Journalism’s most fearless reporters take on its toughest question If you’re a journalist and still brave enough to announce that fact on social occasions, you can be more or less assured what the next question will be. “Don’t you worry,” someone will always begin with a sheen of sympathy, “that journalism is dying?” There are […] More »

Sure, the web is rife with nonsense. But real political dialogue thrives too In my more idealistic moments, I always imagine I’ll stumble upon raging intellectual debate on the subway. But based on the conversations I’ve overheard lately, here’s what I can tell you about the public mood in Canada: saving GM is both the […] More »

Professional book reviewing is dead in this country. The CBC could revive it. If Clive Owen were a Canadian author, maybe the CBC would finally review books. Katrina Onstad, a film columnist for CBC.ca, begins a recent review: “The International opens with a long, extended close-up of Clive Owen’s face, following which I jotted in […] More »

Publishers, libraries co-operating to get locally published e-books into the public’s hands If the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. gets its way, the province’s libraries will be making a major acquisition this summer without gaining any weight. The association’s Best of B.C. Books Online project plans to purchase electronic rights to a collection of […] More »

Wired magazine’s current issue contains an interesting essay that’s worth a read, called (in Wired‘s loveable hyperbolic style) “The New Socialism.” With the U.S. economy still in a tailspin and “socialism” back on the political radar there (Obama: is he, or isn’t he?) the time is ripe to seriously ask whether the various political ideologies […] More »

The hype’s died down, but cybercrime still thrives In the 1980s and ’90s, the term hacker struck fear into a public still new to the web — basement-dwelling loafers who were happy to take down a network or website for bragging rights. Since then new online fears have popped up that have reduced hackers to […] More »

Crappy image quality. Tiny screens. Scratchy sound. No thanks The extent of my snobbery has wavered over my years of film-going, but I have always adhered to one fundamental principle. I was trained to believe that seeing movies projected onto a big screen was always the aesthetically correct choice, even if the conditions were less […] More »

On an outdoor patio in Kampala, observers lounge in the near-darkness, watching as an image is projected on a bare white sheet slung between two trees. In Reykjavik, a spellbound audience fills a basement bar and waits for the first slide to illuminate the wall. And in Toronto, a crowded pavilion is abuzz as the […] More »

We’re excited today to unveil the all-new-and-improved, holy-cow-it-took-us-long-enough, next generation This Magazine website, this.org. I flipped the switch on the site early this morning and as far as I can tell all the bells and whistles are working as intended. You can now read our daily blog at this.org and read all the magazine’s print […] More »

Are emerging cut-and-paste art forms ruining narrative storytelling? Before my son Louis could walk, he could surf. He took to the internet like an aquatic creature, swimming easily and confidently. It was cute to see him perched at the computer, his big baby head topped off by a pair of giant headphones. But his avidity […] More »

The web allows immigrants to straddle two worlds like never before As in so many immigrant families, weekend mornings in my house always meant one thing: “our shows” on TV. We are of Indian descent, and the sounds of the latest Bollywood hits were a staple of our Saturdays and Sundays, as much a part […] More »