UPDATE: On their new labour relations mini-site the Chronicle Herald explains the rationale for removing the “equal pay” clause from the union’s contract. “While the clause was removed, it was replaced with even stronger language that reflects the laws of the province. What we have proposed is, in fact, more inclusive than what the union has […]
Journalism
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Tina Fey plays her least Tina Fey-iest character in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a book she optioned because a reviewer called the author a “Tina Fey character.” We begin in 2003, where Fey’s Kim Baker (her real-life counterpoint is Kim Barker; why the single-letter name change?) has just been deployed from her boring job writing teleprompter […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How the Chronicle Herald is demolishing its newsroom
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It really sucks being a journalist these days. That’s more true than ever at the Chronicle Herald. Beleaguered newsroom staff at the daily paper are facing another blow as management walked away from the conciliation table late last week after asking unionized employees for aggressive cuts. The paper’s latest offer to newsroom staff will […]
Posted inArts + Music
Watch this short doc on the benefits of medical marijuana
“Weed is way more than just weed,” says Tristan Williams, the subject of a new short doc on the ‘undeniable benefits’ of medicinal marijuana by Abandoned Spirt House Films, founded in Halifax a few years ago by King’s College grads Roland Eksteins and Nicolas Bergeron. Both Eksteins and Bergeron are currently videographers in residence at The Banff […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Going surfing on donair sauce, from Montreal to Halifax
I don’t know how I ended up thinking that a 22-hour train ride could be fun, or even somehow humanly possible. I was blissfully ignorant when I boarded my train from Montreal to Halifax on June 21. My editor at Urbania magazine had sent me to the Maritimes to investigate this seemingly cool alternative newspaper, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
1,000 issues of The Coast
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 This week’s print copy of our newspaper is a milestone: the 1,000th issue of The Coast. And whether you are a longtime reader or a newbie, you are part of this accomplishment. So thanks, and congratulations. Feel free to raise your voice in song to welcome The Coast’s millennium. One thousand issues ago, The […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best Newspaper Writer
“It’s been a crazy year,” says the ever-popular arts and entertainment reporter for the Chronicle-Herald. He rattles off a list of festivals and shows he enjoyed—In The Dead of Winter, Stanfest (“to see Sarah Harmer come out of hibernation”)—movies—Inglourious Basterds, District 9 (“It was a good year for genre movies”)—and indie releases—York Redoubt, The Got […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Foul language
Veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass received a lifetime achievement award last week in New York for her unrelenting coverage of the oppression of Palestinians in Israel’s occupied territories. During her acceptance speech to the International Women’s Media Foundation, Hass confessed that she didn’t really have a lifetime of “achievement,” only a long record of failure. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Peter Duffy to do something or another for Peter Kelly
Update, 2 September, 2009: Coast listings editor Holly Gordon has discovered Duffy’s “raped by a ghost” columns archived, here. I often dream of doing an April Fool’s Day all-satire version of The Coast, with utterly ridiculous articles throughout. Problem is, reality trumps anything we could come up with. Today, there’s this news: A former columnist […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
CBC dumbs down news
These are grim days for Halifax journalists. After The Daily News shut down last year, other media cut their reporting staffs to the bone. Yet, on Monday, August 31, CBC is launching a brand new, expanded 90-minute supper-hour show. Please don’t break out the champagne. Not if you care about local news. As I point […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Letters from the Herald‘s editor
Hi Stephen, I guess this is what happens when a person doesn’t make time for a sit-down interview with you, eh? I’ve attached a rundown of basic journalistic errors and omissions in your piece that appeared today in The Coast. I’d expect some of them from a first-year student, but from such an eminent professor, […]