The Back Story

with Gabrielle Giroday

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• Records checks: necessary evil?

  I received two interesting pieces of mail regarding a recent story I did on wait times for criminal record checks, based on the ones needed for those who work with especially vulnerable people like kids or disabled adults.

  View Full Post 12/2/2011 3:50 PM 0

• Winnipeg revolution, Cameroon election

  Good news for intellectuals, debaters and general rabble-rousers – dissent in Winnipeg is alive and well.

  View Full Post 11/15/2011 11:45 AM 0

• Theft-proof car? Try Phil Collins

  One day — though not today — I will write the top ten things I've discovered covering crime.

  View Full Post 08/9/2011 10:51 AM 0

• Hidden violence at work

  I recently did a series called Danger Pay for the Free Press, focussing on how violence at work impacts different professions.

  View Full Post 07/19/2011 10:39 AM 0

• On Val and giving victims a voice

  It’s one of the most famous lines of poetry: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

  View Full Post 01/3/2011 5:02 PM 0

• Death on Kennedy and Invisible Jeanine

  

  I suspect if I ever saw 32-year-old Jeanine Allen – and odds are, I likely did, as this is Winnipeg – I wouldn’t have looked twice.

  View Full Post 12/13/2010 1:09 PM 0

• Idiot insight from Toronto

  Three words: judge, sex, bondage. Really, the story on Judge Lori Douglas indicates that’s there’s a never-ending public thirst for high-powered people doing smutty things, and where the debate over private life and public office begins.

  View Full Post 09/10/2010 12:40 PM 0

• Beating up nuns, or taking the high road

  The crime beat will bring you the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, a total roller coaster ride.

  View Full Post 06/10/2010 6:28 PM 0

• Gang coverage under the microscope

  I blogged earlier this week on the West End violence, and the importance of looking at last week’s fatal shooting of 16-year-old Kyle Earl in a wider social context.

  View Full Post 06/2/2010 3:23 PM 0

• Teenage gangsters are made, not born

  Ever feel like you're on repeat? Last week, as West End violence ramped up in the headlines, it seemed familiar, if deeply troubling.

  View Full Post 06/1/2010 12:06 PM 0

• Update on a lost hockey star

  The head producer of Hockey Night in Canada, Sherali Najak , contacted me Saturday night to let me know that there was an on-air tribute to Brock Pulock, 13.

  View Full Post 04/12/2010 12:31 PM 0

• House of horrors, and needles that changed her life

  I have no other words: the Ross Avenue home where a 30-year-old woman died this week is a total dump.

  View Full Post 04/8/2010 3:09 PM 0

• Don Cherry, and the kid who didn't see 14

  

  To know Brock Pulock would be to know he loved hockey.

  View Full Post 03/31/2010 1:33 PM 0

• Crime victims, the ‘sacrificial animals’

  It’s a word you hear so often on the crime beat it might start losing its meaning.

  View Full Post 03/24/2010 4:26 PM 0

• Missing: 100 million baby girls

  Oh, the Economist. How I love thee, even though we have such a conflicted relationship.

  View Full Post 03/15/2010 1:28 PM 0

• Should blood and gore sell safety?

  I admit it, I'm a sceptic when it comes to advertising.

  View Full Post 03/2/2010 10:10 AM 0

• The $171 beer for ice fishers

  Here’s the thing about the law: it doesn’t breathe.

  View Full Post 02/24/2010 5:15 PM 0

• African Mafia: the power of a name

  Is there anyone I hang out with who didn't hear me tell them to run -- not walk -- to Cinematheque to see The Storytelling Class?

  View Full Post 01/25/2010 2:17 PM 0

• Police chopper donut runs and juror cats?

  Sometimes, the things I cover can be quite dark and disturbing. It’s the nature of the territory.

  View Full Post 01/21/2010 6:17 PM 0

• A ‘hot’ teacher and brave hockey player

  I recently wrote about how male victims of sexual assault might face social stigma in coming forward in ways that women don’t
  (thanks to a reader who eloquently pointed out that a sex assault series I wrote focused mostly on women, not men).

  View Full Post 01/18/2010 10:54 AM 0