This week’s Midweek began on radio. “So?” you say, “Isn’t it always?” Well, this time we mean on radio, specifically a story on the very first BBC radio broadcast 96 years to the day prior to our show. Co-host Meg Sutton asked scholars how the advent of broadcasting the human voice changed the way we live.
Hosts Meg Sutton and Sam Berube…and no, Midweek has not taken the disturbing step of adopting uniforms. It’s coincidence. Honest.
Other tech-tinkering in history hasn’t been as benign: Take the so-called “Fruit Machine” the federal government paid scientists to try to develop in the ’50s and ’60s so it could detect and purge gay employees. Midweek’s Madeline Lines attended the screening of a film on that project and captured what exposing this history means to gay Canadians today.
Midweek’s Laura Atherton meanwhile reported on the closing feature at this year’s Inside Out LGBT film festival: a compilation of short films made in the 1990s by Canadian women. Laura spoke with one of those filmmakers, Marusya Bociurkiw, about the importance of this storytelling to queer communities.
Speaking of stories, Liam Leonard reported on National Novel Writing Month and its challenge to writers to complete an original manuscript within this November, and Midweek’s Reina Cowan found out how a carpet on the floor at the Carleton University Art Gallery helps a display of photos tell stories of war. Reporter Corey Price then brought insights into storytelling with manga, the Japanese “comic books” that are an iconic art form.
Our very busy lineup board
We also had a timely SAD story — a story on Seasonal Affective Disorder — by reporter Raisa Patel, and an equally timely reminder from Midweek’s Jordana Colomby on why flu shots are important and why many folks still dodge the free needle. Sadly, there’s no needle to protect beech trees from a spreading bark disease, so Danielle Edwards explained what this stubborn fungus might mean to our nearby forests.
Gun and gang violence is another sort of blight, and Midweek’s Adam van der Zwan reported on how one local shooting death shook residents of the surrounding neighbourhood. On more uplifting notes, we also found out through reporter Katie Jacobs about the Carleton Dance Crew and how its making the art (or sport?) of hip hop dancing an inclusive activity, and Alex Kurial previewed the coming Friday’s Colonel By Classic hockey faceoffs between the women’s and men’s teams from Carleton and the University of Ottawa.
All that and a whole lot more on yet another Midweek!