Category: Summer 2005

Neil Macdonald licks his lips and pats his hair gently into place. Sporting a slick navy suit, rose-coloured tie, and shiny brown shoes, he paces the room reciting his lines. Macdonald is taping intros and extros for CBC Newsworld’s Face to Face, a show that features interviews with passionate American politicos such as conservative queen Ann… Continue reading Rough, Tough, and Ready to Rumble

It’s March 25, 1999, and health reporters across the country are hard at work. “Some people can hardly contain their excitement,” gushes a front-page article in the Calgary Herald. They “may have an extra bounce in their step today,” it adds, “but it’s not just because spring arrived this week.” The event that floods newspapers across… Continue reading Addicted to Hype

Case study. Subject: Report on Business magazine, The Globe and Mail‘s almost monthly business insert (published 11 times a year). Business challenge: competing for readers against a host of other sources of financial information. Question: can a magazine stay comfy with Bay Street while reporting – in an entertaining yet critical way – on its world, leaders, and… Continue reading Risky Business

I’m standing at rec-eption in The Drake Hotel, a posh Toronto haunt for artists, authors, and alternative scenesters, waiting for Paul Wells. He’s flown in from Ottawa to hear Branford Marsalis. The show was “absurdly sold out,” he said in the email, but the first set was an industry showcase, so he might have some… Continue reading The Improviser

It’s a crisp and sunny Sunday afternoon and I’m standing inside the sparse lobby at the University of Toronto’s Innis College. I’m looking for Mary Lou Finlay in a crowd of about 30 people. I don’t see the face I’ve memorized from a small, frosted picture on CBC’s website. But I do hear a familiar… Continue reading There’s Something About Mary Lou