I didn’t go to journalism school. In a day when informal apprenticeship was the norm, I was lucky to learn my trade from its best practitioners: Nick Fillmore, the crusading editor of the feisty local alternative weekly, the 4th Estate; Harry Bruce, one of Canada’s finest magazine writers and essayists; and Pat Connolly, the legendary […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 12/03/2012
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
One can understand Premier Darrell Dexter’s aggressive/defensive, head-in-the-convention-centre response to last week’s auditor general’s report. That report—which damned the shoddiness of the business case Trade Centre Ltd. concocted to justify a new convention centre—called on the government to launch an independent review of TCL’s numbers. Dexter was having none of it. TCL based its conclusions, […]
- 11/26/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The idea for this past weekend’s fourth annual Halifax International Security Forum, Peter MacKay told the Globe and Mail, was born because our defence minister “got a little tired” of traveling to other global security conferences in places like Munich where the discussions were all “Europe-America, Europe-America.” Voila the Halifax Forum. MacKay’s “brainchild”—as another media […]
- 11/19/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Forget the Byzantine balls-up the attempt to unionize Canada’s junior hockey players became—league-hired private investigators snooping on union staff, falsely (maybe) intimating one was a felon; union (dis)organizers scheduling, then canceling votes—and ask ourselves two simple questions: First, do run-of-the-litter junior hockey players, the ones least likely to lose millions in the next NHL lockout, […]
- 11/05/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
When I was a fresh-faced young radio reporter in the days before journalists discovered ethics, we would occasionally—on slow days when news was in short supply—create our own.“Did you hear the rumour?” one reporter might say to another. “The premier is thinking of calling a snap election.” “Really?” the second reporter would reply. “We should […]
- 10/29/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The race for HRM mayor really began on February 6, 2012, when former Liberal MP Mike Savage—surrounded by a fawning, hopeful who’s who of 300 of the city’s most influential business and political makers and breakers—declared he would challenge long-past-his-best-before-date incumbent Peter Kelly.The campaign effectively ended two-and-a-half weeks later when Kelly—already mired in myriad self-made […]
- 10/22/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The question that truly, biblically passeth all understanding is why. Why would a 77-year-old senior citizen with five last names, a 40-year criminal history as long as both your arms and one of your legs, with two dead husbands—one of whom she was convicted of killing and the other seriously suspected—a woman who is now […]
- 10/15/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Perhaps Darrell Dexter’s prickly petulance last week was the result of too many too long nights reworking the on-again, off-again, can-we-have-more-please deal to save Port Hawkesbury’s NewPage paper mill. And the certainty he would be damned for saving it. Just as he would have been damned for having failed to save it. Or, more generally, […]
- 10/01/2012
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
I have rewritten this column three times in the past three days as the on, then off, then on-again deal to re-start the NewPage mill in Point Tupper played itself out in after-hours news releases and hastily convened press conferences.But my essential question hasn’t changed. How much is more than too much? It’s far from […]
- 09/24/2012
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
When someone asks where you’re from, do you say, “I am a proud citizen of the Halifax… Regional… Municipality…”Or do you acronym-ize your place of residence as something called H-R-M? Or perhaps humanize it as HeRM? Uh… Unlikely on all counts. Most of us—especially when speaking to outsiders—probably say we’re from Halifax. If we’re being […]
- 09/17/2012
- StephenKimber
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STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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