Right off, an ugly problem stood between me and my assignment to write a piece on CBC Newsworld, “the all-news channel for Canadians.” I would have to watch it. Try it sometime. While you yawn your way through another Capital Report or Ontario Update you get a small dose of what it must be like… Continue reading The Snooze at Six
Series: Spring 1992
Just another Saturday Plight
Saturday Night, the magazine that hasn’t made a penny for more than 40 years, has always been a hard sell. And now that the venerable but perennially money-losing magazine is operating on a controlled-circulation basis, few media forecasters are predicting an easier economic future. At the magazine’s glitzy launch party last October at Toronto’s Royal… Continue reading Just another Saturday Plight
The Art of Book Balancing
During the fall of 1990 a memo was sent by Montreal Gazette entertainment editor Brian Kappler to associate managing editor Michael Cooke regarding the book section. It read, in summary: Feature novels closer to public taste (Danielle Steele, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum). Scrap the French best-seller list. Limit commissioned reviews to five a week. Shorten… Continue reading The Art of Book Balancing
No Free Lunch Hour
Windsor Star editor Carl Morgan and reporter Alan Abrams were two blocks apart when they spotted each other that lunch hour in March 1989. Abrams, walking a CBC radio picket line, knew he’d been caught in the act. It was an act that would have potentially profound consequences for Canadian journalists. “Oh shit. Here’s Carl,… Continue reading No Free Lunch Hour
Paved with good intentions
When I first meet Peter Armstrong, he’s sitting at his desk eating chocolate-chip cookies. “I’ve got about 10 extra pounds of chocolate on me,” he says, laughing. “Do you want one?” As a recovering alcoholic, Armstrong is all too familiar with how one addiction can replace another. In fact, this idea is central to the… Continue reading Paved with good intentions