The remaining staff at Toronto’s NOW Magazine haven’t gotten a regular paycheque in months. But as the beloved alt-weekly disintegrated around them, they kept on putting out issues. Norm Wilner, who spent 14 years as NOW’s film writer, joins former colleague Jonathan Goldsbie on Short Cuts to consider the slow decay of a publication that served as the city’s internet, before the internet was a thing. They also look at the Toronto Star’s successful battle to overturn a strange publication ban masking the identity of an upper-crust private school.

The rise and fall of Canada’s alt-weekly magazines.