Jessica Johnson will never forget the time Anne Kingston edited a story about the perfect white shirt.
Kingston gave herself a reputation at the time as someone who wrote shrewd cultural stories, observed trends and this was something that carried into her work as a style editor.
“Somehow even when she did these consumer subjects she would imbue them with this sense of meaning,” recalled Johnson.
This sense of meaning is something Kingston carried on when she covered numerous sexual assault trials.
Canadian journalism lost this powerful voice when senior writer and columnist Kingston passed away in a Toronto hospital at the age of 62 on Feb. 12. She was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in December 2019.
Kingston’s career spans over three decades, working for publications such as The National Post, Saturday Night, and most recently, Maclean’s. Her work has also appeared in The Globe and Mail.
Her writing spanned from business reporting to social trends. In recent years, Kingston and her work became well-known for covering issues pertaining to violence against women. She extensively covered the trials of Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby, and taught a lecture course at the University of Toronto on the #MeToo Movement with colleague and friend, Jessica Johnson.
Johnson, who is now the executive editor and creative director at The Walrus, recalls her friendship with Kingston fondly.
“She once referred to me to another friend as like a little sister,” said Johnson.
Johnson first met Kingston when they were both working for Saturday Night in 2000. The pair drifted apart for a certain number of years, but were reconnected at the lecture course they taught together.
“It was a very stimulating, intellectual partnership, the kind of thing that you don’t really have a lot in your career,” said Johnson.
They were hired to teach the course in the spring and began to meet up once a week to plan their classes. “We would meet at eight in the morning before I went to work, and then it would get later because Anne didn’t like waking up early.”
The love Kingston had for her profession and work was something that shone through constantly to those around her. “She didn’t have the sense of anxiety that most writers have … of how they’re going to cover a story. She just loved covering stories,” said Johnson.
“She was always trying to connect the dots.”
Kingston didn’t only inspire her colleagues, she inspired her readers and changed their lives, said Johnson.
“I’d see readers encounter her for the first time, and there would be a little bit of awe.”
Liz Renzetti, a columnist and feature writer for The Globe and Mail, met Kingston almost 20 years ago. “I was never a close friend of hers … but I was always such a huge admirer of her work,” she said.
Kingston’s work was vastly admired by those around her, not just for the subject matters she chose, but for her work ethic and her integrity, explained Renzetti.
“Whenever you read one of her stories, you knew it was going to be fantastically well-researched,” said Renzetti.
Her work represented more than just certain underreported issues that needed to have lights shone on them; it represented our world, our systems, and Kingston’s attempt to deconstruct it, said Renzetti.
“She was tough and determined to get the truth,” said Johnson.
“She was trying to explain society and look at the relationship between power and ordinary people,” she said.
“What I will always take away from Anne is this idea that the facts are more important than the story.”
Graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
