Part Two: Was My Old Friend Really a Political Assassin? Bertil Wedin tells me later “my idea was to shoot the ones who came close to the building and take their automatic weapons so we could arm ourselves and fight back. We could have succeeded if we’d managed to get some of their guns… But […]
An Old Friend, Rebels and Crocodiles in Congo
Part 1: How I Discovered My Old Friend May Have Been a Hired Killer It’s not every day that you wake up to discover that your old friend might have murdered the prime minister of Sweden. And it’s not every day that you learn that the same old friend might also have bombed the Stockholm […]
The Best Anchorman in Canada
If you’re not planning anything of overwhelming importance this evening I invite you to screen a newish, different, pioneering and quite fascinating one-hour news program. It’s called Kevin Newman Live and it’s on the CTV News Channel weekdays at 9.00 p.m. Already it’s a lot better than the big three national TV news English language […]
Conrad and RoFo: A Meeting of Outraged Minds
There they sit facing each other in Toronto City Hall — two very rich men of much more than considerable girth, strangely similar, radiating mutual admiration, screw-you arrogance and otherworldly chutzpah. On one side, Baron Black of Crossharbour, Member of the Privy Council of Canada, Member of the Order of Canada, Member of the Order […]
Was Rob Ford Really Toronto’s Watergate?
What, you may well ask, is left to say about Robert Bruce Ford, sixty-fourth and current mayor of the city of Toronto? I start Ford columns in the past. But after I get past “oafish” and “brutish” and “human and political train wreck” and “he’s the moral equivalent of a pubescent boy caught stealing his […]
Is It A Sin To Kill A Lion?
Her excitement when she kills an animal is orgasmic. Her name’s Melissa Bachman. She kills wild animals on American TV for a living. Sometimes with a rifle, sometimes with bow and arrow. According to her website, Winchester Deakdly Passion, Melissa enjoys killing. A lot. She has a “genuine and fun loving personality … She’s having fun […]
Who Will Restore the CBC to its Former Glory?
Dear Ms. Conway, In less than two weeks you will be taking over one of the toughest jobs in Canadian broadcasting. Actually, one of the toughest jobs in Canada. My sincere congratulations and even more sincere condolences. We’ve never met. But I worked at CBC for some 15 years (producer The National, executive producer, CBC […]
The Zoomer Has Nothing to Lose
Moses Znaimer and Denise Donlon should be ashamed. Moses is one of Canada’s great broadcasters. He’s a genuine pioneer who founded twenty popular Canadian TV channels and stations including the radical Citytv and MuchMusic. He’s a member of the Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame, is head of ZoomerMedia and holds the Order of […]
Why Citizen Bloggers Aren’t Journalists
Seems I’ve suddenly become a journalism guru to whom young people with stars in their eyes and All The President’s Men in their futures flock for wisdom. And, if it’s not too much trouble sir, can you tell me the ever-popular meaning of life? Or maybe it’s very early mid-term essay time at journalism schools […]