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November-December 2021

The new and not-so-improved Naughty Aughties

Reboots and reunions are re-envisioning early 2000s TV, but the changes they’re making are disappointingly surface-level

Joelle Kidd

Every week, when I was a teenager, I used to squirrel my hand-me-down laptop away to my bedroom and scour the internet’s sketchy streaming sites for the latest episode of Gossip Girl. (I couldn’t watch it on the family TV—after all, it was, per its marketing, “every parent’s nightmare.”) From quippy dialogue, to attempts at […] More »
November-December 2021

Another dystopia is possible

It’s time for sci-fi to imagine better futures for sex workers

Sid Drmay

I love sci-fi. I have since I was a kid, and I especially love weird cyberpunk movies. Lately, though, the main thing I notice in sci-fi is creators’ inability to envision a world without violence against sex workers. This really hit me watching both the 1982 film Blade Runner and the 2018 Netflix original Altered […] More »
November-December 2021

Inside The Real Housewives’ feminism

The franchise might be known as toxic and trashy, but the reality reveals something different

Sadaf Ahsan

In its 15 years on television, here is a mere sample of the delicious moments Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise has come to be known for: New York housewife Aviva Drescher pulling off her prosthetic leg and throwing it across a room while shouting, “The only thing that is artificial or fake about me is this!”; […] More »
November-December 2021

Dear Alexis Rose

Let’s address your casual racism

Alisha Mughal

Dear Alexis, You once said you escaped a Thai drug lord’s car by bribing him with sex. You said that one of your longest relationships was a three-month affair with a Saudi Prince, but you spent two of these months trying to escape from his palace to an embassy. These are only a couple of […] More »

On taking a pop culture time out

Lisa Whittington-Hill

A couple of weeks ago, I came home to my worst nightmare. I turned on my television and nothing happened. No picture, no noise, not even some static or a TV test pattern. I was overcome with fear. No Chuck Bass. No feeling better about my evening wine consumption via the drunks on Intervention. No […] More »
September-October 2011

Interview: Nieman fellow David Skok on Canadian journalism’s digital future

Paul McLaughlinWebsite@paulmcl

David Skok, the managing editor of GlobalNews.ca, checked into Harvard University in September to begin a one-year Nieman Fellowship. The 33-year-old is the first Canadian digital journalist to receive the prestigious award. He’ll be studying “how to sustain Canadian journalism’s distinct presence in a world of stateless news organizations.” He spoke with This two weeks […] More »
September-October 2011

Eight hours in the wacky, wonderful world of Sun News Network

Kaitlin FontanaWebsite@kaitlinfontana

ASSIGNMENT Watch the fledgling Sun News Network, infamously nicknamed “Fox News North,” for eight hours. Note distinguishing characteristics, rate credibility and journalistic bona fides, and measure decibel levels of hosts’ shouting. Hypothesize audience size and composition. Compare and contrast with American forerunner Fox News. Administer wine as needed. 4:00 PM The Caldwell Account with host […] More »

Lying on TV and Radio newscasts will soon be totally OK, says CRTC

dylan c. robertson

The CRTC’s in the news again, this time for proposing that journalists can lie, as long as no one gets hurt. Last week the CRTC asked the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to review its ban of unedited version of the Dire Straits’ 1985 song “Money for Nothing.” The 25-year-old hit, which has since started climbing on iTunes, […] More »
November-December 2010

On a borderless internet, how will we nurture Canadian content?

Navneet AlangWebsite

In 1999, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission took a hard look at the then-burgeoning internet. They then did what many Canadians would consider a very un-CRTC-like thing: they decided not to regulate it. That may come as something of a surprise, as we tend to think that if the CRTC has a thing, it’s […] More »
September-October 2010

How the web blurs the line between truth and falsehood

Navneet AlangWebsite

Though you might reasonably condemn the modern internet for a variety of reasons—ruining attention spans, turning all public discourse into a shouting match, or insulting your sexual prowess with badly punctuated mass emails—one thing the medium could always reasonably claim was its potential for spreading truth. Decentralized and egalitarian, the web seemed to herald the […] More »
July-August 2010

It’s not TV. It’s George F. Walker

Emily LandauWebsite

After decades of populist programming, serialized television has blossomed into an auteur’s medium over the last decade. This new golden age is marked by subtle characterization and complex narrative: American cable networks such as HBO and AMC have pioneered the revolution with series like The Sopranos, Mad Men and The Wire. Here in Canada, playwright […] More »