The day has finally arrived!

Come to the Black Bull Tavern this evening for a drink with our summer 2012 masthead crew. There'll be a lot of exciting raffle prizes, some specialty journalism cupcakes called Buried Leads (chocolate and vanilla cupcakes filled with berries), and a specialty journalism drink called the Toronto Slur (vodka/sour apple/cran) for all journos and journo-lovers attending.

 

Tickets can be purchased at the door for $12. Thanks to all of you who've already bought one; don’t forget to bring it with you! Bring a toonie and you’ll get a cupcake, plus you’ll be entered into the raffle!

A special thanks to the businesses that have generously donated to our student-run publication. We rely on supporters like you to produce our magazine. After all, if we didn’t exist, who'd watch the watchdogs?

See you at 8 p.m.!

"That Was Then, This Is Now" explores the beginnings of some of Canada's favourite writers and journalists

John Macfarlane, seasoned journalist and editor, did not have any experience in news reporting or journalism until his first year of political science at the University of Alberta (now the University of Calgary). Macfarlane got involved with student reporting and started writing for The Gauntlet , the university’s student paper. By the second year of his program, Macfarlane was editor of the paper. 

 

Doyle and Macfarlane kept in touch, and the term Macfarlane should have graduated Doyle offered him a summer position at the Globe. (Macfarlane never actually received his degree because “at the time you needed zoology, and I didn’t pass, so I didn’t graduate,” he says. Macfarlane grabbed the opportunity Doyle offered him, launching his career. 

Macfarlane then spent a year in Ottawa acting as CUP president before returning to a full-time position at the Globe.

Macfarlane has held number of prominent positions over the years. His resume includes being publisher of Saturday Night magazine, editor of Weekend and Toronto Life (twice), and executive editor of Maclean’s. He is now the editor and co-publisher of The Walrus magazine.

Lead image via the National Magazine Awards.

CNN journalist and professional silver fox Anderson Cooper got quite the shock on his daytime talk show, Anderson, late last week.

Cooper's production staff have started a "Mystery Guest" segment on his show where he gets a few hints of whom he'll be meeting, and is then surprised by his next guest.

After the guest revealed three hints about himself, the giddy Cooper realized it was The Fonz himself, Henry Winkler.

Cooper was so excited by Winkler's reveal that he tipped the set's coffee table over right after screaming, "OH MY GOD. HOLY. IS IT FONZIE?"

 

At first glance, Beta620 sounds especially nefarious—perhaps, the name of a chemical substance that will turn us all into Republicans, or a Bond movie plot to destroy United Nations HQ. But in truth, it’s the code name for The New York Times’ experimental projects group. That such a group even exists is a sign that the direction and scope of the journalism industry is shifting, that it's no longer enough to simply report on the issues of the day, but present and interpret them in a meaningful way. Of course, it probably helps that the projects created by the group are actually quite cool too.

 

Tony Burman gestures to the projector screen to his left, and it floods with riot footage from the Egyptian revolt against former president Hosni Mubarak. Al Jazeera’s cameras captured scenes that make Toronto’s G20 look like a playground squabble: mobs trying to topple a police van into the Nile, civilians shot while carrying bodies out of the mob’s warpath, ecstatic crowds in Tahrir Square when Mubarak announced his resignation.

Burman, the former head of Al Jazeera English and, before that, CBC News, presented a lecture titled “News Over Noise in the Age of Al Jazeera” as a part of Ryerson’s International Issues discussion series on January 18. Speaking without a microphone, Burman captivated the hall full of students and faculty, recounting memories of working as a broadcast journalist in the Middle East. He contrasted highlights such as witnessing Nelson Mandela being freed from prison with low points, like the ramifications of the American government turning on Al Jazeera during the war on Iraq. Burman stands firmly opposed to the superficial coverage of Eastern affairs generated by most of the American media outlets, and says his goal is to help his audience understand the whole story, not just a slice. 

 

"That Was Then, This Is Now" explores the beginnings of some of Canada's favourite writers and journalists

“In Grade 12, my English teacher came to me and said The Sault Star was putting together something called the Teen Page,” says the Toronto Star’s award-winning investigative reporter Dale Brazao, remembering his first experience in journalism. Every Friday, the paper would dedicate one page to the four high schools in Sault Ste. Marie. Brazao’s teacher told him he had “the gift of storytelling” and urged him to apply. “So I volunteered, and I became the teen writer for [my school] in The Sault Star every Friday,” he recalls.

 

This hasn't been the most exemplary week for our craft. It's a week in which popular Independent columnist Johann Hari officially left his job because of plagiarism; in which disgraced journalist (and storyteller) Stephen Glass may be licensed to practise law; in which Rush Limbaugh proposed an investigation into the personal life of the ABC News journalist who had the gall to interview Newt Gingrich's ex-wife.

Actually, let's just deal with that last one for now. Some of you might have seen last Thursday's GOP debate, wherein moderator and CNN anchor John King opened with a question to Gingrich about Brian Ross's interview with the former speaker's ex-wife, Marianne Ginther, who said that Newt had asked for an open marriage. To which Gingrich responded: "I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that."

 

In any case, Ross's interview led Rush Limbaugh to question why a journalist's own personal life should be off-limits, asking, "Are journalists faithful?" His point was that journalists are rarely subjected to the kind of probing their subjects are (obviously). But what Rush the Uniter was getting at, in his inimitable way, was the same age-old issue of the liberalized media. A Gallup poll last fall found that 47 percent of Americans perceive a distinctly liberal bias in the mass media, whereas only 13 percent perceive a conservative one. No surprise there. The issue of media bias—and more precisely, a left-leaning media bias—has been going around (and around, and around...) for decades. It's a topic that isn't covered in journalism schools as much as it probably should be.

It's not just the bias, though: it's that we're so blatant about it. Nobody expects a journalist to be completely neutral, and anyone who says she is is full of shit. The interview with Ginther was indeed scandalous, and no hard-hitting reporter (or moderator) would avoid the question. But how 'bout some tact? It's one thing to ask a scandalous question; it's quite another to start a supposedly professional debate with the most gossipy issue at hand. It makes all journalists look bad, because the viewer witnesses directly where Gingrich's response is coming from. ("Goddamn liberals! They're at it again!") Journalists aren't doing themselves any favours with this kind of publicity; there's a pettiness to the approach that has become more common over the last decade. You can see it in Toronto: more columnists would rather poke fun at Rob Ford's weight or his cuss words than do the hard work of deducing whatever serious policy faults he might have.

Point the finger where you will. (I blame leftover Gen-X resentment.) And expect to hear more talk than ever in 2012 about an out-of-touch media. Sure, it might get irritating for us journalists. But we can't say it won't be exciting, and it's been too long since our chosen field has been forced to confront itself with this level of bile-fuelled scrutiny. Bring it on. It's been a bad week, but it'll be a good year.

Lead image via The Associated Press/The Washington Times.

An article posted on The Guardian’s women’s blog recently highlighted an interesting British magazine trend. According to writer Anita Chaudhuri, more U.K. women's magazines are featuring women of colour on their covers, including InStyle (U.K.) and Psychologies. Chaudhuri wonders if this means magazines are becoming more diverse.

 

While there has certainly been a shift in recent years, there is still a predominantly Caucasian trend.

While it's admirable that British magazines have been putting an ethnically diverse group of women on their covers over the last few months, it would be even better if this trend became the norm—not only in the U.K., but everywhere else. Rihanna graced the cover of American Vogue in April 2011, every cover since has featured a white woman.

The old excuses are wearing thin, after all. In the United States, the issues with the best sales featured white women (and Justin Bieber). But so did the covers that performed the worst. So newsstand sales aren't a strong indicator that ethnic covers would fare poorly. Canada, despite its boasts of diversity and multiculturalism, doesn’t feature much colour on its magazines either. In a society that is supposed to be so culturally inclusive, our media are not exactly doing the best job. So maybe what’s been happening in the U.K. recently is the beginning of something significant. Maybe in a few years, everyone can stop talking about what colour the person on her magazine is and go back to talking about how skinny they are instead.