Mourning the golden age of journalism and the magic of random encounters
Tribute: Ward Perrin
Before media outlets became boutiques for different brands of thought and billionaires seeking ego affirmation, newsrooms were a place where friendships were born from shared professional purpose, and a gut need to get the story. Katherine Monk looks back on a newsroom shift when the world changed overnight, and a friendship was born from the tatters of the Iron Curtain.
By Katherine Monk
It’s mourning. In America. Again. I’m not just referring to the most recent mass shootings that left shell casings and broken lives in Nevada, or the broad swath of destruction left by apocalyptic weather patterns in the Midwest. I speak of the profound sense of loss that seems to define the collective psyche right now — not just in America, but everywhere. Take a moment to process the prevailing winds of popular culture. Listen to the lyrics seeking absolute escapism, emotional oblivion and spiritual retribution. Then look at the cankered face of global politics, ...
Touring small town journalism and finding the Koots
Journalism: The Decline of Local Newspapers
Big city papers are nowhere to be found in B.C.'s Kootenays, but you can still find a local weekly with birthday announcements, the lost and found, and reader mail damning CBC Radio for just about anything.
By Rod Mickleburgh
The first of two parts. (Be be still your beating heart.) I spent two rewarding weeks last month travelling the highways and communities of BC’s historic West Kootenays. As I always do when on the road, I looked for local newspapers to give me a sense of what was happening in the places where my squeaky sneakers touched down. At the same time, I still wanted to keep up with events in the rest of the province. Unfortunately, and I’m not sure I should have been surprised, I could not find a single, big-city daily east of the Okanagan. No Sun, no Province, no National Post (yay! oops….), no Globe and Mail.
I could not find a single, big-city daily east of the Okanagan. No Sun, no Province, no National ...
Frozen memories of Finland warm a chilled soul
Travel: Finding A Sense of Faith in Finland
So far, so bad... The New Year's promise of a fresh start turns sour, forcing an old scribe to seek spiritual sustenance from the past via memories of a visit to Scandinavia.
By Rod Mickleburgh
Well, here we are in yet another decade, And, like much of the previous 10 years, with a few exceptions, so far so bad. As the outside world turns increasingly partisan and dark, I found myself seeking some spiritual sustenance from the past. I fastened on a similar passing of time 30 years ago: the last days of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, a decade which proved pivotal in my life and career in a way I never thought possible. My reflections were likely heightened by the fact that it all took place in the country where my mother was born, Finland. I was lucky enough to be living in Paris that year, so it had seemed only natural to spend Christmas and New Year’s revisiting my ancestral roots. It was wonderful. Sparkling snow covered the ...
Remembering Michael Kesterton: An Oasis of Old-Fashioned Civility
Tribute: Michael Kesterton
Though he made his name in journalism with the collection of arcane facts that became the Globe's beloved Social Studies column, Rod Mickleburgh remembers the young, and somewhat awkward, Varsity staffer who shared a quirky sense of humour.
By Rod Mickleburgh
The unexpected can hit you in the solar plexus. Such was my feeling late December, when I received an email from a former colleague at the Globe and Mail giving me the sad news that the one-of-a-kind Michael Kesterton had died. He was best known to Globe readers as the genius behind the assemblage of arcane facts, news, trivia, miscellanea, humour and occasional bits of string that made up the paper’s beloved daily feature, Social Studies, which ran for 23 years. In the midst of all the superb journalism and writing that filled the Globe in those days when I was on the paper (smile), many readers turned first to Social Studies. A hit from the beginning, his unique creation – Twitter before its time ...
Dave Barrett Broke Down Walls of Government
* In light of Dave Barrett's recent passing, we took the opportunity to republish Rod Mickleburgh's thoughtful look at the quiet, yet revolutionary, BC Premier.
Politics: Looking back at the first BC NDP victory in 1972
Rod Mickleburgh remembers the day the "socialist hordes" stormed the gates of Government House and Dave Barrett took the oath of office. There was no ceremony, no dancers, no tweets, but British Columbia would never be the same.
By Rod Mickleburgh
Watching the joyous, almost giddy swearing-in of the province’s new premier and his gender-balanced cabinet, I couldn’t help thinking of BC’s very first transition of power to the NDP, so long ago the Vancouver Sun had two full-time labour reporters. That historic ground-breaker took place way back in 1972, or five years before David Eby, the province’s new Attorney General, was born. July 18 was only the third such right-to-left tilt in BC history. Of course, that’s three more than the zero Stanley Cups won by the ...
The Orillia Packet & Times: A Love Story
Newspaper Obituary: The Orillia Packet & Times
They're closing the newspaper where I made my start, and where I learned about journalism. I guess I'm still learning.
By Jay Stone
(Ottawa, ON -- Nov. 27, 2017) I’ve been in love with several newspapers in my life — journalism tends to be a promiscuous passion — but never more deeply than I was in my first affair with the Orillia Packet & Times. It was the place where I started in the business, and now they’re going to close it down, another victim of Google or smart phones or whatever it is that has driven the wayward press to the fringes of our attention. I went there in 1968 from Toronto, where I was a 22-year-old university dropout driving a cab for a living while I plotted how to become a writer. My father, who brooked no such nonsense, sent me a note — I was living in a hippie house on St. Joseph Street, near Bloor and Yonge, with my longhaired hoodlum friends — saying that he had heard there was an ...
Right to Left: Watching the Political Pendulum Swing
Politics: Looking back at the first BC NDP victory in 1972
Rod Mickleburgh remembers the day the "socialist hordes" stormed the gates of Government House and Dave Barrett took the oath of office. There was no ceremony, no dancers, no tweets, but British Columbia would never be the same.
By Rod Mickleburgh
Watching the joyous, almost giddy swearing-in of the province’s new premier and his gender-balanced cabinet, I couldn’t help thinking of BC’s very first transition of power to the NDP, so long ago the Vancouver Sun had two full-time labour reporters. That historic ground-breaker took place way back in 1972, or five years before David Eby, the province’s new Attorney General, was born. July 18 was only the third such right-to-left tilt in BC history. Of course, that’s three more than the zero Stanley Cups won by the hapless Canucks, and just enough to keep politics interesting and a semblance of two-party democracy alive in BC’s polarized environment. No wonder John ...
Cohen, Prince, Bowie and now… Comparelli
Tribute: R.I.P. Peter Comparelli
A fellow scribe remembers the good old days when journalists spoke truth to power, a per diem could get you drunk and a guy named Peter Comparelli backstopped the labour beat
By Rod Mickleburgh
It has been a terrible year. Bowie and Prince taken far too early. Leonard Cohen leaving us to mourn and light candles against the dark. Long-time friends battling serious health issues. Fake news, the decline of newspapers and the mainstream media, more necessary than ever to hold governments and politicians to account. An antiquated electoral system, an FBI “announcement coup” against Hillary Clinton and Russian hackers delivering a sniveling, bullying, thin-skinned, shallow-thinking prima-donna with the attention span of a child to the White House, while the most adult of U.S. presidents takes his dignified leave. Terrorism in Europe. Aleppo. And now, to cap off this annus horribilis came news of the passing of Peter Comparelli, as lovely a person as ...
Remembering a massacre: A tough pill to swallow
The Sick Days: Part 18
Covering the events of December 6 at L'École Polytechnique was a formative experience, and one a seasoned reporter now thinks she got all wrong.
By Shelley Page
(Published Dec. 2, 2015) The moment my editor told me to get to the airport, my stomach fell as though I was on the down slope of a rollercoaster. I stood in the middle of the newsroom, as a few deskers and reporters stared at me expectantly, wondering if I could possibly decline. I think reporters often dread the unknown of a story and the difficulties that lay ahead to nail it down, but I feared I just wasn’t up to the task. I’d been feeling tired, lupus tired, for days and I was walking like an elderly woman whose joints lacked lubricant. But the killing in Montreal had begun around 5 p.m., and within 20 minutes, 27 people were shot or stabbed. All the dead were young women; fourteen of them. How could I not go? In the Beaches areas apartment I shared with my absentee boyfriend, who ...
Penetrating Helen Gurley Brown
Books: Not Pretty Enough - The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown
New biography of the woman who recreated Cosmopolitan as a vehicle of sexual empowerment reveals lifelong insecurities and a penchant for moisturizing with baking lard
