Ben Chin hasn’t been near a television studio in months, but the former news anchor still dresses for the lights and cameras. His tailored suit, cuffed shirt and blue-and-yellow striped tie come straight from a men’s fashion magazine. His new office is another story. Papers and files lie in heaps on top of the wooden… Continue reading Bright Side of the Dark Side
Category: Spring 2006
Narcissus in Chief
At a time when every newspaper editor in the country is “revisioning” his or her paper (i.e. making it palatable to a coming generation of Xbox-ed Netheads), you’d think that the redpen set wouldn’t have the time to pontificate the way they used to from the safety of their editorial board cubicles. And yet, the… Continue reading Narcissus in Chief
Ethical Dilemma
In 1995, I went to Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, to produce a documentary on the Ebola outbreak. When I arrived, news teams from all over the world were clamouring to get inside the ward. But local and international medical staff refused to let any journalists in. Victims were dying a… Continue reading Ethical Dilemma
In Your Face
Hip hop blares in the mostly empty gym on this November Friday night. Located at Carlaw Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard in Toronto, The Training Room is a ten-minute drive from the Riverdale home of The Toronto Star‘s Antonia Zerbisias. Dressed in a black tank top and yoga pants, she arranges and adjusts three machines… Continue reading In Your Face
Off Target
Inside The Gazette newsroom in the heart of downtown Montreal sits a three-drawer file cabinet filled with colour: folders in bright shades of red, yellow and blue, each one filled with stories, contacts and studies on Montreal’s cultural communities. The cabinet’s owner, Jeff Heinrich, covers Montreal’s minority communities for the Gazette, although the words “diversities… Continue reading Off Target