MONTREAL — The woman to my left probably wants me removed from the premises. Ten people have already tried to steal my seat and I’m not even grateful for the view. I’m drawing whales and giraffes in my notebook, pausing only to yawn and to check that no one’s swiped my bag. I gave up… Continue reading Watching the Media Detectives
Series: Fall 2006
The Game of the Name
It’s mid-morning. Tu Thanh Ha is at work writing a story about a Canadian astronaut’s spacewalk. He’s been up since 4 a.m. covering the event and expects to head home soon from The Globe and Mail‘s four-person bureau in Montreal. As Ha types, The Toronto Star‘s news editor Alan Christie arrives at 1 Yonge Street… Continue reading The Game of the Name
Pssst … Try the Back Door to Cyberspace
In the belly of the red sandstone Munk Centre at the University of Toronto, down two flights of stairs and hallways that twist and turn, computer hacking meets political activism at Citizen Lab. The hum of 20 computers reverberates against the clickety-clacking of fingers on keyboards as Nart Villeneuve, the lab’s director of technical research,… Continue reading Pssst … Try the Back Door to Cyberspace
The Little Paper That Shrank
On the night of Tuesday, September 19, Toronto Sun city hall reporter Rob Granatstein heard something that upset him. Please say it isn’t so, wrote Granatstein in an email to Jim Jennings. Right now, I’m still your editor-in-chief, replied Jennings. Wait until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. Then we’ll talk. At 10 a.m. the next morning… Continue reading The Little Paper That Shrank
It’s a Shame About Pay
In spite of the rain, the Word on the Street festival site in Toronto buzzes with local readers and writers looking for a good deal on magazine subscriptions, someone to publish their opuses or perhaps an autograph from a favourite CBC personality. On the eastern curve of the Queen’s Park roundabout, where the festival is… Continue reading It’s a Shame About Pay