It’s impossible to serve two masters at once-we have no lesser authority than the Bible for that-yet the news media try to do it every day. Working journalists like to think their primary role is to serve the public by letting it know what’s really going on. But the higher-ups, the media managers, have a… Continue reading Journalism Inc.
Category: Summer 1993
The New Protocol of War
Someone had to take Peter Brysky’s camera home. Peter Brysky was from Toronto; he was a free-lance stills photographer who was killed at Karlovac in Croatia on October 6,1991. A team from “The Journal” was in Croatia covering the war at the same time, staying at the same hotel, the Intercontinental in Zagreb. The hotel… Continue reading The New Protocol of War
Ten Years of Popping Off
Early last April, the Ryerson Review of Journalism hit the newsstands and the newsrooms of every major media company in Toronto. On the cover was a dramatic black-and-red illustration of a powerful hand squeezing blood out of a Maclean’s magazine. The headline read: “Strong-Arm Tactics: How the Life Gets Squeezed Out of Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine.”… Continue reading Ten Years of Popping Off
Audible Minority
When you enter the lobby of CFRB, the popular radio station that bills itself as “Toronto’s News Leader,” the first things you notice are the head shots of all the station’s on-air personalities. The second row on the right-hand wall includes a photograph of Anne Winstanley, who has been a newscaster with the station… Continue reading Audible Minority
Selling the farm
The ad appeared on page 93 of Harrowsmith number 95, the first issue of 1991. It read: “A disposal concept 2 billion years in the making.” Atomic Energy of Canada had paid Telemedia Communications, owner of Harrowsmith, about $5,000 to advocate its plan to store nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield. In that same issue… Continue reading Selling the farm