Help us, Peter Jackson, you're our only hope

I woke up this morning grasping and screaming, the echo of my nightmare still fresh. Every blink sparked an echo of that last terrifying image - Peter Jackson's face morphing into the visage of a cackling George Lucas.

I have a theory. I don't know how or why, but I believe the creator of Star Wars and the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy are linked in some terrible, cosmic way.

In many ways they are mirror images of each other. George Lucas rose from a little-known studio film director into the most powerful independent filmmaker in the world. Peter Jackson rose from a little-known indy filmmaker into one of the most powerful and well paid studio directors in Hollywood.

George Lucas went from thin to obese...

 

 

while Peter Jackson went from obese to thin.

Most of all, both men were key driving forces between the two most beloved trilogies of films ever made. And now I worry they're taking their symbiotic destiny to its final, tragic conclusion.

After inspiring the dreams of a generation of children, Lucas went on to systematically destroy those dreams with a prequel trilogy so terrible, so sacrilegious, that people dare not reference them around certain people I know or, for that matter, me.

Jackson seemed to duck that fate when he chose to adapt The Hobbit, the prequel to his own beloved trilogy. It's The freaking Hobbit. It's one of the most fun and riveting children's stories ever written. It's got a wizard, dwarves, big battles, a fantastic journey, and a dragon. A dragon. How do you screw that up?

This is how you screw that up. Late in July Jackson announced The Hobbit would be split into three films rather than the planned two. So whereas the Lord of the Rings took three movies to cover over 1,400 pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's writing, The Hobbit will take three films to cover 272 pages.

And keep in mind this is Peter Jackson, who believes an angel loses its wings if he ever makes a movie under three hours long.

Here is the ultimate horror of the mysterious hex these two filmmakers have been placed under. Lucas killed Star Wars after gaining so much power no one could challenge some of his questionable decisions. And by some I mean all. All of his decisions were just awful.

I mean, just picking one at random, having Padme die of a broken heart? How did no one call him out on that? Goddammit, George Lucas.

Anyway, Jackson once again appears to be a twisted mirror image of our friend George. When a studio attempted a blatant cash grab to shoe-horn in another movie, Jackson was our only hope to stop them. Instead he took the money and went over to the dark side.

Unless this bizarre curse is broken - a sacrificial pyre of Jar Jar Binks merchandise? - I fear we are in for another three movies of pain and disappointment.

Then again, what the hell do I know? I ate a lot of stuffing before bed last night and I haven't even seen the first Hobbit movie yet. But you heard it here first if in 2014 we somehow find ourselves arguing over whether Bilbo shot first.

As rebellious as possible, under the circumstances

In 1775 Britain's 14 colonies were in open revolt. The following year 13 had formed their own nation, but Britain managed to suppress the uprising in the 14th colony, Nova Scotia.

Forget the over-hyped War of 1812. This was the hour that Canada came a few whiskers away from being snuffed out long before it even existed.

It's one of the most crucial moments in our history, but almost no Canadians know about it today. Governments will never celebrate the event because it's not exactly glorious. Yet more people should know this story because it gives us insight into our psyche; our weird, conflicted psyche.

In Halifax: Warden of the North, Thomas Raddall sums up the time in one stark, eye-opening paragraph (emphasis his):

Nova Scotia, the fourteenth colony, then comprised the whole of the Maritime Provinces. The Province of Quebec was almost utterly French, conquered only 16 years before and held in submission by the British garrison in Quebec citadel. There was nothing west of Montreal but a wilderness inhabited by Indians and a scatter of trappers and traders. Thus Nova Scotia was the key to all Canada; its ports commanded the approach to the St. Lawrence all the way from Cape Breton to Gaspé and it was the only English-speaking part of the whole country. Had the Nova Scotians thrown in their lot with their fellow Americans in 1776 the war must have ended with the complete disappearance of the British Flag from North America. [p73]

Leading up to the American Revolution, Halifax was in many ways an extension of New England. The census of the towns 3,000 or so residents in 1767 lists 52 Scots, 200 Acadians, 264 "Germans and other foreigners," 302 English, 853 Irish, and a whopping 1,351 "Americans," most of whom were from New England. [p66]

So when rebellion boiled over in the south, there was no surprise to see it spread up to Halifax. The colony was ruled by a small group of elites made up of the governor and his friends, as well as a few of the richer merchants. There was basically no middle class.

When the Stamp Act hit North America, requiring all publications to used taxed "stamped" paper, Canada's first newspaper was in on the outrage. The Halifax Gazette "declared the disgust of the town and province," writes Raddal.

Provincial secretary Bulkely was nominally the editor of the Gazette and demanded an explanation from Anthony Henry, the printer who actually ran the paper. Henry brushed the treasonous content off as a prank by his young New Englander apprentice Isaiah Thomas.

But soon another incendiary paragraph appeared in the Gazette. Then it printed an anti-Britain call-to-arms in the Pennsylvania Journal under the guise of reporting on the Journal. Henry finally pushed his newsman badassery to the breaking point when he cut the stamps out of the Gazette's pages in direct violation of the Stamp Act. Henry lost the Gazette printing contract, while Thomas was banished from Halifax.

Meanwhile, Haligonians burned an effigy of the local stamp master on Citadel Hill, while the man himself had to be put under armed guard. But Halifax was unique in that it had spent much of its history as a military base in the war with France. Its civilian population was helplessly outnumbered by the military presence.

Still, by fall of 1776, much of Nova Scotia was in open revolt. At the head of the Bay of Fundy a militia of Nova Scotians besieged Fort Cumberland, the only garrisoned outpost outside of Halifax in Nova Scotia. The rebels nearly succeeded, but lacked ammunition and fell to British reinforcements  Their cause was so popular the captured ringleaders were allowed to "escape" rather than face a politically incendiary execution.

A Nova Scotia delegation travelled to Machias to meet with their American cousins and plot the removal of the British Crown from all of North America. The young congress promised troops and arms, but the American army general nixed the agreement in a letter that would change the course of history:

Camp at Cambridge, Aug. 11, 1775.

Gentlemen,
     I have considered the papers you left with me yesterday. As to the expedition proposed against Nova Scotia by the inhabitants of Machias, I cannot but applaud their spirit and zeal, but I apprehend such an enterprise to be inconsistent with the principle on which the Colonies have proceeded. That province has not acceded, it is true, to the measures of the Congress, but it has not commenced hostilities against them nor are any to be apprehended. To attack it therefore is a measure of conquest rather than defence, and may be attended with very dangerous consequences. It might be easy with the force proposed to make an incursion into the province and over-awe those of the inhabitants who are inimical to our cause, but to produce any lasting effect the same force must continue. And our situation as to ammunition absolutely forbids our sending a single ounce of it out of the camp at present.

I am, Gentlemen, &c.,
George Washington

As Raddall points out, the rub is in the last line. For want of ammunition, the Nova Scotia rebellion was doomed and Canada was saved.

It's hardly a Hollywood story. Our rebellion was crushed while the rest of the rebels left us behind to create their own country. We were basically the kid who didn't get picked at gym class on Independence Day.

But glimpsed in a certain light, Canada's origin story is noble in its own way. Having a long, bloody history has been done. What country hasn't been forged in battle? Even prissy-sounding nations like Luxembourg and Malta have seen dramatic conflicts. But a nation that didn't seize its independence so much as apply for it in triplicate, now that's rare.

Personally, I like having a culture that's defined by ambivalence, introspection, politeness and mild linguistic tension I like that when CBC Radio held a contest to find the Canadian counterpart to "as American as apple pie" the winning entry was "as Canadian as possible, under the circumstances."

And I like that we're generally embarrassed about the imperialistic notes of our history, such as the expulsion of the Acadians or annexation of aboriginal lands. I guess it keeps us modest.

So cheers to Canada and I guess Australia and I dunno, maybe New Zealand. We gained our independence by virtue of no one else wanting us that badly, and that builds character. And sure enough, now all the cool countries are broke.

The True Story of the War of 1812

It was 200 glorious years ago this year that Canada took its first steps to becoming nation when it took up arms against the Americans in the War of 1812 for certain reasons that I imagine are very well explained on Wikipedia.

It was that battle where we defined our Canadianness, except that we were actually British at the time, but it planted the seeds of our emancipation from the Americans. Or the British, rather. Like 60 years later.

Still, I'm told by reliable sources in government that the War of 1812 was "a seminal event in the making of our country." Heritage Minister James Moore has even renamed October the "Month of Commemoration of the Heroes and Key Battles of the War of 1812," so elongate your calendars accordingly.

I've recently been reading Halifax: Warden of the North, the brisk and lively history of Nova Scotia's capital by Thomas Raddall. I couldn't wait to get to 1812 and read about our historic butt-thwomping of the Americans. Instead, I had a revelation. I now think 1812 is nothing compared to a more pivotal moment in Canada's history: The American Revolution.

First, about the 1812:

Historians debate who "started" the War of 1812 but one thing is clear - in the lead-up to the war we were a bunch of assholes.

By 1805 Admiral Mitchell of the Royal navy had come up with a novel recruiting strategy - seizing Americans on the high seas and bringing them into Halifax as seamen on the lower decks.

Raddall:

The captains of His Majesty's fleet, not content with robbing provincial merchantmen of their crews, had begun overhauling American ships and treating them in the same way. The excuse was that many seamen in American vessels were deserters from the Royal Navy. This was true, for impressed men escaped at any chance and the Americans... were able to offer high wages as well as the supposed protection of their flag. [p133]

Tensions simmered until 1807, when the HMS Leopard fired on the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake, a 38-gun, three-masted heavy frigate and one of the "original six" frigates of the United States navy, is still today famous for all the wrong reasons. Several crew were captured, a couple were convicted of mutiny and gruesomely executed.

Back in Washington, the Americans were wicked pissed. Many pushed the government to declare war on Britain while the blokes had their hands full with Napoleon. The Americans first placed an embargo on trade with Europe  - a blow aimed straight at the British army's stomach [p135].

This was actually great for Halifax (population circa 10,000), which had the lucrative role of laundering shipments ostensibly for Nova Scotia but actually destined for Europe. Then in 1811 the Americans got their revenge for the Chesapeake when the US frigate President fired on the British sloop Little Belt without warning, killing 16 men and wounding 21.

Shit was pretty much destined to be on. Sure there were grievances, but more than anything it was about American opportunity. Raddall:

But a real cause for alarm was the ancient truth that weakness invites attack. Canada looked an easy prize while Britain was heavily engaged in Europe, and all the gossip from the United States was of preparations for attack by land and sea. [p138]

...

President Madison chose his moment in June. American armies promptly marched over the border of Upper Canada and a host of Yankee privateers put out into the Atlantic. The first news of war for many a British merchant skipper was the capture of his ship and cargo on the high seas.

It was great timing. Britain had more ships than she could maintain, leaving many under-maintained, under-manned, and under-gunned. The Americans swiftly imposed their presence when the US frigate Constitution ravaged the British frigate Guerriere.

Now it was Britain's turn for revenge, and they went after the ship that had been the spark of the conflict, the Chesapeake. Raddall reports Boston pleasure boats sailing out to watch the battle as the HMS Shannon sailed into Massachusetts to face its rival. The two ships unloaded on each other and the Chesapeake was badly damaged. As the Shannon's crew drew in close to board, Chesapeake captain James Lawrence was cut down by a bullet. Dying, he uttered the famous words "Don't give up the ship!" which would long remain a motto of the American navy.

The entire battle lasted 15 minutes. The Chesapeake was brought back to Halifax as a treasure. A young Tom Haliburton, who would grow up to create the character Sam Slick, was on the waterfront and described the scene:

"The coils and folds of rope were steeped in gore as if in a slaughterhouse... Pieces of skin and pendant hair were adhering to the sides of the ship, and in one place I noticed fingers protruding as if thrust through the outer wall of the frigate; while several sailors, to whom liquor had evidently been handed through the ports by visitors in boats, were lying asleep on the bloody floor as if they had fallen in action and expired where they lay." [p142]

So there's our fix. We got our bloody battle with the Americans, our heroic victory, some token warfare in our otherwise peaceful and almost bureaucratic history.

To pause here for a moment, Raddall's book does not touch the land battles of 1812 except to say that Britain knew they were outmatched and tried to avoid them. But suffice to say the mainland theatre really did play out like a CBC-produced Can-Con feature written and directed by Paul Gross starring Gordon Pinsent and the cop guy from Corner Gas. French, English and First Nations fought side by side, defending our land against American invaders.

(You have to buy the director's cut to see where the British promise Shawnee chief Tecumseh an independent Indian state in the midwest, then later British forces run away in the Battle of the Thames leaving a badly outnumbered group of native soldiers, including Tecumseh, to be slaughtered by American troops. The Treaty of Ghent, the peace treaty that ended the war and restored lands to their original owners, neglected to ratify Tecumseh's vision. Weird.)

But Raddall does give due credit to the man who oddly enough really decided the war of 1812 - Napoleon.

As the British finally overwhelmed Napoleon's forces in Europe they could finally focus most imposing navy the world had ever seen back on North America. The rest was just follow through - a sacking of the White House here, some bombs bursting in air there, and both sides were ready to shake hands and call it a day. All that was left was to swap back conquered lands and Bob's your uncle (again, unless you were a native warrior, in which case best get used to crushing disappointment).

I know, I know. All that buildup and we only "won" because some short French guy lost? Welcome to Canada.

But if you really want close calls, there was an even more precarious moment for Canada a half-century earlier. I'll tackle this in my next blog post, which I will write hopefully sometime.

In the meantime, here's the government's official War of 1812 trailer:

And here's a more honest version:

Fun and Loafing Near Las Vegas

(NOTE - IN LOOKING INTO RESURRECTING MY BLOG ONCE AGAIN I FOUND THIS UNCOMPLETED BLOG POST FROM APRIL. WHILE IT MAY BE TOTALLY OUT OF DATE IN SEPTEMBER, I'VE DECIDED TO FINALLY PUBLISH IT ANYWAY WITH MINIMAL EDITING. YOLO.)

A few weeks ago I flew into Vancouver, then drove down to California with some friends to attend the Coachella music festival. As far as boring trips go, this one wasn't.

Our troupe was continually faced with the arch-nemesis of middle-class white people: inconvenience. Our car died driving through Washington State and we had to spend a night in a place called Kelso, which I highly recommend if you're a connoisseur of strip malls and/or meth. (Though there was this great diner called Stuffy's II that specialized in a dish called "stuff" and every menu item was unreasonably huge and glazed in butter and just delicious [no word on what became of Stuffy's I. Grease fire, one assumes.])

We fixed the car, headed off on an Oregon mountain pass and promptly got in a car accident. No one was hurt and after some inventive crowbar work to get the driver's door working again, we headed off on our journey. Also it rained at Coachella for the first time in 13 years.

Still, the trip was amazing and fun and, barring future dementia, totally unforgettable. I have no energy to put this into any kind of narrative, so here's my collection of random observations from Coachella and the ride there and back:


My expectations of the hipster-to-bro ratio at Coachella was way off. As soon as we drove in we were surrounded by Southern California frat/sorority guy/girls driving their parents' SUVs (I can only hope the five of us who had just driven 2,000 kilometers in a 1993 Ford Escort looked retro). Skinny jeans and horn-rimmed glasses? Rare. Ironic moustaches? Shaved. And forget about hippies, there was nary a drum circle to be found.


The complete and exhaustive list of awesome moves available to DJs:
1) Raise one arm in the air
2) Raise both arms in the air


Biggest Fashion Faux Pas as Determined and Told to Me by People Who Know About This Sort of Thing: socks and high heels.


I have seen some beautiful displays of love in my life. I've seen families that share everything with each other. I've known couples who would die for one another. My ex-roommate had a loving and committeed relationship with our Playstation 3. But I was not prepared for America's love of beer pong.

We hadn't even gotten in yet and dozens of tables were set up in the lineup. All weekend beer pong tables littered the camping grounds. Often they were crowded. Sometimes there were just guys sitting there waiting for the next challengers. Of course this means the surrounding grounds got a bit messy:

If you look Canadian enough, Americans will think you're adorable and give you free stuff like Krispy Kreme doughnuts.


Swedish House Mafia may or may not be a great house band. I honestly can't tell. They seemed to be really good at that thing where the music gets faster and higher then drops really low and bassy and everyone jumps and goes "waaaaa!" But it might also have had something to do with the stage being covered in lights and fire.


Suggested alternate name for Swedish House Mafia: Three Guys and a Laptop


Dumbest thing on sale: "vintage" Coachella t-shirts.


"Excuse me, is your car a hybrid?"


I never knew Americans had such a fixation with IDing people. Apparently if you so much as walk into a place that smells like booze you had better have two pieces of government-issued photo identification. I think I got IDed more in one week of being in America than my entire adult life in Canada. Is it some sort of make-work program?


Strangest thing heard blaring from the campground: Hootie and the Blowfish.


Best overheard argument: "No, dude. Hyenas don't hunt prey. They just don't."


Weirdest sports apparel sighting: A Raptors-era Damon Stoudamire jersey at the Dragonette show. Otherwise it was the normal collection of Dodgers, Red Sox and Yankee hats. My own Phillies ballcap elicited occasional reactions from "go Phillies!" to "Uh oh, here comes trouble."

Second-most startling Coachella moment: Jamming in a few rows away from the stage to see Radiohead amongst tens of thousands of people, only to find myself standing next to two friends from Halifax, literally the opposite end of the continent.


Most badass kid: This kid, spotted during the Childish Gambino show.

What's kind of weird about this is that Childish Gambino's lyrics are incredibly filthy:

 Most Coachella-ey overheard quote: "I draw the line at Coldplay."

Least Coachella-ey overheard quote: "No one's even tried to sell me drugs yet!"


Token slacktivism: a kissing booth where for every kiss some company put a dollar towards Africa or cancer or something.


Most "clever" plays on Coachella from myself and a bathroom wall, respectively: Brochella, Coachhellyeah.


I'll always remember the look on that girl's face when she saw the Mexican man in charge of cleaning the port-a-potties and said with a quiver of horror and revulsion "That's... his job."


Price of a cup of coffee: $5. Price of a single cupcake: $5. Price of a banana: $2.


Most startling Coachella moment: Meeting up with a friend at a diner on Sunset Boulevard the day after Coachella ended, only to learn that what I thought was a real-life rapper playing Tupac as part of a tribute, was actually a fucking hologram. Even though I was far back and drinking hard liquor out of a pop bottle, I spent several minutes completely unaware a man before me was made out of light and pixie dust. When did we get this technology? The novelty may have worn off by now, but I expect this will be the closest I'll ever come to knowing how previous generations felt when they first experienced radio, television, or Star Wars.

One last bit about this Hitler thing

I had hoped I'd never have to say this, but I'm about to bridge the gap between Hitler and child pornographers.

Ottawa has gone a tad loopy in recent weeks, with a few of our elected officials saying things that they probably never should have said sober. In a debate on the ending of the gun registry Conservative MP Larry Miller compared the registry and its proponents to Hitler, then took it back, then took it back that he took it back.

Shortly after, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said opposition members who attacked the government's new electronic surveillance are standing with child pornographers. He later tip-toed away from that one after pretty much the whole country decided the bill was kind of dictatorial and creepy.

Now, I'm no rocket surgeon but I could have told Miller and Toews that quoting Hitler or likening your political opponents to child molesters is probably going to backfire. If nothing else, it opens you up to equally cheap shots in retaliation.

Speaking of...

My colleague from the Hot Room (the old parliamentary press gallery room on Parliament Hill, so named because everyone who works there is ridiculously good looking) Kaven Baker-Voakes of Empire News initially came across this uncannily germane Hitler quote. He decided it would be in poor taste to use it, but I have no such reservations. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to take smear politics meta with Hitler on the internet surveillance bill:

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation," - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf.

The Chicago Sun-Times decides to stop debasing itself

Congratulations from the bottom of my ink-stained heart to the Chicago Sun-Times, which this week announced it will stop endorsing candidates during elections

Here's hoping this outbreak of common sense spreads faster than bed bugs because I suspect election endorsements are the single most foolish things newspapers do. Here I'll lay out five reasons why and then suggest a much better system.

I would love to hear some arguments from people who disagree with me on this. Clearly a lot do because over 700 publications made endorsements in the last United States election, which I find inscrutable and weird.

Why printing an election endorsement is insane:

1) It debases - Though endorsements are written by an editor or at most an editorial board, they reflect on the whole paper. The New York Times endorses Obama, The New York Post endorses McCain, etc. All the work your reporters went through to maintain their independence and impartiality? Gone, to the public eye. The institution itself is now formally in the camp of a political party, which is exactly where it ought not be.

2) It lingers - Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner continually ridicules the Globe and Mail every time the Harper government makes an inept fiscal move. And why shouldn't he? The Globe endorsed Harper for his fiscal chops in 2011. If his government fails and turns our economy into pudding, the Globe will have been wrong. The paper's reputation is now tied to the actions of a politician. Worse, criticizing the government's economic plans will now strike many readers as hypocrisy.

3) It's arrogant - As the Sun Times points out, newspaper endorsements don't have much impact. Of course they don't. Most voters have made up their minds by the time endorsements come out in the last days before an election. And even if you are undecided, who wants to be told how you should act? Especially by the profession most people rank somewhere between used car salesman and date rapist. Any first-year psych student can tell you this is not how the human brain works.

4) It's alienating (and probably bad for business) - So you're a newspaper and you endorse candidate X. Those who support him/her/it will probably nod smugly, maybe tweet it, then stop caring. But boy, are people who back candidate Y going to be pissed. They'll tear into your logic. They'll accuse you of being a conservative/liberal shill, and maybe they'll stop subscribing to a paper so clearly in the bag for that asshole candidate X. Congrats, you've lost all credibility with half your readers. Was that really worth it?

5) It's Archaic - We've supposedly evolved past the age when newspapers were openly partisan. That dark age was decades ago (or, alternately, a half-dozen time zones away in the U.K.). Most newspapers now look down their noses at the Sun chains of the world that don't even feign balance. So how can newspapers claim to be modern champions of objective scrutiny while they're still clinging to the one act that most defined the days of biased, agenda journalism? I'll say this for the Sun papers, at least they accept who they are and don't try to dress it up.

Ok, so the counter-argument to all this is that editorial writers sometimes do have intelligent, thoughtful arguments for why one candidate is the best choice. Why should they silence themselves on such a critical issue for some ideal of impartiality that most people don't buy anyway?

Here's what you do instead: be humble, be personal, and be careful.

Don't hide behind the banner of the paper. Have the writer or editorial board put their name(s) on the piece. Then, don't tell people how to vote. Instead, tell them how you will be voting and explain why as best you can. Keep in mind that every political platform benefits some people more than others. Look beyond your own situation and write persuasively about which platform will help the greatest number of people. Avoid talking points used by the parties.

Andrew Coyne of MacLeans PostMedia provided an elegant example of just this kind of thing last year.

It's that easy. And in this digital age, as an industry struggling with the issue of printing words on paper and handing them out individually, we should really jump at the easy solutions when we can.

Happy Trails

Best retirement wishes to my boss Dan Leger, who revealed today he was stepping down as director of news content for the Chronicle Herald after something like 35 years in the business. Dan will continue to write a weekly column for the paper when he's not pursuing his twin hobbies of sailing and fighting crime.

Dan was an incredibly supportive boss though he clearly was prone to some mental gaffes as he hired me and all. To mark his retirement I thought I'd relay this anecdote about him even though I wasn't there to witness it and for all I know it's apocryphal (again, Dan hired me even *after reading this blog.* What a guy.)

Once upon a time there was a Chronicle Herald columnist named Peter Duffy who wrote about Coronation Street and gas being too expensive and shit like that. As a young reporter working for the rival newspaper I was pretty sure he was the worst writer in the province, but lordy did some people ever love him. He was apparently the highest-read columnist in Nova Scotia, which I blame on grandmothers.

One time the Herald ran a front-page story with a necessary and relevant quote that contained swearing; I can't remember the details. Duffy - ever the champion of mindless political correctness - penned a column harshly criticizing his own paper for printing cuss words and not treating their audience like five-year-olds as any decent, family newspaper should.

Duffy apparently walked into work the next day with this coy, canary-chomping grin expecting his boss, Dan, to be all offended and mad. When Dan didn't say anything Duffy flat-out asked him. Dan shrugged him off by saying "Peter, I'll defend your right to print whatever insipid thing you choose."

Here we see a great example of the old adage: "If you don't agree with freedom of speech for those you suspect to be borderline mentally incompetent then you don't believe in it at all." Happy retirement, Dan. I know you'll enjoy it.

Oh, and what ever happened to Peter Duffy? Don't worry, after he retired from the paper Mayor Peter Kelly went on to hire him as his speechwriter so now the taxpayers pay his salary! What a world! And just because I can never resist a chance to repost this, here's a link to Duffy's two most infamous columns wherein he claims, in all seriousness, to have been anally raped by a ghost.

Top 5 Halifax Media Stories of the Year (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1.

2) Openfile opens, files

Forget print and television. You know what's not dying? The internet! A new news website opened in Halifax last year and it caused the biggest stir by a non-porn site in some time.

Openfile's approach to news can perhaps best be described as hippie-populist. It's very much about sharing, being innovative (stories are suggested by readers) and giving the people what they want. And twitter. It's edited by former Frankland cull victim Neal Ozano while recent King's grad Bethany Horne serves as news curator.

As a reporter, Openfile has been fun to watch. Halifax has an insular journalism community and several statements from Horne in particular have left other reporters in the city blinking with astonishment. She seemed to say stealing quotes and facts was ok. She chastised media for printing a mugshot of a guy, who happened to be wanted for shooting someone, because the photo was taken when the guy was 17. Even though the guy was now 18. And a judge approved the whole thing. And he was on the lam for shooting someone.

But easily taking the cake was when she claimed allNovaScotia.com is not news but merely information because people have to pay to read it. I'm not even going to touch this one other than to note a colleague's observation that by this standard Watergate wouldn't have qualified as journalism.

More notably, there have been some very public arguments when other reporters accused Openfile of getting facts wrong and relying too much on twitter and reporting from other outlets.

So yes, sales of popcorn have been skyrocketing since Openfile came to Halifax. But bizarre editorial stances and a few factual fuck-ups aside, Openfile has done some good work. They've put out interesting stories topped off by extensive coverage of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children.

Personally, I have my disagreements with the Openfile approach. I think beat reporting is journalism's best asset, while Openfile in many ways is the opposite model. But I've got to admit, they're filling some of that void between reporters and readers that often gets overlooked. A simple story idea like "who is the Utility and Review Board anyway?" is likely helpful to a lot of people but mostly wouldn't occur to reporters who deal with the board daily.

Openfile also pays well, which is great for the freelancers in town. The site still has that post-coital glow of startup financing (TD Bank is their founding sponsor) and I don't know if it will be viable after they've smoked the cigarette down to the butt. But as a proponent of more media I'd like to see them stick around and improve. Also, their website is pretty.

1) The Chronicle Herald vs. allNovaScotia.com: a war of words

This is easily the most personally awkward item for me as I owe both sides a debt of gratitude, but 2011 was the year the Chronicle Herald and allNovaScotia.com went to war.

It arguably started early on when allNS editor Kevin Cox retired and Herald business reporter Judy Myrden jumped over to replace him. A few months later I left allNS to take over the Herald's Ottawa bureau.

Sometime around mid-year the Herald management decided allNS had gotten too big and needed to be taken on. The paper surprisingly hired four new business reporters and started a free email newsletter called the Business Insider specifically designed to take on allNS. Meanwhile allNS hired more reporters of its own.

Then late in the year allNovaScotia cut off all Chronicle Herald employees from its site. I'm still not sure exactly what triggered that.

Also both companies had devils of a time trying to launch new websites and spent much of the year cursing the tech gods.

For readers, I believe this rivalry is one of the best things to happen to the Halifax media scene in ages. Since the Daily News shut down in February of 2008 there's been no big head-to-head showdown in the print market. Competition makes everyone better and sure enough, both sides are stepping up their game to provide better coverage.

(For a cautionary tale on monopolies and lack of competition see: Brunswick, New.)

In fact, take a look at the overall Halifax news scene between print/online - The Chronicle Herald, allNovaScotia.com, The Coast, Metro, Openfile, Frank, the Transcontinental weeklies, a few magazines - and broadcast - CTV, CBC radio/tv, Global, News 95.7.

Yes, it's far from perfect and as someone who watches the news closely I spend a lot of time griping. But I also see an impressively vibrant media scene that would be the envy of places like St. John's or (ugh) Moncton.

Look at the small cities all across Canada. Literally nowhere else do you see the mix of an independent daily newspaper, a well-staffed business news website, a weekly that takes on investigative projects, a Metro paper with strong local personalities and hell, rarest of all, a Frank Magazine.

Halifax is an interesting corner of the earth to report on (it helps that half of our politicians are insane or illiterate) and a great place to work. Here's to hoping we're not all laid off in 2012.

Top 5 Halifax Media Stories of the Year (Part 1)

People don't write about the Halifax media scene much. It's probably for the very good reason that no one cares. But 2011 was an eventful year for all of us who have secret Joseph Howe tattoos and meet at the clubhouse on Wednesdays.

Please join me and my friend Mr. Wiser's as we run down the top five storylines involving Halifax media in the past year.

5) Global's comeback... any minute now

2011 was supposed to be the year Global re-emerged from years of wandering in the wilderness. A half-decade ago Global's then-owner Canwest moved production to Alberta and cut a bunch of jobs. Ratings plummeted.

Since then, the Nova Scotia news scene has been pretty consistent. CTV dominates with a roughly 70% share of the 6 o'clock market. CBC is still well behind but has been steadily chipping away at CTV's lead and currently sits at around 27%. Global has languished at about, let me do the math quickly... 3%.

(Note: I wrote this passage early yesterday evening. A few hours later the latest edition of allNovaScotia.com came out with some updated numbers, which basically show these trends continuing.)

Then things started to change in Fall of 2010 when anchor Tarek Hagamad pulled a Kai Nagata, decided he couldn't work for corporate media anymore and quit his job on short notice. Like, really short notice. As in his boss Allan Rowe had to rush in to read the the 11:00 news.

In 2012 Global bounced back by hiring veteran CTV newsman Ron Kronstein. The station was sold to Shaw, which ended years of labour uncertainty by finalizing a long-awaited new contract with the union.

Shaw talked a big game. It spruced up the website. It was going to start a new morning show to take on CTV's breakfast television. It was going to pump money into ad campaigns claiming its reporters are 50% sexier than the competition (or at least that's what I'd do). It was going to be a contender.

But then things kind of stalled. The morning show launch was pushed to 2012, so we'll have to sit back and see if the station's multi-year comeback comes to fruition. But so far this year they've bought a new property on Gottingen Street and will move to central Halifax from godforsaken Burnside.

Also they were the first local station to invest in HD equipment so you can see your local news anchor in high definition, if you're into that sort of thing.

4) Stan Kutcher takes on the Coast and everyone's sorry

When Liberal hopeful Stan Kutcher took on the NDP's Megan Leslie for the federal seat of Halifax in the spring he highlighted his career as a child psychologist.

But that wasn't good enough for The Coast news editor Tim Bousquet, hater of children. Bousquet wrote a story pointing out Kutcher was one of the authors in the infamous Paxil 329 study. I say infamous because the study was revealed to have exaggerated the benefits and downplayed the potentially harmful effects of Paxil, a child antidepressant from GlaxoSmithKline

After the Coast story was published things started to get weird. Someone from Kutcher's camp went on Anonymous message boards and claimed Scientologists were smearing Kutcher to keep him from getting elected. Now, Scientologists have waged a war against pharmaceuticals and done shady things to silence people (to say the very least). But neither Bousquet or Alison Bass, who wrote the book on Paxil 329 called Side Effects, are members of that cult. Bousquet's crazy, but not that crazy.

It didn't matter. Ever looking for an excuse to rage, Anonymous members sprang to Kutcher's defence. The Coast claims its website was attacked, though some Anonymous members accused the weekly of crying wolf.

In the end the Coast was sunk not by Anonymous, but by a single word. Bousquet's story quoted Bass on how the study authors hid that some teens became suicidal on Paxil and had to withdraw from the study. Bass said “They essentially distorted the outcome measures, and essentially lied.” Kutcher threatened to sue.

Now lying is a tricky concept to prove legally. The Coast went to their lawyer (why the story wasn't vetted beforehand is beyond me), who told them he could defend 99% of the story, but proving the lying part... well, imagine trying to explain the complexities of medical science ethics to a jury of your peers.

Not wanting to risk it, Coast owners ended up printing a groveling apology. "The Coast retracts those statements and without reservation, apologizes to Dr. Kutcher for having published them. We recognize that Stan Kutcher is the federal Liberal candidate in Halifax and we sincerely regret having published those statements during the campaign," it read in part.

The apology came at a particularly bad time for the Coast, as it had just apologized to pollster Don Mills months earlier for a blog headline insinuating he was "push polling". Kutcher sent out a jubilant news release claiming complete vindication and spent the final days of the campaign dodging any further questions about the Paxil study.

He was then crushed on election day by Megan Leslie.

3) The collapse and decline of Frank Magazine, in that order

By a mile, no news outlet had as crazy a year as Frank Magazine. More like 15 months really as it was fall of 2010 when Frank stalwart Cliff Boutilier (a.k.a. A. Frank Grunt) left and owner John Williams sold the gossip mag to Cape Breton rich guy Parker Rudderham.

Rudderham hired several new reporters and moved out of the legendarily gross Frank bunker for a new waterfront office. Things looked bright for the 25-year-old publication. Then early in the year editor Andrew Douglas wrote a column from the point of view of sexist boor Eddie Cornwallis, named after the controversial scalp collector who founded Halifax.

There was a tense staff meeting. One reporter was fired. Another resigned immediately after. The remaining two reporters walked out and when they returned the next day they were told they were being let go for insubordination. The entire Frank newsroom was cleared out.

(Note: At this point I should say that I know all of the ex-Frank employers personally. For that matter, I know almost everyone mentioned in this piece to some degree. Halifax is a small media circle)

Frank rebuilt with a stable of new employees. They may all be quite bright, but with so many new writers and not enough experienced hands to guide them, Frank started reading at times like a high school newspaper. There was more and more snark (and lots of naval gazing) but less actual information. And why exactly are people picking up Frank but for the dirt?

To be fair, a rocky patch was inevitable. But then there were some truly baffling editorial decisions. If you haven't read Frank in a while, picture this: it's now on glossy paper and features restaurant reviews. Not funny, sarcastic restaurant reviews. Straight-up restaurant reviews. In Frank Magazine. No word on when horoscopes will be introduced.

Frank used to be the scrappy, self-deprecating organ that took the pompous class down a notch. In contrast, a recent story gushed about owner Parker Rudderham donating a chunk of money at some event. It ended - honest - by detailing the long applause he got.

Moreover, Rudderham has been quick to bully reporters or former employees who talk about him by sending out threatening legal letters. This from the supposed defender of freedom of speech and pushing boundaries. In fact you should probably read the rest of this piece quickly as I'll likely get a cease and desist order soon.

For better or worse, Frank hadn't changed much over the past quarter century. In some ways it probably needed to. The old Frank is now gone and the question is whether the new Frank will find its niche.

Rudderham apparently told staff he was willing to lose $300,000 on the venture in year one (it was profitable at the time of sale, though with a smaller staff). As a longtime reader, I honestly hope Frank is sucessful. Because if not, even rich guys only want to support money-losing ventures for so long.

Jump to part 2 here.