Everyone’s a reporter
Three years and 10 million dollars later, has so-called citizen journalism site NowPublic.com democratized the news gathering process? Not exactly...
After receiving a US $10.6 million windfall of venture capital financing in July 2007, NowPublic.com co-founder and CEO Leonard Brody boldly promised that in 18 months the participatory news site would be “by reach, the largest news agency in the world.” The small Vancouver start-up that began as an experiment in co-founder Michael Tippett’s garage, […]
Family Affair
The West is the best for publisher Peter Legge and his daughters
Peter Legge is a wildly enthusiastic man. The chairman and CEO of Canada Wide Media Ltd. says he has an “exceptional circulation department,” “exceptional sales people”—just an “exceptional staff” altogether. But he has reason to be optimistic: Canada Wide (CW) is the largest independent magazine publisher in Western Canada. And the 66-year-old’s family-run company now […]
Lighting a Spark
The producers of Spark, a weekly show about technology and how it affects culture, have come up with a different way to do radio—they ask listeners for feedback before the program airs. Is that a good idea?
As I pull out my high-tech Sony recorder, the producer, Elizabeth Bowie, startles me. She stares at it and says, “Oh, look at that”—and I thought Nora Young, Dan Misener and Bowie, the people behind the technology-based radio show and podcast Spark would laugh at my two-year-old digital recorder. But of course, the show’s website […]
Chemtrails, false flags and 9/11, oh my!
All but ignored by mainstream media, conspiracy theorists search for an alternative audience. These days, fellow "truthers" aren't hard to find
There’s a blizzard outside, but over half of the chairs inside this Queen Street West store are full. The store isn’t just any store in downtown Toronto; it’s Conspiracy Culture, or what co-owner Patrick Whyte calls a “taboo, magic happy place” for people who are interested in everything from alien phenomena to political conspiracies. And […]
The subjectivity of objective music criticism
How does one be objective in music criticism without being too subjective? Find out how Toronto's music critics do it (or don't do it).
Riding on the success of their newest self-titled EP, New York indie band, Interpol strolled into Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern in September 2001. Hailed as the “next big thing,” several newspapers in Toronto decided to send reviewers to cover the show. The Toronto Star music critic Ben Rayner attended, as did NOW magazine’s music critic Sarah […]
The Immigrant Experience
With a quarter of a million immigrants arriving in Canada every year, publishers—big and small—believe this really is a land of opportunity
It’s three in the morning on a sweet April day in 2003, and Naeem “Nick” Noorani wakes up in his Vancouver home. Despite having left Dubai five years earlier with his family, he still finds something strange about this country. “Everyone says Canada is a country of immigrants,” he says. “There are magazines on wilting […]
What’s in it for us, though?
There's no shortage of Canadian media coverage of United States presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and even Mike Huckabee. And why not—some of the horses are running neck and neck. But left in the dust is what each of these candidates might actually mean for Canada
The Globe and Mail’s Washington bureau correspondent John Ibbitson vividly remembers the first time he saw U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speak in person. On an early December 2007 day in Columbia, S.C., he was standing in a press pool 12 to 15 metres from the stage, listening intently. Obama spoke and paced the […]
What Men Want
Unable to survive in print without running advertorials, Canadian men's magazines escape into the online realm. But is that what men really want?
In 2006, the advertising team for watch manufacturer Swiss Army met with the representatives of Toro and suggested that the Toronto-based men’s magazine publish an article showcasing the brand. Swiss Army was an occasional advertiser, but when editor Derek Finkle found out about the idea, he shot it down. That’s not what Toro was about. […]
Mr. Fix-It
Freelance journalist and Globe and Mail columnist Craig Silverman spends his life tracking mistakes and missteps in the press. His new book, Regret the Error, highlights some of journalism's most egregious blunders. Review reporter Erin Tandy discusses what's so right about being Mr. Wrong
Erin Tandy: What first got you interested in corrections? Craig Silverman: There was one in particular that inspired me to look more into the topic. It’s the one listed in Regret the Error’s introduction, from the Lexington Herald-Leader in 2004, where they apologize for not covering the civil rights movement 40 years previously: “It has […]
Letter From Russia
Fluff abounds in a country where the politics is anything but straightforward and journalism is still a dangerous profession
Outside my Soviet-style apartment a rhythmic ghraavk-ghrrraaavk-ghravvvk fills the air: someone is shoveling snow. Inside, some Russian anchor, whose name I’ll never remember, fills a small television screen to announce the results of yesterday’s parliamentary election. President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won, but the correspondent briefly alludes to complaints about violations at the polling […]
