Eighty-five-year-old Johnny Lombardi takes the stage to open the 35th CHIN International Picnic at Toronto’s Exhibition Place on June 30, 2001. Wearing his usual picnic attire—a CHIN Picnic T-shirt and baseball cap that conceals his baldness—the founder of CHIN multicultural radio greets the crowd in Cantonese: “Nei ho ma” (How are you?). With a big smile on his face,… Continue reading Bravissimo
Category: The Magazine
The ethics of staging
Last November, Thailand was suffering through its worst flooding in 50 years. While Thai citizens are no strangers to high water levels, the heavy monsoon rains had left more than 800 dead and thousands displaced. As a result, television news crews from around the world were on the ground to put a human face to the… Continue reading The ethics of staging
Lost in The Grid
It all started with a lighter. In the dog days of August, one of The Grid’s senior editors sparked an ironic hashtag in the twittersphere: #UnfriendlyToronto. Edward Keenan was on a city beach with his wife and two children when a six-year-old boy came over to borrow a lighter for the candles on his brother’s… Continue reading Lost in The Grid
Scary Monsters
Len Gold looks nervous as he stares into the black eye of the camera. Wearing a leather jacket over a Vancouver Canucks T-shirt, he recites his question for the leaders of Canada’s four main political parties. Framed by mountains meeting the ocean in Gibsons, British Columbia, Gold says, “My concern is safety for people in… Continue reading Scary Monsters
Northern Restoration
Television first came to the North in the late 1960s at the request of mining companies that wanted to keep their transient workers occupied through long, dark Arctic winters with southern sitcoms and soap operas. No one consulted the local Inuit population. Transmissions were in French and English and came in one direction: in. One… Continue reading Northern Restoration