Category: Feature

  • Intimidation and Censorship: The true price for freedom of press in Canada
    Intimidation and Censorship: The true price for freedom of press in Canada

    How Canadian media has fostered a not-so-safe environment for journalists to speak their minds By Sidra Al Jammal When walking down Gould Street near Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), one will almost always find something interesting occurring. However, if you were to walk past there on the evening of Feb. 1, 2024, one would have seen…

  • Bridging the gap for Black Canadian creatives
    Bridging the gap for Black Canadian creatives

    Immersive media lab program offers opportunities for Black creatives to experiment in VR technology By Jasmine Makar In the relatively new world of immersive media production and digital storytelling, getting a foot in the door within the industry can be challenging, especially with financial, racial and time constraints. Building a space for up-and-coming creatives to…

  • When Waste Becomes Art
    When Waste Becomes Art

    This Toronto centre is ‘saving the planet, one scrap, one stitch, one piece at a time’ By Raghad Genina In a facility housed under a newly built condo building in the middle of the Parkdale community, the rhythmic hum of sewing machines breaks the silence. As you enter the centre on Abell Street, you are…

  • Canada’s Multicultural Mosaic is Under Attack
    Canada’s Multicultural Mosaic is Under Attack

    What does it take for immigrants to integrate into Canadian society? By Daniyah Yaqoob Immigrating is often no easy task. During this process, you leave behind some family and some friends, some culture and some history. The theatre you watched your favourite movies in or the store that always stocked the snacks you loved best…

  • The Women Colouring Toronto with a Purpose
    The Women Colouring Toronto with a Purpose

    Women across Toronto make murals and street art to connect with and change the city  By Rowan Flood Toronto’s landscape has tall and low buildings, narrow and wide streets, houses, parks and more. Within the city’s structure, there is also the opportunity for art. The art put onto the street and for the public is…

  • The hustle of student business owners
    The hustle of student business owners

    Student entrepreneurs show ambition and drive since their humble beginnings  By Aliya Karimjee After growing tired of hearing the people around him simply say they would follow their dream without committing to it, RJ Mijares, a third-year business management student at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), persevered to show dreams can come true with hard work. …

  • Triumph at the 2023 Toronto Dragon Festival: A Showcase of Innovation and Cultural Fusion
    Triumph at the 2023 Toronto Dragon Festival: A Showcase of Innovation and Cultural Fusion

    The dedicated team behind the 2023 Toronto Dragon Festival worked tirelessly to achieve remarkable success, shining a light on continuous innovation and the way cultural harmony comes together to celebrate the vibrant tapestry of multiculturalism. By Meena Ma Opening Spectacle and Eagle Li’s Story The world saw itself come to a halt in 2020 as…

  • A Love Letter to Cross-Cultural Connections
    A Love Letter to Cross-Cultural Connections

    Sometimes,  home isn’t home, but the heart of another’s By Melanie Nava Urribarri You stand in your childhood kitchen. The soft murmurs of your mother tongue tickle your ears as you’re zoned out with the dim evening glow lighting up your peripheral vision. From the stove, familiar smells wrap you up in a warm comfort.…

  • Climbing the ladder: How Kendra Doyle has become a rising name in Ontario sports media
    Climbing the ladder: How Kendra Doyle has become a rising name in Ontario sports media

    From the Mississauga Steelheads to the Barrie Baycats, this Brock University student takes every opportunity to get one step closer to her dream.  By Nicole Soroka The television lit up in a sea of gold and black as the Boston Bruins won the coveted Stanley Cup in 2011 — the first time in 39 years.…

  • SickKids Fairchild Fundraising Day: A bridge between media, community, and healthcare
    SickKids Fairchild Fundraising Day: A bridge between media, community, and healthcare

    Discover the powerful bonds forged where media, community and healthcare converge, uniting diverse groups with a shared mission By: Meena Ma Everett Ho, a longtime patient from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), confidently stood on stage with his eyes fixated on actor Ryan Reynolds in the audience. “Hi Ryan,” said Ho at the Canadian…

  • Spooky sustainability: Making Halloween celebrations more eco-friendly
    Spooky sustainability: Making Halloween celebrations more eco-friendly

    The holiday is a great opportunity to reduce, reuse and recycle. By: Alina Jaffer It’s that time of year again. Glowing jack o’lanterns pop up on porches around the neighbourhood. Retail stores set their speakers to play weird “Monster Mash” covers around the clock. And somehow, every coffee and baked good is suddenly pumpkin-spiced. All…

  • Insider Insights for First-Years: Senior-Proven Tips for Success
    Insider Insights for First-Years: Senior-Proven Tips for Success

    By: Amulyaa Dwivedi Made by Amulyaa Dwivedi via Canva. Welcome, future college trailblazers! As you prepare to embark on your exciting freshman journey, you might be feeling a mix of emotions—anticipation, excitement, maybe even a touch of apprehension. Rest assured, you’re not alone in this adventure. In fact, you have an invaluable resource right at…

  • Accessibility in newsrooms: Managing disability in a profession that isn’t disability friendly

    How disabled journalists navigate the industry By: Aru Kaul Content Warning: Mentions and discussions of (dis)ableism and its impacts As journalists, the public relies on us to bring stories to them. The minute we step into a newsroom, we are making a commitment to deliver factual, timely and relevant information, regardless of whatever is going…

  • Paw-some partners: TMU campus is a dog’s best friend

    TMU campus is not only a hub for learning but also a furry friend haven for dogs, providing stress relief and companionship for students By: Amulyaa Dwivedi The parks around Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) are filled with life, from the squirrels to the pigeons to the rare chipmunks. But the royalty of the TMU quads…

  • Film is not dead: The prevalence of analog photography

    How Toronto photographers are carrying on the legacy of the traditional medium By: Madeline Liao One evening in September 2018, Wendy Vu battled the chaos of Toronto’s Union Station and hopped on a GO bus, travelling an hour to meet up with a mysterious Facebook Marketplace seller. She sat at the front of the bus’s…

  • Feel the ‘need’ to date? TMU students reflect on relationship obsessions

    Peer pressure and societal standards are making some students infatuated with love By: Aliya Karimjee As we make our landing in the season of love, single people often feel pressured to enter a relationship and conform to society’s expectations of partnership. With the popularization of heteronormative nuclear-family relationship standards in media, there’s the misconception that…

  • Together apart: Exploring the reality of long-distance relationships

    Take a deep dive into the actuality of being in a long-distance relationship and discover the secret to getting through it all By: Sia Shete And in Life’s noisiest hour, There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee, The heart’s Self-solace and soliloquy. The Presence of Love; Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Being invested in a long-distance…

  • TMU students follow Wen-Do women’s self-defence workshop as a ‘last measure’ to feeling safe on campus

    Students vocalize their safety concerns as danger arises on campus By: Aliya Karimjee Trigger/Content Warning: This story contains content on sexual assault Marginalized communities at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) are taking their safety into their own hands with the Wen-Do women’s self-defence workshop following a string of sexual assaults at Kerr Hall East.  TMU has…

  • This V-Day, the stars are aligned

    By: Lynette George Can’t figure out what to do for Valentine’s Day this year? Are you scouring the internet, hunting for the perfect plan? Well, look no further! I have your back. Here’s a comprehensive list of potential date ideas based on the 12 widely contrasting zodiac signs. ARIES As the first astrological sign of…

  • The loveless truth behind the ‘five love languages’

    Gary Chapman’s love theory turns out to be very controversial By: Krishika Jethani Content Warning: Homophobia By now many have heard about the supposed five love languages and without knowing anything about its origin, we’ve begun categorizing ourselves, our partners and the ways we show love using the now-omnipresent classifications. The five languages are known…

  • Audio Only: A podcast about podcasts

    Dive into the podcasting world along with Mari and Mia and learn all about how to tell a story in an audio-only format By: Mia Johnson and Mariana Schuetze Podcasting is hard – it’s not an easy gig. We would know. There’s scheduling interviews, pre-interviews, conducting interviews, script writing, and narration recordings. And don’t even…

  • To all the singles, keep your head up this Valentine’s Day

    Is anticipating the upcoming doom of Valentine’s Day leaving you extra sad and lonely? We’ve got some remedies for your woes By: Yanika Saluja The new year is not usually great for us singles, especially by the time the dreaded month of February comes around. Our “self-growth” and “focusing on ourselves” resolutions are not even…

  • Education over entertainment: How to consume true crime ethically

    From podcasts to docu-series and beyond, true crime content has romanticized gruesome acts, but trauma-informed projects may be the future of the genre By: Paige Janssens Content/Trigger Warning: Mentions of blood, death/murder, homophobia Bone-chilling accounts of blood-soaked murders, nail-biting suspense and the fact that everything you hear truly happened can make the true crime genre…

  • The beauty of being able to reach for one another

    A photojournalistic composition about community and love By: Rowan Flood “I love to see you smile,” said Maya Kagan to Menachem Bluestein as they sat together during a Sunday of activities run by Dani, the Toronto-based program for disabled adults. The room where everyone gathers on Sunday has an immediate sense of family. People check…

  • Toronto’s Holiday Fair in the Square cut short due to severe storm warning

    The annual event experienced last-minute changes due to province-wide weather warnings By: Vihaan Bhatnagar The Holiday Fair in the Square shut down earlier than planned on Wednesday due to severe storm warnings. With slushy and unsafe weather events being predicted on Thursday. Parts of Ontario, including Toronto, saw a huge snow and wind storm Friday,…

  • A third culture: Navigating second-generation identity

    My journey of discovering what is really means to be Filipino-Canadian By: Shekinah Natan I grew up ashamed to be Filipino.  And no, it wasn’t because I was told to be ashamed or because I experienced overt racism (although that is the reality for many people). I was ashamed because I would hear my parents…

  • TMU School of Journalism announces new live journalism course

    Students can enroll in the course starting Winter 2023 By: Krishika Jethani A live journalism course is coming to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in the Winter 2023 semester. The course, named Special Topics in Journalism, will be offered by the Creative School’s School of Journalism. Live journalism, unlike traditional journalism, requires a live audience. Instead…

  • All in the name of health: The dangers diet culture presents to orthorexia survivors

    As orthorexia encourages a feigned image of health, intense diets like intermittent fasting only push those who struggle with the eating disorder further away from recovery By: Olivia Wiens This piece contains discussions of eating disorders and eating disorder behaviours Rachel Barich remembers biting into a bagel for the first time in five years —…

  • Is Twitter-based journalism the past or the future?

    Canadian experts and students weigh in on using the app post-acquisition By: Alina Jaffer Since its mobilization in the 2008 United States presidential campaign, Twitter became the ultimate multi-purpose tool for journalists. Reporters routinely use the platform as a means of outreaching, networking, reporting and promoting. Citizen journalists famously tweeted their way through the Arab…

  • Dhruv Gogia: A student’s journey of rejection and resilience

    How one Toronto student found light in darkness on his way to TikTok stardom By: Yanika Saluja You’ve probably read about celebrities or influencers who made it big and are now idolized by millions of young people world-wide. The stories you haven’t seen, are likely those of aspiring artists in the struggling phases of their…