Category: Spring 1989

Homes sections used to be one of the prime gravy trains of journalism-free lunches for the writers and cases of booze for the editors. But that was a long time ago. Newspapers now have strict policies against accepting gifts in order to prevent editors and reporters from even subconsciously feeling obligated to advertisers or anyone… Continue reading On the House

It was not a vintage year at Sunday Morning. The CBC current affairs program, famous for its in-depth coverage of controversial issues lost seven of its staff in 1998 – and six more in the first weeks of the new year. Among those who left were ACTRA award winning correspondent Chris Brookes and producer Nick… Continue reading Strictly by the Book

John Fraser sits behind his modern desk on the eleventh floor of a medium rise tower in downtown Toronto. By magazine standards, the office of Saturday Night’s much-talked-about editor is both spacious and elegant-there are four matching occasional chairs, a brass floor lamp, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf running along one wall. Seven editorial staff members form… Continue reading Telling Tales on John Fraser

Last November, when The Halifax Chronicle-Herald breathlessly reported on its front page that “lawyers and legal experts involved in the $3.million. plus Donald Marshall Jr. royal commission were wined and dined at taxpayers’ expense at the posh Halifax Sheraton Hotel,” it was the first time in seven years of coverage of the controversial Marshall affair… Continue reading No News Is Good News in Nova Scotia

Bob Verdun proudly admits to being a muckraker. He publishes without fear or favor and systematically subscribes to the old newspaper adage of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Today such sayings are as dated as press cards in fedoras. But as editor and owner of the aptly named Independent in Elmira, Ontario, Verdun… Continue reading The Battler