Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements It’s been a rough four years. Everybody knows that. And though their struggles don’t register much with the public, journalists have arguably been having a rough 20 years, probably more. They’d ask for your sympathy but know they’re not likely to get it, though they can write books like Nellie Bowles’ Morning After [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements There was a point, nearly a quarter century ago, when the war to protect children online was probably lost. Writing about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in his new book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt notes that the [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Two years ago at a Munk Debate about public trust in mainstream media, journalist Matt Taibbi was repeatedly smeared by his opponent, essayist Malcolm Gladwell, with a charge that he harboured an “affection” for (as Taibbi recalled) “Jim Crow, the ‘50s, and the ‘golden moment’ when media was ‘dominated by white men’.” It [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements The idea of a “God-shaped hole” that came into existence roughly during the Enlightenment and grew with the retreat of religion is mistakenly attributed to the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. The truth is that nobody really knows where the phrase came from, but it has taken on a life of its own, becoming [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Having worked as a movie critic on and off for over three decades, it’s around this time of year when I get asked who I think will win the Oscars. What are my picks – which is to say who do I think should win? And what do I think about the show, [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Last fall, film critic Christian Toto wrote a column asking why conservative creators – authors, filmmakers, musicians and comedians – have a hard time getting their work promoted to the audiences they’re trying to reach because conservative news media is so unenthusiastic about covering and promoting their work. “The Left maintains a strong, [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements I knew something was up when my eldest daughter texted me: “Dad, how often do you think about the Roman Empire?” I replied quickly – and honestly. “At least every other day.” “That’s what I thought,” she wrote. “I know why you’re asking this,” I responded. It had begun just a few days [...]
Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Rick McGinnis: I have a theory that we only started thinking seriously about generations after World War II when – in Western countries at least – it became rarer for multiple generations to inhabit the same household. Instead of being divided roughly into “young” and “old” we became obsessed with the small differences between discrete [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Social media as we know it is nearly a quarter century old, and by now I think we have some idea of its dangers as well as its benefits. There was a reminder of those dangers earlier this year – just one of many we get, and one that you’re likely to miss [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements In her new book On Class, Toronto writer and editor Deborah Dundas talks about showing up for a job interview at a television station overdressed. Brought up with a working-class background, she recalls that she “looked like I was pretending to be a banker,” while the people interviewing her dressed more casually, familiar [...]
Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements It might be easier to be optimistic about the future if we published more mea culpas – books like Robert D. Kaplan’s recent The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate and the Burden of Power, in which the author confesses to a heavy conscience in the wake of what he considers two errors of judgment that ended [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements You’ll just have to trust me when I say that it was a very big deal when A.O. Scott, one of the New York Times’ two full-time movie critics, recently announced he was retiring from reviewing films. The news might not have reached you yet, so I’ll give you a minute to digest [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements There’s an evergreen appeal to books about the world going to hell. There might be better or worse times to tell a story about civilization falling apart – the ‘30s and ‘70s were ripe for it; the ‘60s and ‘90s not so much. We’re in one of those doomsaying boom times again. I [...]
Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Rick McGinnis: Ten years ago, journalist Leah McLaren wrote something that would come back to haunt her: “I have a secret to tell you: The best confessional writing isn’t the truth.” The first sentence of an article published in Chatelaine magazine, it was a reflection back on a career writing about herself and her experiences [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements I have lost track of the number of times I’ve been watching a movie or TV show and wondered to myself if it was filmed in the first vertical shaft of a coal mine, or if I might be developing cataracts. Apparently, I’m not alone; at least three times in the last year [...]