Category: Summer 1999

Something just didn’t look right. Veronica Cusack, then chief of research for Toronto Life magazine, pored over a research document for the story she was checking. The writer had accused an organization of falsely claiming to be a registered charity. A strong declaration. Proof? A photocopy of a government form with a number on it. Since the… Continue reading A Checkered Present

Some of the street children of Cusco, Peru, are no more than five or six years old. They congregate in the town?s main square begging, hawking postcards, or visit a shelter where they can get a meal or occupy themselves making art work. In their games the children seem as happy as any, but underneath… Continue reading Down and out in Cusco and Bangkok

Alan King had been the staff editorial cartoonist at the Ottawa Citizen for 15 years when Neil Reynolds came in as editor in 1996. He fought with Reynolds frequently about the content of his work, and about the changes that Reynolds was making to the newspaper-particularly the changes to the editorial board. Unlike editorial cartoonists at most… Continue reading Off With Their Heads!

Just after 9 a.m. on a cool autumn morning, Margaret Wente is greeted by the familiar sounds of The Globe and Mail newsroom. Reporters are checking phone messages, placing early calls and scanning the news wire to see what’s happened overnight. Some are chatting and leaning against a wall that displays seven clocks telling the time in… Continue reading The Notorious Peggy Wente

Three minutes before airtime. An editorial assistant darts up to the host and points at a clock. With only three minutes left he really should be in the studio, but he doesn’t budge. Two and a half minutes before airtime, the host waits for his scripts. Two minutes, still waiting. Hearing the printer, he grabs… Continue reading Death by a Thousand Cuts?