He had built him out of spaghetti. The great opera singer, Luciano Pavarottiwas nothing but a mass of noodles, long and stringy, oozing out of a classic black tuxedo. The cartoonist looked at his creation and almost smiled. He leaned back for a moment and glanced out the window of his studio in Clarence Square.… Continue reading The Creative Agonies of Ed Franklin
Series: Spring 1984
Shooting Wars
When CBC’s Vietnam war correspondent Bill Cunningham left the plush surroundings of Phnom-Penh’s Royal Hotel in April, 1970, he knew he was taking a calculated risk. With his cameraman and an American reporter, he was setting out to document the presence of North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia. “The day was hot, dusty and sleepy. We… Continue reading Shooting Wars
The Latest Flash
In a small room midway down a hallway at the University of Western Ontario sits a solitary journalist monitoring Canadian Press wires and writing and rewriting agricultural news. Judith Pratt is compiling Westex, Canada’s first news service adapted for the twoway electronic medium, videotex. Some of Western’s journalism students spend time in this second-floor newsroom… Continue reading The Latest Flash
Out of Commission
We can add the Davey Committee and the Kent Commission to the “boneyards of broken dreams,” the description the Davey report gave to most Canadian newsrooms. It is true that had it not been for the two inquiries, the first on the mass media in general, the second on the daily newspaper industry in particular,… Continue reading Out of Commission
Blatchford Behind the Byline
Christie Blatchford is used to being candid in print. Eleven years after her column first appeared in a campus paper known for its raw look at student life, she is writing for Toronto’s irreverent newspaper, the Sun, enticing readers four times a week with a peek at her personal experiences. But just how often Sun… Continue reading Blatchford Behind the Byline