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September-October 2022

Diversifying Canada’s oldest journalism school

In 2020, journalism students and alumni called out systemic racism and demanded change. Is Carleton doing the work?

Meral Jamal

In the summer of 2020, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, the world had its re-reckoning with racism, and so did the place where I studied, Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication. It began when George Floyd, a Black American, died on May 25 of that year after being pinned to the ground […] More »
July-August 2022

Sex, lies, and the city

What And Just Like That… gets wrong about women’s friendships

Danita Steinberg

Photo by INSTAR Images / Alamy Stock Photo When it first aired over two decades ago, Sex and the City’s fantasy lay in an idyllic New York City lifestyle of affordable rent, flowing cosmopolitans, closets full of expensive designer fashion, a revolving door of attractive men for one and all, and an endless string of […] More »
May-June 2022

Spotlight on storytellers

Podcast uplifts Indigenous voices

Michaela Stephen

Photos courtesy Jennifer David & Waubgeshig Rice When Jennifer David decided to start Storykeepers, a podcast that spotlights Indigenous literature, she knew Waubgeshig Rice was her only choice for a co-host. He was an experienced journalist with CBC, a published author—most recently of the bestseller Moon of the Crusted Snow (ECW Press, 2018)—and they were […] More »
May-June 2022

Climate coverage crisis

Canadian media needs to reflect climate emergency

Dhriti Gupta

Photo by iStock; Design by Valerie Thai In August 2021, the UN Secretary-General declared the findings of a recent global climate report “a code red for humanity.” In response, a team of journalists and researchers released the “Climate Coverage in Canada” report in November, which heard from 143 scientists, 148 journalists, and 1,006 members of […] More »
May-June 2022

2000s music video looks are back…

But we’re not dangerously in love with it all

Jody Anderson

In Scarborough, Ontario, in Cedarbrae Mall, down the escalator and across from the Dollarama, there’s Frugo, a store that feels very much like a flea market. There you’ll find an assortment of items that range from vintage to essential. A few years ago, I found a small orange faux leather handbag and modelled it in […] More »
March-April 2022

New voices in the city

Calgary media collective explores the Black experience

Zawadi Bunzigiye

“Our goal was amplifying Black voices,” says Ado Nkemka, deputy editor of Calgary-based media collective Afros In Tha City. The media collective is the only one of its kind in Mohkínstsis/Calgary, exploring topics relevant to the Black experience and supporting the voices of Black journalists in a hegemonically white media landscape. Founded in 2016, it […] More »
November-December 2021

High School Musical lied to me

A youthful obsession with High School Musical leads to not knowing the truth about North American schools

Zeahaa Rehman

In the summer of 2008, I became obsessed with High School Musical. My family and I were “visiting” my paternal uncle in Canada at the time. I say “visit,” because it was more of a two-month trial for my parents to gauge whether or not they wanted to immigrate here from Lahore, Pakistan. During the […] More »
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

Oops! … we did it again

Many are caught up in her legal battles and conservatorship, but more people should be paying attention to Britney Spears’s music

Sydney Urbanek

“Sometimes people’s … personal life becomes bigger than their work,” says pop star Britney Spears at one point during Framing Britney Spears, the New York Times-produced documentary released in February 2021. Though the complaint backgrounds a montage of Spears being chased around by paparazzi in the late 2000s, it may as well have been issued […] More »
November-December 2021

Pop culture is political

From our November-December 2021 editor's note

Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

  Things I have been involved with in my life include anti-gentrification activism, a sex worker arts festival, protesting a youth superjail, harm reduction work, community radio, a feminist bookstore, and independent publishing. I’ve also watched 11 years of The Bachelor franchise, likely more than that of The Hills and related shows, and could draw […] More »
July-August 2021

An independent alternative

The Sprawl offers Albertans a progressive perspective

Sydney Hildebrandt

Jason Kenney, the United Conservative Party (UCP) premier of Alberta, is the best thing to happen to The Sprawl, says Jeremy Klaszus, the publication’s editor-in-chief. Under Kenney’s leadership, the UCP’s approach to controversial issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate action has divided Albertans. Polarization is especially evident between rural and urban residents. Individuals […] More »