COVID-19: The Day We'll Never Forget, as a UofT Fellow-at-Large
Obviously, this represents my own thoughts and is in no way a communication representative of either Massey College or the University of Toronto. The University of Toronto’s official Coronavirus information page is here: https://www.utoronto.ca/message-from-the-university-regarding-the-coronavirus I experience life at the University of Toronto with an interesting perspective as a…
From Populism to Principlism
The wave of populism, a response to the failings and corruption of politics in our society, may shift to what I will term principlism – the election of new leaders known for their principled stances and willingness to make difficult decisions in favour of the wider society. Instead…
Holi at Massey College
The graduate students at Massey College celebrated Holi Saturday, I took some photographs during the event. The photos are in a Flickr album here. This is my favourite photo of the group, because I know the people and it captures their playfulness. Only moments before, the woman reacting…
Groundhog Day, Again
It’s Groundhog Day, and I almost didn’t notice this year. Thankfully, during my Sunday office hours, someone started a debate about the predictions. At which point, I started playing Groundhog Day on repeat, over and over again all day. I’ve been a fan of the movie since I…
Multi-Ball VI – January 29, 2020
Multi-ball is what I’m entitling posts with many short thoughts and links. Yes, I’m using a pinball term. Photo: Flowers in my office at Massey College. Preparing for Exams Public transit scheduling is complicated, or at the least learning the equations of transportation engineering requires a lot of…
Multi-Ball V – January 28, 2020
Multi-ball is what I’m entitling posts with many short thoughts and links. Yes, I’m using a pinball term. Photo: Buses at Union Station Sunday morning as I left Toronto. You Can GO Home for The Day ‘We haven’t seen you in awhile’, the barista at Durand Coffee says…
Trains to Life, Trains to Death – Constant Reminders of the Holocaust in Berlin
It is a simple sculpture beside Berlin’s second busiest transit station. A vivid reminder of the humanity’s capacity for evil, the inhumanity which exists within each one of us. The inscription on the sculpture’s plaque is simple: Züge in das LebenZüge in den Tod1938 – 1945Trains to LifeTrains…
You Better Be Local to Cover Local
In 2012, Robert Niles, writing for the University of Southern Calfornia Annerberg’s Online Journalism Review explained one of the greatest failings of congolmerate journalism: the preference for non-local journalist in hiring by local newspapers. Entitled “Want to cover local? Then you’d better BE local!“, Niles explains why non-local…
CJR: In Justin Amash, a litmus test for partisan media’s influence
Justin Amash is the fifth-term representative for Michigan’s Third Congressional District, elected five times as a Republican, Amash is now an independent. He wrote about why he left the Republican Party in a July op-ed published by the Washington Post. He, like all members of the House of…
Notepad: Conservatives, Media Credibility, and Journalistic Norms
During the next nine months, my blog will become a notepad of sorts for my research at the University of Toronto as a Journalism Fellow. Tonight’s reading, is “A Multilevel Examination of Local Newspaper Credibility” from the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 95, no. 1 (March 2018): 76–95.…