2025: The Stories That Surprised Us |
In a time of echo chambers and hyper-personalization, where algorithms narrow the focus of what we see online, The Walrus focuses on journalism that expands horizons and tells you about what you didn’t know you needed to know. Here are nine stories from 2025, as chosen by our editors, that opened up new worlds and ideas to our team and our readers.
Carine Abouseif, Senior Editor: As an editor, my ears always perk up when I hear a story described as “juicy.” That’s how we talked about contributing writer Tajja Isen’s essay, “The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem,” as it made its way through our editorial process. Tajja interviewed writers, book editors, and literary agents about the concept of “sales track”—a term for the number of books a writer has sold. Low sales numbers can cut down a writer’s career before it’s even really begun, shaping how an agent pitches their second book and whether editors will buy it. It was juicy because of the voices Tajja was able to get, including an editor at a Big Five press. But I also loved it for the way it pulls back the curtain on an industry that I know little about, but whose products I consume. If I read a book by a debut author and never see a second book, I find myself wondering what happened to them. The piece answers that question: they probably didn’t get a second chance. As an editor—of journalism, not books—I’ve seen first-hand how writers find their voice: with one piece, then another, then another. It would be a shame if they didn’t get that chance.
Carmine Starnino, Editor in Chief: It’s rare to find a magazine story in which a writer scrutinizes her own motives as rigorously as she does her subject’s. Reporting, after all, rests on the presumption of ethical clarity, with the journalist cast as moral referee. Michelle Shephard turns that convention inside out. She is, of course, the former national security reporter who led the Toronto Star coverage of the Toronto 18, the group of eighteen Muslim men and youth arrested in 2006 for plotting a terrorist attack. After years of trials, a life term was handed to twenty-four-year-old ringleader Zakaria Amara. His release on parole in 2022 prompted Shephard to ask how he became radicalized, why he turned to violence, and whether he had truly been rehabilitated. In “How a Would-Be Bomber Rebuilt His Life,” she returns to the case she helped bring to national prominence, examining not only Amara’s transformation but also her own complicity in shaping the media portrait that defined........