Anne Thériault on what she's learned from Netflix, iPads, and her seven-year-old
Anne Thériault
Now that my son is seven, our weekend mornings have gelled into a proper routine. He wakes up at some ungodly hour—earlier, by the way, than he gets up on weekdays—and plays for a while in his room. When he’s tired of that, he’ll grab a couple of granola bars from the kitchen and then […] More »
Writer Thelma Fayle jumps back into the world of TV and finds value in the medium that she never did before
Thelma Fayle
In the 1980s, Dan Hubbard and Richard Catinus were two brainy young guys trying to sell Apple computers when I was working in a government office that used IBMs. While outlining the advantages of using a Mac for my work, Dan mentioned in passing that, after reading Jerry Mander’s book, Four Arguments for the Elimination […] More »
The Canadian government wants TV to look as diverse as our country—but producers just want to make a quick buck
Aadil Brar
“Do Canadians really use the word ‘eh?'” “Yes, they do.” Welcome to one of OMNI television network’s flagship shows, Your New Life in Canada. Produced in English, Punjabi, Cantonese, and other languages, it offers a taste of Canadian lifestyle, culture, and language to newcomers to Canada and covers everything from how food differs in Canada […] More »
We shouldn't have to rely on stereotyped characters to see ourselves in the shows and movies we consume
Lisa Whittington-Hill
I am quite open about the fact that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. Talking about it comes easy to me. More difficult to handle are the reactions I get from others. “So are you like that nerd on The Big Bang Theory?” someone in a work meeting recently joked after I mentioned my […] More »
In this edition: queer adult summer camp, lack of supports for veterans, and more
Sara Tatelman
THE GOOD NEWS: – Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card—or when you can build your own personal book collection. Since February, Winnipeg non-profit Share the Magic has donated books to nursery and kindergarten classrooms each month. Meanwhile, Calgary’s Love With Humanity Association has founded a multicultural outdoor library with books in Punjabi […] More »
The two died by suicide just days apart, but the coverage of their deaths that followed was stark in its gendered differences
Lisa Whittington-Hill
The new issue of People magazine has both celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer Kate Spade on its cover. Sadly, the magazine is the only weekly tabloid to give both stars the cover treatment, with other magazines featuring only Bourdain. When Spade and Bourdain died by suicide, just days apart, tributes and tweets celebrated the […] More »
For a long time I thought of journalism as something I did in my spare time, not as a part of my identity. I was lucky enough to stumble into this field, becoming arts editor at the Varsity, the University of Toronto’s student newspaper, in 2016. Then the wave of sexual harassment allegations began. Story […] More »
The change, aimed to curb fake news, could leave indie outlets stranded. But it may also promote a move to more meaningful content—the stuff independents are best known for
Facebook has killed news. Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced early last month that the network’s algorithm was changing to show “less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media” in users’ news feeds, instead highlighting personal posts that “encourage meaningful interactions between people.” The announcement cost him more than $3 billion of his own personal […] More »
In an era in which circulation figures for most newspapers are falling faster than water over Niagara Falls, do newspaper endorsements in election campaigns still matter? At the risk of appropriating the language of click-bait, the answer may surprise you. While the Canadian experience is less immediate and, even among the most politically engaged Canadians, […] More »
In the seconds after Melania Trump handed Michelle Obama a Tiffany box at the 2017 presidential inauguration, Jason Wong—from breakfast at a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Los Angeles—raced to rewind the livestream he’d been watching on the Twitter app. “My brain clicked,” recalls the 20-year-old. “I wanted to post about it before anybody else did.” […] More »
Justin Trudeau has reached the midway point of his term as prime minister. But after two years in power, how much change has he truly made? In this special report, we grade Trudeau’s performance—and our PM has some serious work to do. TRUDEAU’S MEDIA PRESENCE: C- “When American news is dominated by a president with no […] More »