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Nicholas Hune-Brown: How to die on Facebook

When you’re dead, your Facebook page becomes a permanent digital gravestone, and your family and friends (and quite possibly some strangers) will indulge in a free-for-all of trivializing hagiography. The perils of online legacies
By Nicholas Hune-Brown

It was 11 in the morning on a warm Friday in September when a 16-year-old boy named Akash Wadhwa plunged from the Mavis Road overpass onto the busy 401. Shortly afterward, Peel police found the slain body of his classmate Kiranjit Nijjar in a nearby ravine.

At Mississauga Secondary School, what had begun as a series of horrific rumours solidified, piece by piece, into a single, devastating murder-suicide story. According to reports, Wadhwa, a depressed and troubled Grade 12 student, had strangled his 17-year-old friend Nijjar and then jumped onto the highway. Before he leapt, Wadhwa had left a last message on Facebook: “SUICIDE/MURDER NOTE: Three things I learned in life. What goes around comes around. KARMA is the biggest bitch. You should NEVER CHANGE on people who love and care for you… My one main reason I did this is that life let me down way too much.”

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The Informer

Ford Focus

December 1, 2011 | 5:35 pm

11 Comments

The Toronto Star versus Rob Ford: the paper returns fire with a call to the commish

The Toronto Star is going to the city’s integrity commissioner to settle its long-standing grudge match with Mayor Rob Ford. Ever since the Star published a story claiming Ford roughed up one of his players while coaching at Newtonbrook Secondary School, Ford has refused to speak to the paper (except for the time a “groggy-sounding Ford” commented on his kidney stone). Apparently, Ford even took the spat a step further recently, asking the paper’s competitors not to tell the communists at One Yonge (we assume Mammoliti can smell them) about a brief on arts funding. The Star’s return message to Ford: don’t mess. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

(Image: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost)

The Informer

Black Watch

November 29, 2011 | 1:20 pm

3 Comments

Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 9 (wherein Black falls and bruises his knee)

Only in the distorted world of Conrad Black does moving become an ordeal on par with the Hundred Years War or the Rwandan genocide. He admires Barbara Amiel’s “sad and heroic efforts” as they pack up their 800 boxes to ship them to Toronto. Who knew renting a U-Haul truck could be so poetic?

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The Informer

Mediaocracy

November 29, 2011 | 1:13 pm

3 Comments

Rob Ford’s press secretary, Adrienne Batra, joins (and towers over) the Sun

Screenshot of Torontosun.com

Readers who alighted on the Toronto Sun website during their lunch break today were greeted with the unexpected yet benevolent visage of Adrienne Batra, Rob Ford’s press secretary, gazing down upon them. According to the mash note announcement posted there, Batra has been appointed the editor of the paper’s comment pages and website. Publisher Mike Power describes Batra as “a highly effective and skilled communicator with a deep knowledge of and affection for this city,” while editor-in-chief James Wallace points out that “she’s spent her career sticking up for the little guy.” Batra is most famous for her yeoman attempts at reining in the free-wheeling Brothers Ford (including one memorable attempt at spiking a CTV clip), and with this new position, she joins Kory Teneycke in the proud tradition of conservative flacks moving over to a Sun Media property. Her last (official) day with Ford Nation is apparently Friday. We at The Informer wish her the best of luck.

The Hype

Prime Time

November 24, 2011 | 10:31 am

10 Comments

Do you want to see the “evil, left-wing CBC” privatized? There’s a bumper sticker for that

This speaks for itself (and your car) (Image: manybones12)

EBay is filled with many hidden treasures, and today Twitter uncovered something political: a call from one bumper sticker maker to put an end to the public financing of the CBC (or, as the Sun puts it, the state broadcaster) with the sale of a pro-privatization bumper sticker ($8.99 + $2.45 shipping). It’s being touted as a “great stocking stuffer,” so if you know any capitalist motorists who hate Being Erica, Heather Hiscox and Nancy Wilson that much, this would make the perfect present.

The Informer

The New Normal

November 16, 2011 | 11:35 am

Comments

Occupy Toronto gets crushed by the man, then fights the power and actually wins (at least, momentarily)

Protesters at St. James Park after being served with an eviction notice (Image: Kevin Hamilton)

The campout will continue. After the city served Occupy Toronto with an eviction notice yesterday morning, it looked like the party was over. Written by city manager Joe Pennachetti, the notice ordered occupiers to “remove immediately any tent, shelter, structure, equipment and debris” from the park and to stay out between 12:01 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. The protesters began hashing out a series of contingency plans, while a group of sympathetic left-leaning councillors issued a letter to Mayor Rob Ford calling for more discussion. But after a day of frantic action, a last-minute injunction spared the group from eviction—at least until Saturday.

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The Informer

Black Watch

November 15, 2011 | 12:55 pm

2 Comments

Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 7: wherein Conrad is charged with crimes

As chapter seven opens, Conrad Black recalls the release of Richard Breeden’s lengthy investigative report called, somewhat hilariously, “A Corporate Kleptocracy.” Surprisingly, the long-awaited publication is a relief to Black—all of the alleged “skullduggery” turned out to just be rehashed accusations. Not much new information came out of the report, which, incidentally, is how we’re starting to feel about the Baron’s memoir (although it is expanding our vocabulary).

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The Informer

A Message from Toronto Life

November 12, 2011 | 10:30 am

1 Comment

Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from the debt of nations to male gyrations

Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 9, 2011 | 8:45 am

15 Comments

The Loaded List: we catalogue the astronomical salaries of Toronto’s ruling class

The Loaded List
It’s not particularly polite to ask rich people what they earn. But tact is overrated, and we wanted to know, so we asked anyway. When they told us to get lost, we got sneaky. We dug up disclosure documents, annual reports and the tax filings of charitable organizations. When those trails went dry, we surveyed industry insiders who know what other people make—headhunters and consultants and analysts and colleagues—and asked for an educated guess. After hundreds of calls and emails and deep-throat meetings in dark alleys, we phoned the high earners back and told them what we found. Again, with feeling, they told us to piss off.

What follows is our shamelessly gawking, as-precise-as-possible examination of the highest-paid people in the city’s top industries. When the information was available, we included bonuses and perks and, in some cases, exercised stock options. Our findings verified that a high earner in finance is almost always on a different plane (a private jet, usually) than a high earner in, for example, the lowly arts. One major discovery: Heather Reisman took a pay cut. One truth reconfirmed: no matter how rich you are, there’s always someone who makes a helluva lot more.

CLICK HERE TO START THE STORY »

VIEW BY INDUSTRY » GOLD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT FUND MANAGERS SPORTS SHOP OWNERS MEDIA LANDLORDS BAY STREET PUBLIC SERVANTS

VIEW BY SALARY » SEE 69 OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE CITY’S TOP INDUSTRIES, SORTED BY SALARY FROM HIGHEST TO LOWEST

The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 8, 2011 | 10:35 am

2 Comments

The Q&A: Why the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs Janice Gross Stein won’t be our friend on Facebook

By Malcolm Johnston | Photograph by Daniel Ehrenworth

One of the essays in your new book argues that privacy has become an endangered species. Can you explain?
Threats to our privacy have proliferated. The Citizen Lab here at the Munk School discovered a group operating through servers in China that was able to remotely access people’s webcams. Think about that. As we’re sitting here, someone is hacking into your computer. When you go back to transcribe this interview, they will have a picture of you and a record of everything you have done.

That’s mildly terrifying. But it doesn’t appear that the general public is too concerned. We post every conceivable detail of our lives on Facebook and Twitter.
Well, that’s the really interesting contradiction. Threats to our privacy abound, and yet people voluntarily share intimate details through social media and email.

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The Informer

A Message from Toronto Life

October 29, 2011 | 10:30 am

Comments

Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from runway panache to butternut squash

Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Ford Focus

October 28, 2011 | 4:45 pm

3 Comments

Rob Ford–versus–22 Minutes fracas is now officially a tempest in a gravy boat

With all the conflicting and disputed accounts swirling around regarding what actually happened on that fateful Monday morning when 22 Minutes’ Mary Walsh ambushed Rob Ford outside his home, let’s take a moment to review what we actually know. When the CBC crew showed up at the Ford house, the mayor responded by calling 911 (according to the Toronto Sun, he sounded scared). The Sun also reports that there were three calls: two from Ford to dispatchers, and one from dispatchers to Ford (the CBC’s initial story failed to mention that last detail). Discussions with dispatch were tense, but it’s unclear what, exactly, was said. The CBC has stuck by a story citing sources that said Ford called someone a “bitch.” Ford denies this. (It seems possible that the CBC hadn’t actually heard the tapes when it ran the story.) However, some of Ford’s initial claims now appear untrue, including that the encounter took place while it was dark. Really, it all boils down to a lot of he-said-she-said. Beyond that, we’re struggling to see how the whole dramatic ordeal amounts to anything more.

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The Informer

Gravy Train Wreck

October 27, 2011 | 5:09 pm

Comments

Police reduce dry cleaning costs, media dutifully report on most boring gravy ever

Turns out Bill Blair can be cooperative after all. Although Toronto media have largely focused on Rob Ford bending to Blair’s budget demands of late, the Toronto Star learned of one reduction to the police budget: the dry cleaning bill. The police service has found a way to save $700,000 on its dry cleaning, bringing the total cost down to a measly $1.4 million. Apparently, it’s a complicated business keeping the boys in blue looking sharp (the cops ditched current providers Cadet Cleaners and Sketchley Cleaners for suitably named The Dry Cleaner). Regardless of what you think of Ford in the wake of recent miscues, you can’t deny the man this much: he’s created a media culture in the city where dry-cleaning bills are now legitimate news. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The Informer

Ford Focus

October 26, 2011 | 2:25 pm

21 Comments

Rob Ford attempts to tell truth, fumbles, and ultimately appears less sympathetic after 22 Minutes ambush

(Image: Christopher Drost)

Okay, the tale of Rob Ford and This Hour Has 22 Minutes has become decidedly unfunny. The news this week that Ford called 911 after Mary Walsh ambushed him at his home seemed pretty laughable at first, but we were somewhat sympathetic—maybe because we understand some public figures consider their home off-limits, maybe because one of Ford’s children was allegedly involved, or maybe because of those death threats. But then we saw footage of the event and changed our minds. In the larger media world, not surprisingly, Ford’s usual defenders are rushing to his side, and Ford’s usual opponents are roundly castigating him. Yet we think there’s a little more to this than the standard ideological saber rattling.

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