Fatima Syed

PMJT is hot. Get over it.

PMJT is hot. Get over it.

Politics is about perception (and always has been). Official messages are carefully constructed to paint a specific type of picture. It’s the journalist’s job, theoretically at least, to find the flaws and the hidden distortions in that image. But what if the picture is perfect and makes everyone happy? A hot prime minister meets a […]

 Fatima Syed

Who’s telling the truth about #WelcomeRefugees?

Who’s telling the truth about #WelcomeRefugees?

Across Canadian news outlets, there is a strange discrepancy in reports about whether or not the Liberal government is excluding single male Syrian refugees

I don’t know who’s telling the truth about the Liberal refugee plan. On the one hand, there’s Paul McLeod, BuzzFeed‘s political editor, who published an article on November 25, 2015, titled “Someone Gave The Media A Bunch Of False Info About Canada’s Syrian Refugee Plan.” McLeod takes issue with a CBC report by Rosemary Barton that, days before the Liberals […]

 Simon Bredin

The Inside Man

The Inside Man

Evan Solomon was an outsider with plans for a new kind of political television, but Ottawa’s toxic partisan culture changed his show—and him

Evan Solomon was an outsider with plans for a new kind of political television, but Ottawa’s toxic partisan culture changed his show—and him

 Ryerson Review of Journalism

TEASER: The Inside Man

TEASER: The Inside Man

Here is a sneak peek at one story from our Spring 2015 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism magazine. Edited by Jennifer Joseph

 Ryerson Review of Journalism

TEASER: The Harder They Fall

TEASER: The Harder They Fall

Here is a sneak peek at one story from our Spring 2015 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism magazine.

 Loren Hendin

Tart and soul

Tart and soul

How the left-leaning, scotch-drinking, bullshit-detecting, high-school-dropping, joke-Googling, single-mom-ing, storytelling, serial tweeting, cheese-puff-cooking Tabatha Southey became one of our leading political humourists.

By Loren Hendin Tabatha Southey hadn’t expected to hear anything back. She’d sent three children’s stories to a publisher, but, six months later, nothing. Oh, well, she’d sent them only at the urging of a friend anyway. She had been driving with writer and editor Jane L. Thompson, two toddlers, and a baby buckled up in […]

 Julia Belluz

Pssst … Try the Back Door to Cyberspace

Pssst … Try the Back Door to Cyberspace

On the frontiers of human rights and technology, outspoken nerds fight to free the flow of information on the web

In the belly of the red sandstone Munk Centre at the University of Toronto, down two flights of stairs and hallways that twist and turn, computer hacking meets political activism at Citizen Lab. The hum of 20 computers reverberates against the clickety-clacking of fingers on keyboards as Nart Villeneuve, the lab’s director of technical research, […]

 Kasia Mychajlowycz

Scary Monsters

Scary Monsters

Are crime reporters guilty of fear mongering and, if so, does that derail the development of good public policy?

Len Gold looks nervous as he stares into the black eye of the camera. Wearing a leather jacket over a Vancouver Canucks T-shirt, he recites his question for the leaders of Canada’s four main political parties. Framed by mountains meeting the ocean in Gibsons, British Columbia, Gold says, “My concern is safety for people in […]

 Jonathan Ore

Scrum and Gone

Scrum and Gone

The incredible shrinking Queen’s Park press gallery is a stark example of what happens when resources run dry. What’s going: informed citizens and democratic accountability. What’s coming: a potential breeding ground for political corruption

The morning Question Period at Queen’s Park ends and reporters scrum politicians streaming into the halls. The exchanges aren’t rapid-fire shouting matches, there’s no staccato of camera flashes and politicians aren’t trying to outrun reporters chasing them down and barking questions. About two dozen journalists swarm Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, some holding television cameras that […]

 Shereen Dindar

Mighty Mouth

Mighty Mouth

Heather Mallick is a well-heeled leftie with a soft heart and a strident style

Inside a classroom in the Bancroft Building at the University of Toronto, fluorescent lights buzz above Heather Mallick’s head as she sits behind a long desk, poised in a long-sleeved dark blue dress, wide-eyed and nodding at a student in her continuing education course, Town Hall: The Bush Legacy. It’s her first time teaching this […]