When I left Toronto and entered journalism in the late 1990s, I had many notions about the news business, nearly all of them wrong, as it turned out.

They had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.

That's a paradox I've noticed, too: The news business held little romance for me, yet writing about it somehow stirred my affections.

As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists....

Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.

Journalists who are devoted to strictly factual reporting take particular pleasure from satirical news outlets that have the liberty to laugh and even mock the hypocrisy that reporters and editors must simply observe without comment.