This is a story of cliches. An interview with Norman Webster sounds like a journalism 101 class, or an introduction to journalistic ethics. Norman Webster is fair to the extreme and adamant in his belief that every point of view has a right to be heard. If there is a “Queen’s scout” of Canadian journalism,… Continue reading Back Where he Belongs
Tag: Globe and Mail
On Being Fired
It was mid-May of 1991 and I was fresh off the plane from Vancouver, sitting in a Queen Street West restaurant eating Thai noodles with Globe and Mail editors John Cruickshank and Phil Jackman and explaining the cognitive indignities I had planned for their readers in the coming year. After nearly a year as the… Continue reading On Being Fired
Whipping Boy
Marty York sits alone at the front of the plane. There are 35 players, coaches and other writers on board, but they shy away from him. While York displays no anger, his helpless expression reflects hurt and frustration. He looks like a misfit kid being picked on at recess only the bullies in this case… Continue reading Whipping Boy
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
Looking Back on a Legend
Ralph Allen was angry. You could tell by the way his face changed color, and it was now a deep shade of red. The staffers of Maclean’s magazine, all sitting at tables in a private room of a Bay Street restaurant, shifted uneasily in their seats. The 1950s were drawing to a close, and Maclean’s… Continue reading Looking Back on a Legend