video clip or images to an online news story. True multimedia journalism creates an experience. As Brian Storm, the former Director of Multimedia at MSNBC.com, wrote in an article for The Digital Journalist, multimedia is a format wherein “the ‘couch potato’ experience of passively watching TV will collide with the interactive forward tug of computer usage.”

It’s a piece that offers the in-depth news content of a magazine feature, the vivid displays of a TV documentary, and the clear explanations of expert sources. These elements culminate into a seamless, packaged news presentation without the text-heaviness of magazine articles, the restrictions of documentaries, and the tedious demonstrations of experts. Moving animations show people how complicated processes work; digestible bits of text convey important facts; and slides, video and audio produce the emotional value. All the while the user is in control of the experience, able to click on the topics that interest him and skip over sections that don’t.

Multimedia at MSNBC.com

The top $10,000 2003 Batten Award went to MSNBC.com’s series of news features, Big Picture. The three pieces focused on the 2002 midterm U.S. elections, the war in Iraq, and the Academy Awards. The election feature offers users a simulated experience as the leader of either candidate’s election campaign, demonstrating yet another benefit of such multimedia presentations – interactivity.

Ashley Wells, senior interactive producer for MSNBC, explains the benefits of multimedia journalism in an email: “‘Multimedia’ and ‘interactive’ presentations ought to include viewer participation beyond the ability to simply skip ahead or choose your chapter. I focus on producing pieces that challenge viewers to think and react through interactive exercises, such as editing together a campaign commercial or setting a future 100-meter dash record, then racing to beat it.

“That’s a technological advantage online has over print, radio, or television. And it opens up all sorts of opportunities to really get people engaged in the content and discussing it with others.”

At MSNBC, Wells generally leads a team of three people – he is the writer/producer, there’s a designer, and the trio is completed by a Flash developer (Macromedia’s Flash is the program of choice for many news organizations to create complicated multimedia presentations that can blend text, pictures, audio/video, interactive buttons, and animations). For large projects, the team is joined by an anchor, section editor, and studio crew. They will work for about a month doing research, gathering audio/video, designing, and developing the presentation. Smaller projects may only take a week. Every member of Wells’s team has some journalistic background, but that’s not always the case.

Working on your own

Jane Stevens is a freelance multimedia journalist who has done work for organizations like the Discovery Channel and MSNBC.com. She often collects the information and puts together presentations herself, but doesn’t think that’s the norm.

“Unfortunately, at most news organizations, journalists are not involved in producing multimedia stories. That is left to web producers figuring out how to ‘enhance’ a print or TV story for the web.” Even made-for-the-web projects don’t always fully involve journalists. Sometimes Stevens sends in her photos, video, and text to a web producer who puts the elements onto a page he’s constructed. Other times she works with a team of four or five people in which she is the only journalist.

Then there’s Angela Misri – an exception to Stevens’s rule. Misri is the web producer for the CBC’s WebOne, a site devoted entirely to multimedia pieces. “It’s radio you can watch and a website worth listening to,” boasts the headline on WebOne’s homepage. By combining snippets of CBC’s compelling radio broadcasts with original online content and design, the site presents both captivating and informative multimedia pieces. Though formed in 2001 by four people, in May 2004 WebOne was reduced to just Misri. She now designs, creates, writes, and produces most of these compelling pieces alone.

So, if you land a job like Misri’s or work as a freelancer like Stevens, you might have the opportunity to write and produce multimedia pieces on your own. How do you create such seamless presentations? All you need are some technical skills, journalistic ability, a whole lot of creativity—and some cash.

Basic Tools

1. Digital Video Camera/ $4,000 (approx.)
2. Adobe Photoshop/ $139.99
3. Macromedia Flash (graphic animation program)/ US$499
4. iMovie (Video Editing Program)/ Software provided on Apple Macintosh computers

Skills

Some journalism schools choose not to teach students the technical skills, like how to use Macromedia Flash. “Many of the online editors I talk to say they don’t need students with Flash skills,” says Tim Curry, an online journalism instructor at King’s College University in Halifax. “They have web developers who produce their Flash projects in conjunction with editorial staff.”

Then again, there are lots of places you can go that do teach the skills for this up-and-coming form of journalism. Here are just a few:

Canada

Loyalist College
E-Journalism: Online Publishing & Computer Assisted Reporting
A post-grad program that offers recent graduates and experienced journalists an understanding of the role of journalism on the net as well as the hands-on skills to work in this emerging field.

Sheridan College
Webcast Production and New Media Techniques
A course that teaches technical skills of capturing audio/video for web use, software skills, and packaging news content for the web.

United States

University of Florida
Online Journalism
“Using words, images, and sound to tell true stories in an interactive, digital environment – that’s online journalism.” Learn, among other things, how to use specific programs like Dreamweaver and Flash

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Includes courses like Introductory Multimedia Reporting, how to use digital video cameras, editing programs, etc.

Links:

/> Reviews five steps of multimedia reporting, with useful tutorials

/> The elements of digital storytelling

Weblog tracking multimedia journalism examples

It’s a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in late September 2004. At Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto, Word on the Street is in high gear. Every year, on the last Sunday of September, Canadian publishers gather at various locations across the country. These simultaneous, one-day literary festivals promote their books, magazines, and journals.

On the east side of the park, Maisonneuve staff stand under a tent. They’re mostly attractive, in their late 20s or early 30s, and they’re giving away free copies of the magazine to people who agree to sign up for a free half-year subscription. It’s an easy sell for staff that doesn’t stop smiling.

Maisonneuve is a relatively young magazine, publishing in only its third year, but 2004 saw a series of small, but significant victories for the Montreal-based magazine. It garnered eight National Magazine Award (NMA) nominations, and in June, won one gold for spot illustration and one silver for an article written in the Society category.

Equally important, Maisonneuve grew in quantity as well as quality. Circulation jumped to 14,000 copies from 10,000 the previous year, attributing the growth mainly to website improvements. Last spring, it added web exclusive content, incorporating columns such as “NerdWorld” and “Absolutely Starving,” a food column written by intern Mona Awad under the pseudonym Veronica Tartley. Blogs like “In House,” a group effort written by staff, were started, as well as “In Earnest,” the personal diary of New York writer Jarret McNeil.

One of the new features on the magazine’s website is MediaScout. Maisonneuve boasts that it is “the only way to get the straight goods on the day’s top news.” MediaScout is a daily email briefing of the top Canadian media’s news coverage, and seems like a fresh idea. But since most of the emails are sent late in the morning, the relevance of its commentary has usually waned by then. Still, this and other web features have helped the magazine increase web traffic by almost 20 per cent in two years, with over 50,000 visitors (over 2.6 million hits) a month and rising.

Despite its successful year, morale at Maisonneuve‘s office hasn’t always been positive. In fact, 2004 started off poorly. Publisher and editor-in-chief Derek Webster remembers the winter months as long and cold, with no end in sight. Even in June, staff became impatient after their NMA wins didn’t translate into subscriptions or increased interest. “When you don’t see the results,” Webster says, “you don’t embrace the magazine and the people who are doing it. It creates infighting, and that’s not much fun.”

But staff has learned to be patient. It takes time to improve content, and it takes time for readers to notice. The maturity of the latest issue is obvious when compared to the first, which arrived in September 2002. Two and half years ago, the magazine read more like a literary journal than a “New Yorker for the younger generation,” as it now fancies itself. The stories were long and serious, and almost all dealt with literature. The design was unchallenging, and the 78-page book was advertisement free.

Now Maisonneuve looks younger and hipper. It features a colourful design, with bleeding photographs, original illustrations, funky fonts, and other risky approaches to layout. Editorial content is more diverse – a recent issue includes Awad’s account of a drunken weekend (or as she calls it, a “guide to summer wines”), a piece that argues Jon Stewart would make the best Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, and Washington-based writer Thomas Hayden writes about how the Montreal Expos aren’t necessarily going to be welcome in their new home.

Although the content of the magazine has changed drastically, Maisonneuve‘s roots in literature remain intact. Poems and short works of fiction are scattered throughout its pages, but now are a complement to the eclectic non-fiction.

Even a year ago, the editorial tone was less accessible and, at times, pretentious. These days, it’s a more enjoyable general interest magazine. “Mordecai Richer used to talk about his books,” Webster says. “He said that they were always fillers, not the perfect book – that’s why he kept writing. I keep hoping for the perfect issue.”

For the editor, the recipe for that issue includes one part Spectator, one part Vanity Fair, one part New Yorker, one part Vice, and one part Tamarack Review.

If one thing threatens the magazine – and it’s the same thing all independent start-up media must face – it’s the shortage of revenue through a lack of advertising. In an age of increasingly targeted media products, the magazine’s self-description as a “true general interest magazine” is an advertiser’s turn-off.

Stephan Hardy, Maisonneuve‘s business director and online manager, says, “Ads that do well are for people who are well-read, like to travel, and live in downtown areas or large cities. They’re trendsetters.” But, he adds, most Canadian decision-makers are based in Toronto, and the magazine’s Montreal home deters advertisers. It’s not on their radar as a venue to reach “aspirational,” intelligent, urban 25- to 40-year-olds.

Despite these very real monetary difficulties, Maisonneuve has never lost sight of its Montreal identity or influence. “One thing to love about Maisonneuve is that they’ve avoided the culture of grievance,” saysToronto Life magazine’s media critic, Robert Fulford. Canadian magazines, he says, tend to have a dispiriting attitude – the idea that we’re doomed before we’ve started. “They’ve cut themselves from that, and that’s refreshing.”

Maybe, as Maisonneuve grows up, this defiance will fade away, taking naïveté with it. Then again, maybe it has nothing to do with being defiant – maybe it’s just the magazine’s Québécois roots and joi de vivre seeping through its pages.