Off the Record, on the QT and Very Hush-Hush

By Johnnie Walker

Tonight the Drake Hotel hosts the second edition of its Nonfiction series. The big idea is that a bunch of journos sit around at the bar swapping stories that never made it to print, like one imagines Charles Foster Kane’s newspapermen might have done. Only for a $5.30 cover, civilians are allowed to come listen.
The last edition was already somewhat controversial, especially because of the event’s somewhat curious and impossible to enforce off-the-record policy. Due to the sensitive nature of some of the stories being told, Nonfiction’s organizers have insisted that the entire evening is to be considered on the QT, even handing out postcards saying that no part of the evening can be “reproduced in print, broadcast or conversation.” One assumes the Nonfiction-types realize how unlikely it is that stories told to a roomful of people who paid to be there, many of them non-journalists, will never be “reproduced in conversation” if they’re at all worth hearing, but they really got their knickers in a knot at the last event when they noticed NOW writer Paul Terefenko had showed up late, missed the postcard, and was actively recording the entire show. In a canny move, the organizers have decided to ask Terefenko to speak at tonight’s Nonfiction about why he recorded the last one.
Other speakers at tonight’s event include “Ouimet,” Ian Brown, Michael Adler, Jason Anderson and Kathryn Borel. Just make sure to leave your camcorder at home (although dollars to doughnuts some douchebag with a Blackberry will be liveblogging the whole thing).