BRIGHT NOVEMBER SUNSHINE SHONE through the windows in John Honderich’s corner office the day after his fifth anniversary as editor of The Toronto Star. He relaxed in his swivel chair, hands clasped behind his head, and talked about the last five years, a half-decade marred by economic and personnel catastrophes that would curl the hair… Continue reading Lost at Sea
Vision Impossible?
In the March 1991 edition of the Ryerson Review of Journalism, Jack McIver, then editor of The Globe and Mail’s award-winning travel magazine Destinations, boldly predicted the magazine would survive despite a suspect balance sheet and a deep recession that was biting into ad revenues. “I think the Globe’s committed enough to hang tough,” said… Continue reading Vision Impossible?
Peter Desbarat’s Last Stand
WHEN I WAS APPROACHED IN the Windsor Star newsroom last May to sign a petition to save the University of Western Ontario’s Graduate School of Journalism, my reaction was immediate: No Way. I thought closing the school wasn’t a bad idea. I knew times there were tough, since the university had to cut between $10… Continue reading Peter Desbarat’s Last Stand
The Art of the Matter
AROUND APRIL FOOLS’ Day, 1993, Scott Milsom, editor and lone employee-of New Maritimes, sliced open an envelope bearing the Canada Council logo. It was a letter Milsom had anxiously awaited each spring since 1988, when his Halifax-based magazine had received its first small grant-$10,000-after six years of trying. Across town, another April Fools’ Day missive… Continue reading The Art of the Matter
CP Rewired
“If CP didn’t exist, we’d have to create it.” That’s the traditional view of fans of Canadian Press, Canada’s only national news-exchange cooperative. After 76 years in business, CP can certainly be called an institution in Canadian journalism. But in the newspaper world of the nineties, it’s threatening to become a misfit. CP is a… Continue reading CP Rewired
