Something else that's missing from this story is Canadian content.

I'm quite OK with knowing how the rest of the world writes but with so many great authors in Canada (and Deborah Campbell was speaking at U.B.C.?!) surely there needed to be a solid connection laid down between this culture of ours, right here and now, and the ones she's talking about.

Or, to be utterly truthful, some rationale for why Canadian culture was completely ignored here.

Surely to gosh, all truths don't begin and end in the New York Times. And she's from Adbusters? Give me strength.

Excellent article.

A lot of the 'old style' journalists were superb literary journalists. Some of that may have been the education most received before the sixties, where by grade eight one had taken latin (and thus had a fuller understanding of language) and a formalized understanding of grammar etc and had to memorize an enormous amount of work from the great poets etc.

Journalism is an art form, always has been.

Eg. Robertson Davies, Samuel Clemens, Damon Runyon, etc. set high standards.

Journalism, Communications, and English majors attempt to use written-language to write about human behaviour, eco-systems, viruses etc. Without studying scientific topics like human-evolution, genetics, biology... it is not possible.

In recent Terry Fox-related cancer stories journalists turned everything into human interest stories instead of identifying known cancer-causing chemicals that politicians readily allow people to be exposed to.

In the past scientific facts were not readily available for journalists but there is no such excuse today. Doesn't science count as non-fiction?

An excellent literary journalist, who worked for the Toronto Star back in the 1920's prior to embarking on his literary fiction career, was Ernest Hemingway.

OK, so that's not exactly Canadian content, but his collected articles from that time make very interesting reading (particularly some of his perspectives on Canada). But Hemingway very definitely used a literary narrative style.

So there's nothing new about this form of writing.

The larger assertion of the piece, that this longer literary form is growing in popularity, is interesting. I think there could certainly be a growing niche market for it, particularly as the genre moves online along with readers. I'm not quite as confident many will be able to make a decent living at it.

While an examination of journalism is as necessary as the corrective actions that must follow, I think a less artsy-fartsy title to the article might have produced more feedback.

I very much look forward to an analysis of this very medium that we now are using to receive and transmit information, opinion and ideas.

There is little doubt that its awesome power is threatening to some who are not going to just roll over. We should not take the medium for granted - nor remain complacent when assaults upon it occur.

In short, we are not immune to what is being reported to be happening, in government attacks on Web freedom in Asia.

I find myself both agreeing with BC Mary when she writes:

"Something else that's missing from this story is Canadian content."

I am pleased that BC Mary is against not having Canadian content. I am pleased that she is broad-minded enough to complain about the lack of Canadian content and not be more specific (and more old style provincial) in demanding more BC content. As I have written in these pages before we seem to be limited to an arts coverage in the Tyee that can serve both Vancouver and Atlin. BC. Since there is no ballet, modern dance, theatre, art gallery openings, jazz, new music, classical music, baroque music,etc in Atlin the arts coverage of this cyber rag is limited to a "world view" of American TV and films. Those who write about neocons write about American neocons. In short this feisty Tyee is much too concerned about the US.

I feel fortunate to be able to read in Spanish so I can read the exquisite literary non fiction of José Saramago's two published diaries (translated from the Portuguese). I can read the interesting and refreshingly anti-American newspaper columns (published in two volumes)of Cartagena born Arturo Perez-Reverte. But I am specially glad to have read Francisco Umbral's Mortal Y Rosa. This 1972 diary of his reaction to the death of his young son is listed as a novel. It may not be a novel. What is novel is this Spanish author's innovative and electric style which to me is so lacking in the books reviewed in our BC publications. BC Mary it's not that there is no Canadian content here. There should be Canadian content but it should share the space with the works of so many authors that just don't happen to be American. Authors that happen to be citizens of all those other countries so rarely made evident here.

Alex is onto something here. I found it totally refreshing while I was in India to see almost no reference to America in Indian newspapers, albeit a preponderence of news about China. Not perfect but it beats reading Tyee stories and postings going on and on and on and on about the USA...

As one who often posts about the US neo-con and what is happening right now in our history, I can say that to ignore the invasion happening right now would be surreal. It is impossible not to have this fact contextualizing everything that is happening today including cutbacks for Canadian arts and culture and including the fascination with other more palatable matters. At this point ignoring the US is like ignoring an angry drunk with a two-by-four at a dinner party. Nice if you can do it. But, it might get you hurt and at the very least it temporarily disrupts any reasonable repartee.

Re redrivergirl. I think that concentrating on thh US invasion serves no purpose. The invaders are here and so many Canadians watch American TV and read American novels or read American magazines. Redrivergirl you write:

"including cutbacks for Canadian arts and culture and including the fascination with other more palatable matters."

I believe that cutbacks for Canadian arts and culture have to be examined more closely. As an ex member of the board of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, some three years ago I noticed that a Friday and Saturday night concert was not selling at all. On a Wednesday I call CBC Radio's Paul Grant and asked him if he wanted to to talk to a full-grown man who sang in a falsetto. Paul interviewed Canadian countertenor Matthew White outside the CBC building that afternoon as he could not get any studio time. The interview was aired on Thursday morning in the Arts Report and later that afternoon. Both concerts nearly sold out. A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about the close connection between sex and ballet as a Saturday preview to Ballet BC's Carmen. The article,which appeared in the Vancouver Sun was accompanied by large photographs of the extremely attractive dancers. Ballet BC's Carmen sold out.

I believe that giving a lot of money to arts organizations isn't the only answer if we want to preserve our home-grown culture. I believe that we have to promote it by explaining and educating people to its charms through whatever media process we can come up with. The CBC (more so in radio) not only promotes Canadian composers and Canadian music but also through its CBC Radio Orchestra is one of the few avenues for composers of new music to hear their own music in their lifetime and to have it recorded for posterity. The CBC's cross country program In Performance unites audiences in Canada to programs played in other cities. I helps those cities to find out what's playing and what's hot elsewhere. Yet there has been no concerted campaign to extend this cultural mandate to the CBC. Concerts are recorded with skeleton crews who are masters of using the latest technology.

This feisty web magazine could promote our radio culture in a series of articles on the subject since so many of those performances can be heard by radio audiences in Atlin or Fort Nelson. Articles on modern dance might lure some of those in Atlin to demand those acts travel to the hinterland. After all the Vancouver Opera is doing just that this year with its juvenile opera Naomi's Road. The 45 minute long opera is designed to bring an awareness of the joys of opera to schools in hard to reach areas of our province.

In short we don't have to dwell on the American cultural invasion if we dwell on our very own culture. And this does not mean that it has to be 100% Canadian. After all there are so many of our dancers who shine in ballet and dance groups in Europe. There is a rich unifying mesh of local (Vancouver) musicians who share the fact that they all studied in that cultural explosion that is Holland. We could profit from studying how such a tiny country can shine so culturally.

Mexico has a month long festival of photography in September when most of the galleries (nationwide) host photography exhibitions. The Mexico City Metro has photography exhibitions on its station walls that month. There is a huge catalogue of the shows printed by the government.

And one more for you. Has anybody here ever read my favourite Canadian author (or even hear of him)? J. Robert Janes. We are too busy buying Grisham books to realize we have a better author right here in Canada. showmensontibipahydel

Ignoring American culture does not mean we have to be all inclusive in our rejection of it. The author of this essay on journalism should not have forgotten one of the best in the genre. When I read one of the installments of John McFee's La Place de la Concorde Suisse in the New Yorker while flying somewhere I was hooked to this sort of thing.

I have enjoyed the essays of the recently departed baseball enthusiast Stephen J. Gould, too. And we can not forget our very own Canadian Ross King (writes novels, also) in such magical books as Brunelleschi's Dome and Michellangelo and the Pope's Ceiling. There are the books by the Argentine/Canadian Alberto Manguel as well as South African/Canadian Margaret Visser (The Geometry of Love).

The essays on how everyday things work by American engineer Henry Petrovski are gems as are some of the more recent essays on plants, rare plants and such. The books on trees (with magnificent photographs) by the British Thomas Pakenham are a good example. We need not limit ourselves to read about photography in the essay On Photography by Susan Sontag (an American)as there are plenty of used copies of Roland Barthes Camera Lucida to be found in the many used bookstores of our province. Abebooks.com has made living in a small town easy for anybody to find any book anywhere and get it quickly by mail. The latest program by many DVD film rental outlets to mail DVDs to your location means that we no longer need depend on Hollywood films to while away long Canadian winters. So lets review or discuss those foreign films, books, and other culture here in some space dedicated for it.

Yikes, attack of the snobs, or what? alexwh, you read like a nerd who gets more enjoyment from denigrating other people's opinions and tastes, than from the aesthetic enjoyment of art.

The idea that Canadians should not be concerned, nor comment on the goings on south of the border, is silly. American culture, business and politics have a huge influence, and it is to our advantage to have an independent source of commentary on those topics from our perspective.

I also take issue with the idea that the job of independent Canadian media, like the Tyee, is to "promote" Canadian culture. Corporate journalism certainly has gotten into the habit of promotion. The arts section of many newspapers is arguably one big advertorial for monied pop culture. But that doesn't mean the Tyee has to be a reflection of that for the local arts scene.

The job of journalists is to inform. Part of the job of a publication like the Tyee is to inform its readers about the local arts scene. But that information can, and should, include critique.

Now that particular bit of numbskullery brings to mind the myth of Nero fiddling away while Rome burned. Ignoring the current state of the world to monomaniacally persue and promote the pleasures of art, or in your case alexwh: self-aggrandizement, seems rather unwise.

James Burns now that you bring up my snobbery I should point out that one of my fave books (and by an American) is William A. Henry III's In Defense of Elitism.

Do you think that Nero may have used scordatura when he tuned his violin?

You write:
"The job of journalists is to inform. Part of the job of a publication like the Tyee is to inform its readers about the local arts scene."

So I have seen stuff about movies and TV programs (mostly American). Have I missed something?

You write: "Ignoring the current state of the world to monomaniacally persue and promote the pleasures of art, or in your case alexwh: self-aggrandizement, seems rather unwise."

I read enough about the US in local press and in the NY Times. This does not mean that I ignore the state of the world. The state of the world here in the Tyee seems to me more about what is happening in those 48 states down South. If reading varied literature and attending concerts, dance and theatre is self-aggrandizement then fine. I know I am safe because there you are worrying for me and getting up to date information on the US invasion. I'm in good hands.

Ten years ago if you had gone to a Madrid or Mexico City bookstore, the bulk of the books on the shelves would have been Stephen King and Danielle Steele translated into Spanish. Now you will find a very large stable of Spanish and Latin American authors whose books are thriving. The best way to stop the US cultural invasion is to nurture our own. Constant arguments here on how the neocons are going to take over the world, and the BC Liberal government our souls (with the help of the dastardly Canwest organization)is not going to stop it.

Artfully written, or not, good on ya, columnist Joey Thompson in today's Province for her article, Allegations against cop need to be investigated.

She writes of a recent incident where, reportedly, three shots were fired into a teen-filled vehicle by a policeman, killing a 16-year-old.

I have referred to this incident on the Tyee on a couple of occasions to absolutely-minimal response.

We love to dump on the mainstream media - and usually for good reason, but please don't tell me that a heck of a lot of self-censorship isn't at play right on these boards.

Someone, somewhere, wrote a truism about understanding history: that we can't grasp the meaning of history until we first locate our own place in history.

This is what I meant, in saying that I had wished for some Canadian content in the article under discussion.

I think it's what alexwh meant too. It's about an exercise in expanded understanding, and our own relevance to culture. There's no reason for this to upset you, James Burns.

skeptikool, crime does not sell except on the front pages of our print daylies. At the same time we are so used to reading about the Iraq war dead count (it is beginning to resemble the Vietnam war era body counts) that we are de-sensitized to death. It happens with increasing frequency in TV programs and today we learn of the impending death of thousands of children in Malawi because of a drought and corn crop failure. It would seem that some of us don't get too bothered when local deaths happen to be turbaned males in Surrey. "They are gangsters and violent by nature," some of us might erroneously reason.

The article on board hockey today, here, stresses what so many other articles in our local media stress. This is physical fitness and how important it is for our health. I counter that physical fitness (the nuns used to recommend young teen girls should play lots of volleyball)is not going to prevent all disease, unwanted pregnancies or reduce drug consumption. It's education and culture. This I would define as fitness of the mind. It is, after all, a sound mind in a sound body.

If, our local teachers have all the assistance that they need they can educate our children through thoughtful essay and "art journalism" to understand what we as adults soon forget - the value of every individual human life.

BC Mary, the very fact that we are arguing (most pleasantly) here is already a small measure of Canadian content. I think that we Canadians are far more pragmatic and level headed than those we share our mother with (or whatever that memorial says in the US/Canadian border). While we now have terrible political scandals in Canada (and I left Mexico to escape Mexican corruption) it still seems to be a shadow of what goes on down there.

James Burns I am glad you brought up Nero. We have been told not to really trust the idea that history repeats itself. But consider that a considerable bulk of the US armed forces are recent immigrants who will be granted US citizenship upon completion of their tour of duty. This has a direct parallel with the "barbarians" who became Roman citizens after long years in the Roman army. I have always seen Fedex as Roman roads. There is in town, a visiting Mexican chef called MartÃ*n San Román who lives in San Diego and drives every day to his Mexican/French/fusion restaurant in Tijuana. On a recent plant convention I attended in Raleigh, the only anglo hotel employee was the manager. From the assistant manager down to the kitchen helpers and janitors they were all of Latino origin. Some hailed from Nicaragua, Mexico and Honduras. Spanish was the lingua franca. There is an increasing presence of Cuban born or latino writers in the US who write in Spanish, in English and some even mix both. The Spanish readership in the US is past 60 million. While we watch what the US "cultural" presence is doing to Canada the immigrants (both the legal and those are not) are quietly taking over the US while Bush plays on his fiddle!. It is all not lost James Burns!

Oh you mean the local Canwest rags that get a large chunk of their corporate copy recycled from eastern Canadian and US news services? And of course the Grey Lady, who's been having problems with a particular reporter functioning as a PR organ for the Bush administration? For someone who prides himself on being in the artistic know, you have a remarkably conventional taste in your sources of current events.

As I've highlighted earlier, the Tyee provides an important forum for alternate perspectives on the news, and not just regional news.

That could make an interesting story about the exploitation of non-English speaking immigrant workers.

What makes you think cotton candy culture in another language will be any better?

The bulk of the comments in the Tyee comments pages are about all kinds of neoconservative (US) conspiracies. The remainder of the comments are those that seem to be from that lover of punishment, Ron Erwin, and those who enjoy lambasting the man. Wrong or right Mr Irwin does bring a small measure of balance as few of you would have much fun conversing with the converted.

The NY Times gives me good info on what is happening with dance all over the world. In it I read about art exhibitions and concerts of new music and baroque music. I enjoy reading Maureen Dowd and some of the other columnists. While I may not agree with the views of William Safire I enjoy his On Language. Those who are supposed to give us alternate (and perhaps more honest and less biased views) on current within the Tyee, where do they get their stuff? Do they have direct connections with those that make the news?

I don't watch TV so I get my dose of current events from the on line Guardian, El Pais in Madrid, La Nación and El ClarÃ*n in Buenos Aires and I do sometimes check out the Washington Post and the Reforma in Mexico.

While you can say that some of the authors that write in Spanish come from a candy culture you don't know that for a fact because you don't read Spanish. My daughters since they came to Canada while young, command French. English and Spanish. Having more that one language makes it easier for one to sift through the questionable and biased journalism you harp about. Language is a manifestation of thought. Thinking and reading in more than one language has to be some sort of benefit and advantage.

You may be right about the exploitation on non English speaking immigrant workers. I was not defending US policy on this. I was simply saying that little by little the Mexicans and other Latin peoples are slowly getting back the land they lost in the 19th century. It is not too hard to fathom a country in a near future in which Spanish will be spoken by least 50% of the population that will start somewhere in Guatemala and go all the way to our border.

You are much too busy looking for conspiracies and inhumanity towards minorities. At the same time you have some sort of idea that anybody who reads in another language or goes to the opera is some sort of snob. Looking for these conspiracies and commenting on them here is not going to help stamp all that out. Only a diverse, rich and growing cultural atmosphere, based on a wide and liberal education can improve the lot of most people. The US cultural invasion and their control of the media come from intelligent manipulation of the masses. The only medicine to fight it with is knowledge.

The fact that the NY Times has been caught with their pants down quite a few times does not mean that one should ignore all the good stuff that can still be found in it.

"While you can say that some of the authors that write in Spanish come from a candy culture..."

I neither said nor implied this, I refered to your assertion that Latino immigrants were taking over American culture, and, I suppose I should remind you, a culture the bulk of which you were disparaging. Mass market cotton candy pop culture is just as easy to disseminate in Spanish as it is in English. My question centered on your unspoken assumption that American culture would be would be better in Spanish. I suspect the bulk of it would remain the kind of culture you disapprove of.

"You are much too busy looking for conspiracies and inhumanity towards minorities."

Am I? Or are you simply too quick with disparaging remarks for those who interrupt your comfortable existence with uncomfortable realities?

"At the same time you have some sort of idea that anybody who reads in another language or goes to the opera is some sort of snob."

LoL! No I just lack patience for those who take pleasure in elitist presumption. It's not that you speak another language or go to the opera that makes you a snob. It's that you so clearly consider yourself superior to others because you do. It's the sins of pride and vanity you suffer from.

There's also a far worse US invasion going on than one simply of culture. But I know, I know, it gets so boring talking about that when there is an opera to attend or a dance to watch.

As for a liberal education, and knowledge in general, while I don't deny their value, a very smart man once said imagination is more important than knowledge. Perhaps you could use a little more of the former, as it might help you understand all us poor proles.

alexwh: the Peace Arch says our two nations are "Children of a Common Mother" ... isn't that the most hysterical notion?!

What I found missing from this piece is reality. Specifically where do you get to place work like this? Certainly not in the Tyee which like 99.9% of mainstream media out there (which the Tyee definitely is if one looks at the backgrounds of the Ed.s at the online rag) demands the same conventions in terms of pitches writing and style - and is essentialy gutless.

James Burns you write: "It's that you so clearly consider yourself superior to others because you do. It's the sins of pride and vanity you suffer from.

As for a liberal education, and knowledge in general, while I don't deny their value, a very smart man once said imagination is more important than knowledge. Perhaps you could use a little more of the former, as it might help you understand all us poor proles."

At least in spite of all of the above I try not to be unkind. Try to imagine a tree if you have never seen one. Knowledge feeds imagination. Knowledge come first. But then that's epistemology.

I was very clear in pointing out that Mexicans and Latinos are now occupying most of the low paying jobs that are the necessary ones that Americans don't want to do. These Latinos are mechanics and taxi drivers, too. Some are getting a college education. Some are fighting in Iraq. Some are making lots of money. Some are writing very good books. Some day soon they will not be a minority. So while we here in Canada are worrying about the Americans without really doing anything except spill our guts here, the Latinos have found a way that will be much more effective in the end. Bad Latino culture is not better than bad American culture. You will not get an argument from me here. But there are novels, essays and journalism (what this piece above is all about)being published in other languages other than English that are pushing creative and innovative boundaries. We are much to concerned about keeping our culture US free but at the same time limiting it to BC or Canada without taking advantage of what the world has to offer.

If what you are talking about when you say that it is more than the US cultural invasion that we must worry about, I must point out that there is no way our armed forces can do anything about it. Meanwhile we no longer have Westcoast Energy (Duke) and Terasen is about to go, too. Do you need an army to stop these transactions? No,just the will power to not sell or sell out. Yucatán and/or the Patagonia are beginning to look pretty good to me from this vantage point.

And one last point that may imply good things happen in forced isolation. Some years ago I discovered an East German recording that featured an unknown Cuban pianist called Gonzalo Ruvalcaba. The CD was astounding and the piano (it wasn't quite jazz yet at that point) sounded like an instrument from another planet. Now Ruvalcaba is one of the jazz pianists with an extremly personal style that cannot be compared to any other. This is what is also happening to Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian and Latin American literature. Many of José Saramago's books have been translated into English and are readily available. They would do wonders in enhancing your imagination.

I really appreciated this article because it brought together a bunch of ideas I have been thinking about regarding writing. Thanks, Deborah Campbell! Notwithstanding the somewhat overblown claims of the founding quantum physicists--Max Planck, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg--that humans change the nature of reality with their presence,(position and velocity of sub-atomic particles) I think the best journalism occurs when the writer is there, expressing his/her opinion and emotional response about what is happening. I think trying to understand the bias of the writer is a necessary part of gauging the accuracy of the story. I didn't find the term, "creative non-fiction" in the article. Is this not also a good description of the genre?

Grant and Skeptikool make interesting points. Whether you’re writing for so-called indy mags or mainstream dailies, the editorial desires for content and style are far-too often the same. A writer can say a lot in a few words (or hope that the reader reads between the lines) but as Campbell points out, the genre needs “room.” Lack of space is so often the problem with creative non-fiction whether you write for a glossy or online mag. The editorial axe often starts with the personal/experiential and/or the subjective details. This changes the flow of a piece, the writer’s style and sometimes the most important details end up on the cutting room floor.

Neo-con or left wing, everybody’s doing it. Facts, historical elements, details ranging from what kind of car the subject of a piece drives to the contents of their offices go through the writer’s subjective filter. Then, of course, a piece is filtered through the editorial process which is also highly subjective, sometimes more than the writer wants it to be.

Journalists walk a fine line during the editorial process for fear of alienating editors so maybe things start to go wrong with OUR initial gutlessness whether it’s content, tone, pay or word-length related. Sometimes the need to survive gets in the way of our obligations as writers.

Another point: so with lack of room in the standard media, particularly in Canada, literary fiction has to be done in book format and fiction suffers as a result? That’s very sad. There is sometimes more truth in fiction than there is in literary journalism. It’s a cop-out for the editor of the Atlantic Monthly to base cutting a couple of pages of fiction on some subjective concept of reliability. Can’t we have both? If you ask me, this is baffling editorial bias or gutlessness. Do they poll readers?

Ideally, we should have the reader in mind first and foremost. I think the writing process, whether gonzo, literary or reportage, is this bizarre attempt to communicate with this curious demanding stranger. But we all start out as readers, so maybe this ideal reader is the writer’s own id, or as Sartre put it, our “In Itself” which struggles with the ego or “For Itself.” [I’m going on a tangent here and obviously need an ideal editor to sort me out!]

Another writer once said to me: “You’re a writer so you can have something cool to say when you go to cocktail parties.” What cocktail parties? Do they have good free food? Maybe that was his motivation. Fine, but you probably won’t meet your ideal reader there which is another problem with being a writer today: it can be too much about media popularity and it can get pretty damn incestuous. Which is why I like Campbell’s final piece of advice to get out there and experience the real world, whatever that means.

Alex, I can agree with much of what you say. I too wish we could be a culture which is secure within itself and much more narcissistic. But, we who are in constant peril from assimilation and cultural destruction often define ourselves as 'not' American as a defense. It's not that unusual really. Younger siblings can do that as well. You can't compare Canada with Mexico or with Holland, both of whom have a rich culture many, many years old with a unifying language. We are a young country 'sleeping beside the proverbial elephant'.

You make an assumption that we are not doing anything other than 'spilling our guts here', and you make another assumption saying that the Mexicans are taking jobs Americans don't want. That is no longer true. (if it ever was)But, it is the argument being used to justify bringing in cheap labour to undermine the American worker.

As far as talking about neo-cons here, I have only found that to be the case where it is related to the topic at hand.

In regards to The Tyee, I've been guilty of defining it's creative vision myself, and on more than one occasion and so I wont comment! :-)

oops narcissistic in our ability to be sure of our artistic endevours etc, not in our collective consciousness - we have too much of that already.

Seeing as this is a wide ranging discussion about journalism it seems appropriate to mention the passing of Terminal City. Or at least the shell of Terminal City -the real Terminal City left the building when Darren (Moonbeam) Atwater got the boot. Atwater described TC as "fun and fearless" having worked at TC for two years as a columnist and ad whore (the only way to make money at a fun and fearless rag) I'd agree. As a contributor I can also note that we were free - to write as we please and poke at any name of sacred cows. The Straight ( today Vancouver's finest Botox directory feared and hated us -as an ad whore you get to know this first hand) and our readers loved us. What I find remarkable is that nothing like it has stepped up to the plate in Vancouver to replace it. We are left with the tired and toothless, middleclass and mediocore and nothing very fesity at all. Seeing as a rag such as the Tyee can't be making all that much money (note what they can pay their contributors) why is it not free to take more risks -you are free after all.

What's missing, often, is an editor. Much of this stuff (such as the above article) is unreadable and self-indulgent.

The hard truth is that Canadian non-fiction is a tough sell in other markets. That's why writers are going "international."

Grant, I really appreciated your comment. Thanks for that! Especially what you said about the Georgia Straight being Vancouver's "finest botox directory" and and "ad whore." I personally think the Tyee is finding its way slowly. I expect great things here in the future. I sometimes pick up the Straight just to count the full page ads.

The topic is truthfulness and responsible writing. What is wrong with people using their own names. What is there to hide? - Madeline Bruce, Nanaimo, B.C.

Truman Green: Grant was describing himself as an "ad whore" above, not the Georgia Straight. Try reading a bit more carefully. And if you don't think Terminal City would have jumped at any or all of the ads in the Straight, then you have no concept of what this business is about. Sheer penis envy.

The thing is cookiecutter if you take risks likethe old Terminal City did you only risk the chance of alienating advertisers. That is why a paper like the Staright and most others play it so mediocore. The mystery for me is why The Tyee which gets a nice chunk of change from the BC Fed of Labour and the editor who gets paid damm fine by them won't take more risks.