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!” […]

The Selling of Sarah

We expect shameless self-promotion from our politicians. But did Sarah Thomson, who wants to be mayor of Toronto, go too far when she put herself on the cover of her own magazine?

The decision was a year in the making: If a viable woman ran for the Toronto mayoralty in 2010, Women’s Post would promote her. And when that woman turned out to be Sarah Thomson, the magazine’s owner (and, until recently, publisher and CEO), the plan didn’t change at all. First, she teased her intentions in […]

Nobody’s Sweetheart

Jennifer Lewington calls herself a footnote in the fight for equality in Canadian newsrooms. But as The Globe and Mail's first female foreign correspondent, the recent retiree showed it was possible for women of her era to succeed—even if it meant getting out of town

Two years. That’s how long Geoffrey Stevens, then the managing editor of The Globe and Mail, told Jennifer Lewington she’d have to wait before he might make her the paper’s Washington bureau chief. That’s when the Globewould hold its next round of bureau hirings, and everyone—male or female—was subject to the wait. To Stevens’s credit, […]

A Different Alberta View

With her "un-Albertan" magazine, founding editor Jackie Flanagan is trying to show her province isn't all rednecks, cowboys and oil tycoons

“Many eastern media turned to Ted Byfield when they wanted to hear the views of Albertans. And as a third-generation Albertan, I was concerned because he did not reflect the opinions of any Albertan I knew,” says Jackie Flanagan. It’s the 32nd annual National Magazine Awards—held in 2009—and Flanagan’s baby,Alberta Views, has just won Magazine […]

There’s Something About Kerry

Kerry Mitchell's impressive career in magazine publishing has often been controversial, especially because of her alleged tendency to dabble in editorial. But the higher she gets at Rogers Publishing, the more questions crop up—about her plans for her publications, and the company's plans for her

Wherever Kerry Mitchell goes, tales of an interfering publisher follow. There are judgments: incessant micromanagement, a hungry ambition and a cool demeanour. There are whispers: former Chatelaine editor-in-chief Sara Angel allegedly threw furniture at her after one too many fights over editorial control. There is vitriol: some people can’t stand her, plain and simple—though they’d […]

Reckless Disregard?

Amanda Lindhout has taken a lot of flak for her sally into Somalia. But maybe she’s more latter-day Kit Coleman than "cowboy"

When she was young, Amanda Lindhout pored over the pages of National Geographic and dreamed of travelling to the places she read about. In 2007, the Sylvan Lake, Alberta, native, then 25, abandoned her waitressing job in a Calgary pub and her flirtations with becoming a beautician to globetrot. In Nepal she climbed to the […]

A Network of Controversy

Critics of Al Jazeera English call the broadcaster garish and offensive. Supporters say it's just what Canada needs. What's the fuss all about?

A man lies on the floor, yelling incomprehensibly. Cut to: a child lying on a hospital bed. The camera zooms in to reveal a smashed head, blood congealing on the wound, a face beyond recognition. The footage is gruesome and hard to take, but compelling. Welcome to Al-Jazeera English (AJE). Critics decry the gory war […]

Game Over

Players on Team Canada’s 1985 world junior hockey team celebrate after scoring a goal credit: HOCKEYCANADA.ca Twenty-five years ago, Steve Milton crossed the Atlantic to cover the world junior hockey championship in Helsinki, Finland. The tournament wasn’t yet the media circus it is today—Canada hadn’t won gold since 1982—and he was the lone Canadian reporter […]

The Art of the Ambush

Two cars pull into the driveway of a farmhouse outside Kitchener, Ontario. In one, Mary Garofalo, host and consulting producer for Global’s 16:9, and camera operator Kirk Neff have been waiting nearby for days for Dave Switzer, a paralegal they suspect has duped his clients out of large amounts of money. As Switzer and a […]

Magazine de Mode

When Sylvain Blais was 14, he knew he was hooked on fashion. Each month he’d pick up a copy of both American and Italian Vogue from the only store that carried them in his hometown of Sherbrooke, Quebec. As soon as he finished school in 1997 he started working as a freelance photographer for Montreal-based […]