It was a quiet, narrow, downtown side street with stacked houses and the most typical old brick church. The people in the neighbourhood stood on their porches watching, intrigued, as fashion journalists made their way down the road. Outside the church, a stylish crowd dressed exclusively in black and gradations of grey was growing. As… Continue reading Print-À-Porter
Category: The Magazine
60 Degrees of Separation
If you try to communicate with someone on the other side of a busy street, you can shout all you want, but something gets lost in the translation. This is what it?s like covering the Arctic from a southern city, but it?s the way most major Canadian news organizations do the job. The sometimes-strained nature… Continue reading 60 Degrees of Separation
Manufacturing Concern
The story was vintage Toronto Star. Under the October 1, 1998 headline “Computer glitch keeps cash from needy” ran a story detailing a techno debacle that had left a single mother unable to cash her social assistance cheque. Accompanying the 13-column-inch piece was a photo captioned “Scary situation” showing the 43-year-old woman, illuminated by a… Continue reading Manufacturing Concern
The Unblinking Eye
“Four minutes to air!” Four minutes until the launch of the fall 2997 season of programming for CPAC, the national Cable Public Affair Channel. Four minutes to the start of the season’s new political interview show called The Roundtable. Four minutes and one of the four guests scheduled to appear has still not arrived. It’s Sunday… Continue reading The Unblinking Eye
Unhealthy Competition
When Medical Post staff writer Pippa Wysong called Dr. Vivian Rakoff’s secretary last August to try to talk to him about his controversial psychiatric profile of Lucien Bouchard, her editor didn’t actually expect Rakoff to cooperate. After all, dozens of reporters were desperate to talk to the high-profile psychiatrist. Surprisingly, Rakoff’s secretary called back, saying he wouldn’t… Continue reading Unhealthy Competition