LJR 2010

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LJR

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Number 14

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LJR INDEX ! " # "

In depth At a glance 5. Courting the truth A legal ruling gives journalists a new defence against libel

11. Olympic insider A student reporter aims for journalistic gold

32. Parsons picks up the pace Veteran news anchor Tony Parsons refuses to call it quits

35. In jest we trust Satire often gives us insight into the Big Truth

8. Pulse of the community

How a Jewish community newspaper changed its voice

12. The fine lines of cartooning Cartoonists are supposed to be funny, but what happens when no one laughs?

14. The new voice

Social networking websites allow journalists to break the mold

17. Reporting under fire

Embedded journalists risk their lives to share stories of war

20. Conflict journalists in training Journalists get a crash course in war reporting at a Canadian Forces base

21. Fallen storyteller

Reporter Michelle Lang gave her life doing the job she loved

22. Censorship in china

Are authorities in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fastest-growing economy lifting the heavy hand of media control?

25. Home team advantage

How team websites are changing the nature of sports coverage

28. Writing into the storm

Journalism jobs may be scarce but j-schools are still packing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;em in

30. Teaching a man to fish

A recent journalism grad reports on how Canadian cash is helping rural communities in Ethiopia

33. Surfers beware

Speed matters when it comes to the free flow of information on the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Net

36. The campus press Do student newspapers offer the best training for budding journalists?

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35

LJR The Langara Journalism Review An annual review of trends and issues inWestern Canadian journalism written and produced by Langara College journalism students.

LJR Staff and Graduating Class of 2010 Back row from left: Trevor Crawley, Derek Scott, Jerome Turner, Aleksandar Lescan, Alex Polutnik, Alana Turner, Diego Syz. Front row from left: Brandi Vincent, Amanda Jackaman, Kimiya Shokoohi, Cheryl Minns, Marjorie Ennis, Andrea Cheung, Carly Sheridan, Ben Lypka. Missing: Erin Steele, Weston Steele

Editor’s Note

Ready to answer the call Last year proved to be a deadlly year for journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports 71 journalists, including Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang, were killed worldwide in pursuit of their passion – a passion to reveal the truth, no matter the danger.

Some may suggest the job of professional storyteller is a relatively safe one.

For the most part this is true. Undoubtedly more journalists survived 2009 than did not. But these 71 deaths serve as a stark reminder of how dangerous this job can be.

Why do journalists do it? Put their lives on the line to tell someone else’s story? I believe it’s because they have a calling – a desire to find the truth.

During the past two years our journalism class has spent countless hours learning the skills and gaining the knowledge to answer that calling.

We’ve learned to explain complex concepts in a manner that anyone should be able to understand. We’ve learned the rules of media law and ethics. We’ve also !"

learned to present the facts and let the readers decide.

But if we’ve learned anything, it’s that a journalist’s duty is to go further and dig deeper in search of the truth because there’s no sense telling half a story.

We are not all interested in joining the troops on the front lines or heading to the nearest failed state. Some of us will be content to stay in Canada reporting on political affairs, or perhaps just the affairs of the rich and famous. Whatever the beat, we’re ready to get out into the world and get our hands dirty.

Our class has come a long way during the last few years. No longer are we content with merely questioning the status quo – we are determined to find the answers. By continuing this journalistic tradition, we will ensure that those 71 journalists who came before us didn’t die in vain.

–Derek Scott

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Editor Derek Scott Managing Editor Alana Turner Senior Editor Ben Lypka News Editor Trevor Crawley Assistant Publisher Carly Sheridan Production Editor Diego Syz Art Directors Marjorie Ennis Brandi Vincent Chief Photographer Erin Steele Photo Editor Cheryl Minns Copy Chief Jerome Turner Copy Editors Andrea Cheung Aleksandar Lescan Weston Steele Alex Polutnik Page Editors Andrea Cheung Amanda Jackaman Aleksandar Lescan Carly Sheridan Diego Syz Weston Steele Kimiya Shokoohi Alex Polutnik Advertising Amanda Jackaman Cheryl Minns Instructor/Publisher Rob Dykstra Langara College 100 West 49th Avenue Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 2Z6 Telephone: 604-323-5415 Email: journalism.review@langara.bc.ca www.langara.bc.ca/ljr Cover photo by Erin Steele Class photo by Sean Best and Johanna Goodyear Illustrations by Brandi Vincent

Courting the Truth F

earlessly reporting the truth just got a bit easier.

Journalists and bloggers now have greater leeway in their quest to report the truth following the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that allows a new defence against defamation.

The ruling take into account the potentially subjective concept of truth and allow the media to report on it, even if it’s not verifiably true, under two broad conditions: that the reported truth is in the public interest, and that the journalist acted diligently to get all necessary sides to the story.

“It is important because in many circumstances you can’t know for certain the truth of every fact reported,” says Phil Tunley, a media lawyer and board member of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

The new defence, legally referred to as “responsible communication on matters of public interest,” takes this into account by allowing journalists to report responsibly with less fear of libelling someone. Public interest includes the wide spectrum of any subject that any group may have an interest in. Despite this new freedom, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin cautioned in her ruling that, the media still have a critical responsibility.

“It is vital that the media act responsibly in reporting facts on matters of public concern, holding themselves to the highest journalistic standards,” she wrote.

“But to insist on court-established certainty in reporting on matters of public interest may have the effect of preventing communication of facts which a reasonable person would accept as reliable and which are relevant and important to public debate.”

The rulings consider the delicate balance of power between freedom of expression and the the mandate to protect reputations. McLachlin found that decisions in libel cases leaned in favour of the latter.

“While the law must protect reputation, the current level of protection – in effect a regime of strict liability – is not justifiable,” she wrote.

Tunley agrees the balance of power before the rulings leaned more toward protecting reputation.

“It’s important that journalists be able to pursue their work following reasonable and responsible procedures.”

Defamation is a limitation to free expression, so by making the possibility of defaming someone more difficult, that limitation is lessened.

By Erin Steele

Although this is beneficial to journalists, Tunley says the road to free expression involves other aspects, such as access to information laws that give journalists more information about government activities and policies.

“All of these things are different aspects of a better climb to free expression in Canada,” he says.

Tunley believes blogs are part of this climb. “All kinds of new media are available and we need to encourage that as well to really have all of these dimensions to free expression.”

Responsible communication takes the rapidly travelling vehicle of social media directly into account. McLachlin says that because social media often communicates matters of public interest and may cast a wider net of claims, it should be subject to the same laws as traditional media.

“

All of these things are different aspects of a better climb to free expression –Phil Tunley

“While established journalistic standards provide a useful guide by which to evaluate the conduct of journalists and non-journalists alike, the applicable standards will necessarily evolve to keep pace with the norms of new communications media.”

When it comes time for bloggers and journalists to assess whether they acted diligently in trying to verify truths, the Supreme Court has laid out several guidelines, including the seriousness, urgency, public importance of the allegation, and “whether the plaintiff’s side was sought and accurately reported.”

The reliability of the sources and whether the inclusion of the defamatory statement was justifiable should also be taken into consideration. Finally, whether a defamatory statement’s public interest lay in the fact that it was made – such as in a direct quote – rather than its truth, should also be considered.

Tunley cautions that reporting on sensitive government matters or cases involving whistle-blowers, the truth may not be necessarily verifiable.

Nonetheless, the ruling should facilitate journalists’ work in uncovering imformation necessary to the public debate. LJR !"#$"%"&'()%#"*+,-&./0+/1&2343&

35

News Briefs

CityTV sheds staff, cuts content

By the Numbers The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 2009 was the deadliest year for journalists since it began documenting deaths.

71 Journalists killed worldwide in 2009

52 Murdered

12 Caught in crossfire or in combat operations

7 Killed on dangerous assignment

33 Journalists killed in the Philippines

20 Number of countries where journalists were killed

67 Previous death toll in 2007 source: CPJ

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Pleas from communitites to keep local news coverage fell short earlier this year when Rogers Media eliminated 60 poistions in CityTV newsrooms across Canada .

Rogers said the cuts were a result of “shifting viewer patterns coupled with the overall state of the economy.”

Ian Morrison, speaking for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, critisized the cuts are detrimental to Canadian news coverage and will negatively affect the way Canadians receive their news.

“They depress both the quality and quantity of local coverage, where more

time is devoted to things that are easy to cover versus the significant.”

In order to scrimp and save, some programming was cut completely and other popular segments, such as Breakfast Television and CityLine were cut from four hours to three.

The layoffs affected local reporters, editors, producers and camera operators in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.

A Rogers spokesperson called the cutbacks “simple economics.”

–Alana Turner

Broadcasting group disbands Canada’s organization representing broadcasters has folded, in part due to the ongoing dispute between TV and satellite companies over coverage fees.

Representing both parties, CAB found the colliding views on the feud severely divided the organization.

CTV and Canwest approached the CRTC and pushed for fees from cable distributors to compensate declining revenues from local programming.

Local TV stations have little common ground with cable companies, the CAB found in a review.

“It has become obvious some time ago that the three sectors, television, radio and specialty [channels], all in the same room couldn’t really sort out their priorities in a manner that the association could actually do their work,” Elmer Hildebrand, CAB chairman, told the Globe and Mail.

Hildebrand hopes to form another association exclusively for radio broadcasters after CAB officially shuts down in June.

–Trevor Crawley

Newspapers fight proposed tax Newspapers in B.C. are lobbying for exemptions from the harmonized sales tax following Ontario’s decision to excuse theirs.

Ontario relented after pressure by the Canadian Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and a similar request has been made to the B.C. government.

“It’s not going as well as it did in Ontario, but we’re still very hopeful that the B.C. government will be able to see the wisdom of the issue,” said John Hinds, CEO of both the CNA and the CCNA.

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The HST is a detriment to paid papers, said Hinds. The tax, to be imposed on July 1, doesn’t affect free papers, television, Internet or radio.

A seven-per-cent increase to papers means costs will be downloaded to news consumers, Hinds noted.

“If you lose readers, you lose advertisers. If you lose advertisers, you weaken the newspapers. Then you essentially weaken newsrooms because that’s where the cuts will have to come,” Hinds said.

“There will be jobs lost and those jobs will very much be in editorial.”

News Briefs Free ad deal called ‘shocking’ Vancouver’s two major dailies deny any conflict of interest in sponsoring a media centre informing international media of strategies to address social problems in the city’s poorest neighbourhood during the Olympic Games.

The sponsorship deal was made through the advertising departments of The Province and the Vancouver Sun – not the newsrooms – along with BC Housing and the city of Vancouver, reports The Public Eye. “We have contra deals with all sorts of agencies and people we report on. And there’s lots of things the company does in terms of giving space away and cross-promotion and free promotion that could be viewed as a conflict if it was run out of a newsroom. But it wasn’t,” Wayne Moriarty, editor-in-chief of The Prov-

ince, told The Public Eye. The government ran the centre and had access to photos gathered by The Province for Operation Phoenix, an investigative project on the Downtown Eastside shared by Global TV and CKNW radio.

The Province also gave advertising space to promote the centre.

The free advertising move was “shocking,” Lynne Van Luven, a University of Victoria journalism professor, told The Public Eye. “They should be, in fact, standing away from it and looking at it and writing stories about it and trying to find out if it indeed is whitewashing the homeless problem or if, in fact, this BC Housing gambit is actually legit.”

–Trevor Crawley

Illustration by BrandiVincent

Journalist group sought Olympic free expression Concerns over free speech infringement spawned scrutiny by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

The “Olympic Watch” initiative grew out of a desire to ensure the global sporting event upheld freedom of expression in the face of confrontations with security forces.

“It would be a terrible legacy if the fundamental right of free expression were trampled in the process,” stated Arnold Amber, CJFE president, in a news release before the Games.

Before and during the Games, protests remained peaceful, except for one incident where people dressed in black clothing and face masks smashed windows of a Hudson’s Bay store in downtown Vancouver causing a commotion.

Security forces showed “commendable restraint in dealing with protesters,” Michael Byers, a UBC professor of political science, told CBC News.

Fears of a crackdown on expression were raised before the Olympics when two reporters from the Toronto Sun were physically restrained during a torch relay stop through downtown Toronto in December.

One reporter stumbled while an officer tried to get him off the road. The reporter hit his head and required hospitalization.

Another incident involved an American journalist who was detained at the Canadian border while en route to Vancouver to give a talk abouth U.S health care reform and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Border guards questioned her to see if she was coming to Vancouver to criticize the Olympic Games and asked to see her computer and notes.

–Trevor Crawley

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35

P

ulse of the

Community ByWeston Steele The venerable Independent, a newspaper that has served Jews in Vancouver for 80 years, is pushing the boundaries.

when editor and owner Cynthia Ramsay took over the paper The office of the Jewish Independent is cozy but the view from long-time owners Sam and Mona Kaplan in 1999, she felt from its Main Street building isn’t much – just a few rooftops. it needed a different approach. Although it remains pro-Zionist, The more important view is the much broader one that overRamsey wanted to give a voice to those with other ideas. looks Metro Vancouver’s small Jewish community numbering “Sam and Mona Kaplan had a definite vision of the paper about 25,000. The venerable weekly paper is currently the only that they wanted, and how they wanted Jewish voice in the city, and is making an their community,” says Ramsay, who was effort to reach out to readers who hold a born in Winnipeg and holds an economics wide range of opinions. degree from Simon Fraser University. She The Jewish Independent, formerly says the Kaplans were strongly Zionistic, known as The Jewish Western Bulletin, orthodox and conservative. They would began publishing in 1930, well before the refuse, for example, to publish stories creation of Israel and the horrors of the with references to intermarriage.

Second World War. It was the self“This was their vision of the paper proclaimed “organ of the Jewish commuCynthia Ramsay and many of our readers loved that vision nity” and it had the job of uniting an exof the paper, Ramsay says.” panding Jewish population at a time when Both Ramsay and her assistant editor Basya Laye are Jewish, anti-Semitism was on the rise not just in Europe but in Canada, but the paper hires both Jewish and non-Jewish freelancers. as well. It strived to draw its readers’ attention to the dangers Ramsay says one of the first things she did when she purchased facing Jews around the world and to draw the non-Jewish pubthe paper was to give a voice to the “fringe groups” previously lic’s attention to those concerns.

The paper had always been staunchly pro-Zionist (the belief ignored by the paper because of their not-so-Zionistic views.

One of those groups was Jews for a Just Peace, which is in a national homeland for the Jewish people) and it made no in favour of the “two-state solution,” splitting Israel to create a mention of any opposition to Israel except to criticize it. But

“

i don’t think that shoving these people under a rug is a way to deal with them

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Palestinian homeland.

“They’re very controversial and we felt that if they have an event or they write a letter to the editor we’ll start allowing those to be printed and that caused a huge backlash,” Ramsay says.

But she defends the paper’s new approach even if it upsets some of its readers who were more comfortable with the status quo.

“They [Jews for a Just Peace] are Jewish and it’s the Jewish community newspaper. We include them for two reasons: one, they’re Jewish and two, for those people who don’t like them and ...who would like to hear what is being said against Israel. I don’t think that shoving these people under a rug is a way to deal with them.”

But not everyone agrees with this view. Salomon Rayek is one such person.

He was the editor of the western edition of the Jewish Tribune, a Toronto-based paper, until it ceased publishing in February. It established its Vancouver operation in April 2009 and took a more hard-line

approach when it came to politics and Israel, making up for its lack of history with a ton of passion. The Tribune was born of the discontent felt by some members of the Jewish community after the Independent shifted to what they felt to be a too-liberal position.

In an interview with Rayek just before the Tribune ceased publication, he referred to the Independent as “the other newspaper,” the disdain clear in his voice.

“They took the community for granted for too long and they do not approach the issues that concern the Jewish community as a Jewish paper. If you want to read about what Hamas [militant group in Gaza] thinks, pick up the Georgia Straight.”

The Tribune took a strong Zionistic stand and its style was fiery and opinionated. For example, in the first issue of the Tribune, Rayek wrote: “Some other media would have you believe that they present the news in a completely objective way, but the reality is that people, especially media people,

have opinions.You, the reader, can in most instances detect bias in what they choose to report, how they report it, even in their choice of words.

The Jewish Tribune Western Edition is different; we declare up front that we are a Jewish newspaper, and as such we are biased in favour of the community that we serve. We stand up for Canadian and Jewish values. We cherish freedom and democracy. Our reporting will be fair and balanced but we will not compromise our principles. We will not legitimize known anti-Semites and will not provide a forum for those who viciously vilify our sister democracy of Israel.”

Rayek, who is the B.C. chair of B’nai Brith Canada, an advocacy group which serves to protect and stand up for Jews against anti-Semitism, calls his paper more “forthright.”

“It does not pay much attention to political correctness.”

The Tribune was highly critical when the Independent published an announcement in its community calendar section

Erin Steele photo

Cynthia Ramsay, owner-editor of the Jewish Independent, wants her newspaper open to a variety of voices. !"#$"%"&'()%#"*+,-&./0+/1&2343&

35

I think dialogue in this community is lacking, especially on Israel. people are talking past each other.

–Cynthia Ramsay

informing readers about an event against “the Israeli apartheid wall.” Ramsay was well aware that this was an anti-Israel event but believes issues will not go away simply because they are ignored.

“We put something like that in so that somebody who is incredibly pro-Israel will go to the event, be civil, engage in discourse and try to counter some of these myths,” Ramsay says.

“The Jewish Tribune ran three pages demanding how I could possibly give these people space, how I could give them credibility and they demanded answers from the editor of the other Jewish newspaper. They have their own way of dealing with things they don’t agree with.”

Rayek counters this by saying that “the moment you give them space in your newspaper, you are part of them, you are helping them.” He says that the Tribune had a set of principles that “we know are right.”

Ramsay doesn’t see different opinions as a bad thing and would encourage more debate about controversial topics.

“I think dialogue in this community is lacking, especially on Israel. People are talking past each other and you’ve got people on the far right and people on the far left and I bemoan the fact that there’s no one staying in the middle that will come out and stand their ground.”

One man who is standing his ground is Rabbi David Mivasair who welcomed the Independent’s change of philosophy like a breath of fresh air.

Mivasair is one of the most progressive rabbis in Vancouver and was the first in B.C. to perform a same-sex marriage. !"#

He says that when the paper was under the ownership of the Kaplans, it served to promote their own beliefs.

“They were more interested in promoting a very narrow point of view,” says Mivasair. “It was a waste of trees to print that newspaper and was just continual repitition of the same perspective.”

His opinion of the Jewish Tribune was much the same and expressed relief that it was no longer publishing.

“It was a horrible propoganda piece – very, very kind of extremist,” says Mivasair.

He likened the views of the Tribune to those of people who favour “repression, supression and who want to narrow the discussion.”

But he doesn’t think the Independent, while much more open to different opinions, is perfect. There are many issues that still need more discussion including Israel, the Palestinians and whether there’s a legitimte anti-Semetic threat in modern times.

“I think the paper stays in very safe terrtitory,” says Mivasair. “There’s so many issues in the Jewish community that should be addressed that the paper just avoids.”

He refers to a recent story the Indepent did on inclusivity, as an example.

It’s safe because, in principle, everyone agrees with it.

“Should we exclude gay people? Nah, nobody says that anymore. Should we exclude single moms? Nobody thinks that anymore. Should we exclude disabled people? No, no, no.”

Compared with Jewish papers in other cities, Mivasair believes the Inde-

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pendent is middle-of-the-road. But the fact that it is independenly owned by a member of the community who is open to discussion is better than the papers owned by large Jewish organizations that treat the papers as an extension of their operations.

Ramsay wants to use the Independent to help break down barriers that she believes have divided the Jewish community, not just here but across North America.

She feels that in Vancouver many Jews are entrenched in their positions and refuse to discuss them. The problem is compounded by what Ramsay says is an unfair political labelling of her views.

Because she doesn’t follow the conservative stance she’s perceived by some as left-wing.

“I’m so not what they think I am,” she says. “I sort of take a bit of pride in that because if they can’t tell from reading this newspaper what my political beliefs are, I feel like I’ve succeeded as a publisher.”

Even though she has distanced the paper from what it was during the Kaplan era, she does plan to maintain its role as a mirror of the Jewish community. Thus there are the necessary stories involving Jewish culture—holidays, customs, entertainment—and profiles of Jewish individuals making significant contributions to the community.

But she also sees the paper as reflecting the variety of views involving the more sensitive political issues. The community, she says, will do the talking – the newspaper will help foster the discussion. LJR

Olympic M

Insider

y job as a volunteer student reporter for the Olympic News Service was to just get the facts – and get them right. I was to file the basic information on the sport I was covering, plus comments from athletes and coaches.

That made me a member of the not-so-exclusive club of nearly 11,000 media people working the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. It was an eye-opening experience for a young journalist to work the so-called mixed zone where the many journalists clawed and elbowed each other to get closer to the athletes.

I was thrilled to be doing this not only because of the opportunity to have a front-row seat at the Games, but also because the information I generated – my information – would be posted to a database and available to journalists around the world. How good would that look on my résumé?

My assignment this day was to cover the game and the post-game press conference for a women’s hockey game at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird arena. The Swedes were playing the Slovaks – their first appearance in the Olympics.

I watched the game, interviewed several of the players afterwards (the Swedes were victorious) and dashed out of the arena to the nearby media centre to interview the coaches. I arrived but no coaches were there. I waited for a few minutes and was then informed the press conference had been moved to Thunderbird arena.

So I hurried back. The spectators had mostly dispersed but I found myself having to dart around the blue-jacketed volunteers, game officials and international journalists.

A frazzled-looking media centre manager—my boss—greeted me and let out a sigh of relief. She quickly informed me to be prepared because the team

“

By Benjamin Ly p k a

coaches would be arriving any moment. I pulled out my pen and notebook and quickly jotted down several generic questions, trying to look as professional as possible in my Olympic News Services bright-orange bib.

I spotted one of the coaches arriving on the concourse. Dressed in a nondescript black suit, he was in the company of three other men all wearing Team Slovakia jackets. His assistants, I thought. Good, I would first get some comments from the losers.

He looked around, likely expecting a hoard of reporters, but he saw only me. He turned to the three men with him, said something to them, and they all chuckled. I took a deep breath, and prepared to introduce myself. I would ask my questions here, right in front of the man in his hotdog stand in a now nearempty arena.

I stated my name and that I was a reporter with the Olympic News Services but I was a bit flustered and forgot to ask him his. I asked him several questions about the game, and then finished by asking his opinion on his next opponent, Switzerland. He looked puzzled.

“Switzerland? No, we’re playing Canada,” he said.

Oh, no, I thought, feeling the blood rush to my head, that means I’m talking to the Swedish coach, not the Slovakian.

Somewhat chagrined, I managed to recover, laughed at my mistake and thanked him for his time. The others who were with him – the three men with the Slovakian jackets (I am not going to assume they were Team Slovakia’s coaches) – had already walked away.

I learned the hard way what I had been told in journalism school so many times: never assume. I would never again mistake a Swede for a Slovak.

Oh, by the way, I did get the name of Sweden’s coach. It’s Peter Elander. I wondered later what would have happened if I had named him as the Slovak coach.

It would have been all over the world. Who would have known? Just me – and maybe the hotdog man. LJR

Switzerland? No, we’re playing Canada, he said. Oh, yes, I thought, feeling the blood rush to my head, that means I’m talking to the Swedish coach, not the Slovakian.

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44

The Fine Lines of Cartooning

By BRANDI VINCENT

A

an editorial cartoon is a colourful soapbox surrounded by black type and hard facts, a reprieve from the “he saids” and “according tos.” Sketching a clever doodle in a small, square box may not seem intrepid, but newspaper readers take them seriously. So seriously that Bob Krieger, a cartoonist for the Vancouverbased daily, The Province, once received a death threat for one of his pieces.

The cartoon portrayed people in Ontario stomping on Quebec flags to show their discontent over bilingualism.

Krieger laughed when he saw the threat.

“Some guy tore my cartoon out of the paper, put a big red felt pen target over my name and scrawled that he was gonna cut me open with a sword,” Krieger says, chuckling. “And he spelled ‘sword’ wrong.”

Krieger could tell the person couldn’t tie his own shoelaces, but his editor was concerned. “[My editor’s] secretary walked in with this big stack of papers and my editor said, ‘Annie, did you see this? Krieger got a death threat!

We should call the police!’ And Annie kind of looked down her nose with her reading glasses and said, ‘Oh that guy. He writes all the time. I just throw them in the wastebasket.’”

That happened 15 years ago. Since then there have been no specific threats to his life, but someone did call in a bomb threat to his newspaper. That was after he drew a cartoon of a wanted poster for the murderer of Bindy Johal, a notorious organized crime leader who !"#

was killed in a downtown Vancouver nightclub.

His cartoon showed police offering zero dollars as a reward for information and someone obviously took exception to the cartoon’s message. Krieger

was at home when the threat came into the newsroom. He was warned and the newspaper took new precautions. “I’m responsible for a change in the bombthreat policy at the office,” Krieger says.

Bomb threats resulting from cartoons aren’t unheard of, of course. It would’ve only taken one cartoon of Muhammad to incite the outrage of millions of Muslims throughout the world, but Jyllands-Posten published 12. The Danish newspaper gained international attention when it criticized Islam and self-censorship through a series of political cartoons

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in September 2005, sparking violent protests throughout the Middle East and other parts of Africa. In an attempt to address the violence of one religion – albeit with controversial artistic liberties, such as depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban – about 200 people died as a result of the protests.

Cartoonists often find themselves pushing the envelope in order to make a clever statement on a controversial issue. Their humour tends toward sarcasm – that is their job, after all. That’s when an editor steps in and offers a second opinion.

Krieger says he has had “different” experiences with editors.

Some will look at a cartoon and if there’s any question about it crossing the line, they will consult a lawyer.

“Others will say, ‘We’re gonna have to take this to the lawyers and that’s gonna cost money, and we’re not gonna do it,’” Krieger says. “So it depends on the editor, basically.”

In the fall of 2005, Krieger drew a cartoon incorporating the now-famous police mugshot of Gordon Campbell after the B.C. premier was arrested for drunk driving in Hawaii. The balloon had Campbell saying, “Teachers have to respect the law,” in reference to an illegal strike at the time. The cartoon was to run in the Province’s Oct. 13 edition, but was pulled and replaced by a photo of a polar bear.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, Wayne Moriarity, made the decision not to run the cartoon because, according to Krieger, Moriarity felt the paper had published too many cartoons involving

Campbell and the teachers.

The cartoon appeared a day later on the online news site, The Tyee, and since then Krieger has done more cartoons for the sports department than he has for the paper’s opinion pages. Currently, the Province and the Vancouver Sun label their editorial cartoons as being the view of the cartoonist, as opposed to the view of the newspaper, as is the case with the unsigned written editorials next to the cartoon.

A conflict of views between the newspaper and the cartoonist doesn’t bother Dan Murphy, who also draws for the Province. In the last federal election, Murphy drew a cartoon that lambasted Prime Minister Stephen Harper for deceiving Canadians over the cost of the war in Afghanistan.

Right next to it was the newspaper’s editorial endorsing Harper and his Conservatives to form the next government.

Murphy says the inconsistency is not a problem. “For me, that’s what a good ed-page is all about.”

So how does a cartoonist decide on his targets? Krieger says brainstorming tomorrow’s cartoon isn’t hard when “we have very highly paid people in Victoria, Ottawa and Washington to provide us with all kinds of ideas.” Politicians always provide him with plenty of fodder.

So do large corporations and their sometimes arrogant ways, but that’s when satire can become pricey. The threat of a lawsuit – also known as a “slap suit” – can be a damper on a cartoonist’s free expression.

“They call them slap suits because it just sends a shiver – it’s a slap in the face,” says Grahame Arnould, a cartoonist for the Georgia Straight. “[The publication] won’t go there again because they just don’t have the resources. “[They] have a bunch of really highpriced lawyers around who are retained basically to get the message and image of the corporation out in a certain way.”

Even with only the threat of a lawsuit, editors would be a lot more cautious about what they publish next, Arnould says. Small publications, especially, don’t stand a chance because lawsuits are so expensive to fight in the courts.

Like death threats, slap suits against editorial cartoonists are relatively rare in Canada. That said, the concern about

can’t even remember.”

Getting the point across in a cartoon isn’t always easy. Arnould says the minute he does anything about religion he gets a lot of feedback. After one such cartoon pertaining to religious fundamentalism in Iran, a Jewish reader wrote him to say he was offended, while a Muslim reader called to say it was balanced.

Murphy says he always tries for a fresh perspective.

“The very best thing for me is finishing an ed-cartoon that I think is a totally original and audacious take on the topic at hand – sending a cartoon that’s never been done before off to the presses.”

Criticism of his cartoons gets the ink flowing even more. “I heard some mounties were upset about a couple of cartoons I did – Dan Murphy about RCMP idiocy. I tried to resolve that problem by doing more cartoons about RCMP idiocy. And Harrop’s approach is perhaps more unfortunately they gave me plenty of light-hearted than the Jyllands-Posten’s opportunity.” fair, but it doesn’t mean he won’t welCartoons can draw the ire of readers, come a sensitive issue. He believes if but sometimes not because of the subject there’s truth to the cartoon, the humour being targeted. Murphy once did a carwill come through. toon depicting former B.C. premier Bill “I look for the humour. I want to Vander Zalm as a blind shepherd leading make people laugh; that’s what I want to a flock of sheep to the edge of a high cliff. do with the editorial cartoons,” he says.

Vander Zalm or his supporters didn’t “Not that I don’t address the point. I’m trying to do it in such a way that I would call to complain, but an advocate for the blind did. maybe get my views across, but it would As a comment on the mistreatment be in a more humorous fashion.” of native people, Krieger drew a cartoon Unlike Krieger, Harrop has had a relatively boring history with his editor – of a totem pole with traditional figures – a sentiment the Vancouver Sun’s editorial a bear, a beaver and an eagle. The fourth figure was that of a priest molesting an page editor shares. Fazil Mihlar can’t Aboriginal child. remember the last time he had an issue “I thought this will symbolize how with a cartoon, aside from the occasional screwed First Nations people have been,” typo.

“One time there was a cartoon about Krieger says. “I got some very angry responses from the First Nations communiSarah Palin – not one of Harrop’s – and ty and I felt horrible because in my mind some people didn’t understand what the they totally misunderstood the cartoon.” point was,” Mihlar says. “I showed it to His point – to criticize the Catholic two people and they didn’t get it. If two people in the newsroom don’t get it, that Church’s handling of native people – was overwhelmed by the anger from the nameans my reading public will probably tive community. He was informed that not get it.” totems were symbols of pride and that he He says cartoonists are more like insulted natives terribly by his ignorance. columnists because they have the free“I thought totems were vehicles to dom to express themselves, a liberty show history,” he says. “I apologized prothey’re welcome to practise as long as it is fair comment and doesn’t libel anyone. fusely and explained where it came from, and they were very accepting. Some were “Once in a while something is in bad taste for some people,” Mihlar says. “[But] dubious, but I screwed up and all I can do is apologize.” LJR it’s been so few and far between that I what the reaction will be to a cartoon is always there.

Graham Harrop, cartoonist for the Vancouver Sun, says his feedback is about half positive and half negative. He deliberates over a cartoon if he’s not sure how readers will receive it.

“You’re not going to rush to judgment and do something that you’ll perhaps regret. There have been cartoons I have done where it’s almost a spontaneous reaction, and I’ve looked over it and thought, ‘You know, I wish I had done something different.’”

The very best thing for me is finishing an ed-cartoon that I think is a totally original and audacious take on the topic.

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! " # $! !%$&!! !' ( ) * $ Journalists are using social networks to communicate with their readers

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ew-age social networking sites are allowing journalists to break the mold and turn away from their traditional role as people void of personal opinion who seldom have contact with their readers.

Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles and personal blogs are being used more and more by today’s journalists, not just for social reasons but for research and for communicating with readers.

Gillian Shaw, a Vancouver Sun reporter and the author of a blog called Digital Life, writes about technology, the Internet and social media, and all the trends and issues involved in this brave new world. Shaw says blogging has brought her much closer to her readers. Her journalism is no longer limited to “that one newspaper landing on the doorstep.”

I love the communication and interaction with our readers and our community.”

She says a few years ago journalism was a one-way conversation.

“We would write our stories and that was that until the next day’s paper.

People could call or write but there wasn’t that real-time interaction that we can have today.”

With online journalism, Shaw says the conversation has become two-way.

“The web is 24/7 and we can publish now in print, online; we can produce videos and share our stories in many ways.”

Twitter took both the social and journalistic world by storm last year, with people’s 146-character word “tweets” concerning everything from politics to sports to the private lives of our celebrities – everything, in fact, that people have an opinion on. Shaw finds that social networks such as Twitter now act as her personal news feed.

“I get great story tips, connected with interesting and really helpful interviews for stories on Twitter,” she says.

“It can be a huge and immediate source for stories.”

What starts off as just a chatty blog post, may became the jumping-off point for a longer and more thoughtful piece in the newspaper.

Shaw suggests every journalist should be using social media, not just for ideas but also for getting instant feedback that beats e-mail. As well, she believes the Internet gives her much more scope to present her stories.

“There is a lot happening that doesn’t always fit in the newspaper,” she says. “I get to add videos, live blog, create my own little surveys and do other things that don’t work in a print publication.”

It helps her in fulfilling her own role as a storyteller. “Sometimes I joke that if I wasn’t a writer, I’d share stories with the person next to me in the Safeway lineup.”

Shaw’s colleague at the Vancouver Sun, Kim Bolan, also relies heavily on social media for her work writing about gangsters, terrorists and other criminals – and police efforts in trying to catch

them. In her blog, she tells readers what it’s like to cover crime for a living.

“My blog is an extension of my reporting on gangs and organized crime,” Bolan says. “I have found that it’s a great way to get tips I probably never would have gotten. I get to communicate directly with people involved in gangs, or people who know people involved in gangs.”

Her blog, called The Real Scoop, was nominated for a 2009 Online Journalism Award, which honours excellence in digital journalism.

Although blogging has benefitted her career, she admits it takes a lot of time to keep up with it as she tends to go through readers’ posts twice a day. She spends up to four hours after work responding to posts on a busy day. Her blog gets more then 200,000 hits a month.

“It’s good to know that people are seeing my hard work,” she says. “I’m very proud of the work I put into my blog.”

Gillian Shaw’s top 5 reasons why journalists should use social media 1. Meet readers on their territory.

2. Find out what people are saying about you, your stories, your newspaper.

3. Have a dialogue with your readers, not lecture them. Through the paper you speak to your readers; online you speak with them.

4. Instead of asking your colleagues if they know a single, left-handed

father of two who cheers for the Canucks and drives a Lexus – or whatever interview you happen to need for a feature – tap your request into Twitter.

5. Beats email. Most in-boxes are flooded with pages and pages of often-

irrelevant stuff. There’s nothing like 140 characters to impose discipline on a story pitch.

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One of the difficulties Bolan faces is holding her tongue, as she doesn’t always agree with what is being posted in response to her own thoughts.

“I try really hard not to take away people’s voices even when they are very raw, profanity-laden or critical of myself and other people,” she says.

Bolan uses Facebook mainly for research purposes.

“In fact, I have a couple of accounts in fake names so I can troll anonymously.”

Bolan’s Twitter account is filled with tweets about stories she’s covering that day. Browsing through her posts, she tells readers nearly three times a day what she’s up to.

“I guess it’s just a habit now to text tweets from my phone to the website,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll be covering a murder in the morning, and then someone will get shot in the afternoon, and then I’ll get an anonymous tip about the UN Gang.”

Although the world of digital media is still relatively new, Vancouver Sun reporter Maggie Langrick calls it essential

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to her career.

“At the Vancouver Sun we embrace all forms of digital media,” she says.

“Most of our reporters and some of our editors also maintain a blog.”

Langrick says the Sun uses social networking to promote the newspaper online.

“

It’s easier to find someone on Facebook than using 411.

– Kristen Thompson “We use applications like Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis to promote our content online,” she says. “Those efforts have put us far in front of similar-sized newsrooms in terms of our web traffic.”

Blogs aren’t just a platform for personal opinions; they are an alternative way for a reporter to bring news and insight to readers, according to Langrick. “[Blogs] play an important role in

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relationship-building between the reader and the newspaper,” she says. “Social networking is a big part of bringing this into the newsroom, and we see it as an essential part of our future as journalists.”

Some journalists make a point of separating their professional and personal social networking activities.

“I make no reference to my job on my personal Facebook page,” says Metro Vancouver reporter Kristen Thompson.

“I’ve omitted any personal information that could lead people to the fact that I’m a reporter.”

“I do have a professional Facebook page and a Twitter page but there are no photos of me. I’ve been careful to keep the two aspects of my life separate and to keep my personal life private.”

But like Langrick, Thompson does make extensive use of Facebook and Twitter for story ideas, and to get in contact with sources.

“It’s easier to find someone on Facebook than using 411,” she says. “Both [networks] have become valuable tools for me as a reporter.” LJR

Reporting under fire

By Derek Scott

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“When a free country goes to war, the press and the military need each other – one to fight and the other to explain why. Only in that way can they accomplish their respective missions.”

– Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes correspondent

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W

lines of military conflict.

Since 2003, more than 300 jourhen Prime Minisnalists have taken part in the Canadian ter Stephen Harper Forces Media Embedding Program. decided to ban media While embedded with the troops on the coverage of military ramp ceremonies, ground, reporters eat, sleep and breathe the move was met with mixed emotions. with the troops – for all intents and The ceremonies, part of the repatriapurposes the journalists are non-fighting tion of soldiers killed in combat, were members of the unit. deemed too emotional and controversial While some academics and journalfor public consumption. But the ban was ists question the ethics of embedding, short-lived due in part to pressure on Graeme Smith, foreign correspondent Harper’s government from both the me- with the Globe and Mail, believes the dia and the military. They argued that the ability to be upceremonies were in the public interest close and personal and allowing them to air would serve as a with the troops reminder of the ultimate sacrifice paid by on the ground Canadian soldiers abroad. makes for good At one time it may have been journalism. improbable, to say the least, to see the “If I’m an emmilitary and media working so closely bedded reporter, together. These days the two sides have I’m actually become nearly inseparable in their seeing first-hand combined effort to provide Canadians what my subjects coverage of military operations. are doing,” he Scott Taylor, editor and publisher of says. “It’s bearing the military magazine Esprit de Corps, witness to the achas been covering the Canadian military tions of your subject.” for more than 20 years and says in that Prior to becoming embedded, jourtime the military has come to understand nalists must submit to a criminal record check, pass a medical and physical test, and sign an embedded agreement that outlines what they can and cannot report on.

Among the list of restrictions are reporting the specific location of troops and the rules of engagement. The agreement also states the possibility of censorship on “Any information the Commander…

Photo courtesy of Scott Taylor orders restricted for Scott Taylor on the front in Iraq, 2005. operational reasons.”

Capt. Dean the benefit of working with, rather than Menard, Canadian Forces public affairs against, the media. officer with the Canadian Expedition“The military has wised up to the fact ary Force Command, says journalists are that they need to keep the public opinion relatively free to report on anything they on their side so they need to work with see, and that the restrictions are meant [media].” only to protect the soldiers and their According to Taylor, the relationship operations. has been improving because, these days, “We don’t influence, restrict or reporters are getting closer to the front prevent the media from reporting on

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whatever they want to,” Menard says.

But, he adds, “If you’re going to jeopardize soldiers’ lives or report on where we’re going to be at particular times that would be an OPSEC [operational security] issue.”

According to Taylor, the agreement is all part of the military’s aim of controlling its message.

“It’s in their nature to control and manage the flow of information and it’s going to happen every time. When you go there as an embedded journalist

When you go there as an embedded journalist you’re going to see a very narrow section of the war and you’ll get the truth, but you’re not going to get the whole truth.

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– Scott Taylor you’re going to see a very narrow section of the war and you’ll get the truth, but you’re not going to get the whole truth.”

For Smith the basis of agreement is quite simple: “Don’t say anything that’s going to get people killed.”

Regardless of how the agreement is administered or interpreted, one thing both sides can agree on is that without it and the military protection it provides there would be even less news coming out of conflict zones.

According to Taylor, getting reports from “outside the wire” is easier said than done because of the inherent danger associated with working in a conflict zone.

“In a perfect world you wouldn’t need to be embedded for protection.”

Smith agrees, but he stresses the importance of also getting the stories outside military control in order to tell the whole story.

“In some areas…it’s just too darn dangerous to walk around without guys with guns and that’s where you end up with this problem of reporting that’s only from the military perspective,” Smith says. “But it is absolutely necessary to get information from an un-embedded perspective.”

That is precisely what he did during his time in Afghanistan when he created the award-winning “Talking to the

Taliban” multimedia series. The piece, consisting of interviews with Taliban insurgents, short documentaries and written articles, sought to shed light on the Afghanistan conflict from the Taliban perspective.

Although the series did not always place the Canadian Forces in the most positive light, Smith says his experience working with the Canadian Forces has been “shockingly good.”

“They have been patient with teaching me things that I didn’t understand and incredibly understanding when I’ve caused controversies.”

Menard says that once an embedded journalist makes the decision to leave the unit in search of stories, the onus is on that person to arrange for security and protection.

“They basically take their lives into their own hands,” he says.

While embedding may be the safest option for a journalist wanting to report from a conflict zone, protection is not guaranteed.

On Dec. 30, 2009, Michelle Lang became the first embedded Canadian journalist to be killed in Afghanistan. Lang had been in the country for less than three weeks when the armoured vehicle she was travelling in struck a homemade roadside bomb. The blast killed Lang, along with four Canadian soldiers.

“Even if they’re with us we can’t avoid inadvertently driving over an IED,” Menard says.

Despite the ever-improving relationship between the media and the military, the two sides can be found at odds over what each considers relevant news.

“There have been times when the nature of war forces journalists and soldiers into conflict because we’re trying to get the truth and they’re trying to win the war,” Smith says. “And sometimes those two interests conflict with each other.”

The military doesn’t really understand why the media is always so preoccupation with what is known as “death-

the area they’re entering or the soldiers they intend to report on. Some reporters arrive and are shocked to find so many people, both military and civilian, carrying weapons, he says.

“Sometimes there’s a naivety that comes to it that is absolutely shocking.”

In an effort to provide journalists with the training and knowledge necessary to report from conflict zones several institutions, and the Canadian Forces itself, have created training programs.

Athabasca University, north of Edmonton, has partnered with the Canadian Forces to give journalists an opportunity to act as reporters in a simulated conflict zone during training exercises at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright.

The Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, a non-profit independent research institute in Calgary, offers a nine-day mediamilitary theory course with classroom instruction and field trips to CF bases.

Taylor recognizes the benefits of these courses, but he points out that a few days of military familiarization will not create an experienced war correspondent.

“It’s like saying you’re an expert on airline safety after you get that briefing before take-off.”

It’s clear that the media and the military have both individually and collectively taken steps to improve their sometimes adversarial relationship. Perhaps the best indication of how far that relationship has come can be found - Graeme Smith in the words of retired Gen. Rick Hillier, former Chief of Defence Staff, following Lang’s death.

Canadians back home.

“The sometimes ‘normal mistrust’ “I think that the audience desire to between soldiers and reporters was usuread that stuff has diminished over the ally quickly overcome when soldiers saw course of time just as it would be with that accompanying reporters were taking anything else.” the same risks as themselves to do their A particular irritant for the Canajob,” Hillier told the National Post’s Don dian Forces is the lack of professional Martin. “Those who reported on war due diligence on the part of the media. and did it from the frontlines, without According to Taylor, some reporters which they could not get the story right, have shown up to cover conflicts and the deserve a special place in our history.” LJR military without properly researching watch journalism.”

According to Menard, “When there is a death there is definitely a lot of coverage on that. But when there is a good story, not so much, because that’s just what journalism is focused around.

Right?”

Taylor says there is an overwhelming amount of positive news coming out of Afghanistan, but those stories are not of much interest to the average Canadian.

He believes media coverage dealing with reconstruction initiatives and humanitarian efforts are no longer appealing to

“

There have been times when the nature of war forces journalists and soldiers into conflict because we’re trying to get the truth and they are trying to win the war.

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45

Conflict journalists in training

By Derek Scott

Reporters get a crash course in embedded reporting

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s she progressed through Journalism school Eve St-Cyr never seriously considered a career as a war correspondent. However, following graduation she decided to find out if conflict reporting was for her.

St-Cyr was one of 10 student journalists who spent two weeks at Canadian Manouevre Training Centre at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in south-central Alberta last summer as part of Athabasca University’s course called Introduction to Military Reporting.

“I just wanted to know if I had the balls to do that kind of stuff,” she says.

The course is a three-month online program consisting of group discussions, assignments and a field practicum designed to introduce reporters to the military culture and to give them the tools to operate in a military environment. The practicum for St-Cyr’s two-weeks in the field takes place during a military training exercise at a replica Afghan village at CFB Wainwright.

Throughout the field training students mimic their professional counterparts as embedded journalists. They use their previously learned reporting skills to create daily newscasts and newspapers.

The news is then delivered to the public, in this case the soldiers, for consumption just as it would be in real

life. The objective for the students is to compile a portfolio of their work to be handed in to their instructor at the end of the practicum.

Capt. Tom St-Denis, exercise media officer, stresses, “These are not school projects. What people are doing is daily news. We create an interactive environment where they get to practise what they know.”

Training for the students is different from what the soldier experiences, but the opportunity to interact with each other is invaluable for both sides, St-Denis says.

“It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement where the military, the soldiers and commanders get exposed to media and get to deal with media on several levels in a controlled exercise environment,” says St-Denis.

“The army gets to see how journalists work and they get to see how they’re being portrayed.”

Evelyn Ellerman, communications program coordinator at Athabasca University, believes courses like these are essential for aspiring war correspondents.

“A journalist would be useless working in a conflict zone if that journalist hadn’t had some kind of introduction to what the military is trying to do and how it operates.”

There are several institutions and agencies that provide conflict correspondence training, but according to Ellerman, Athabasca’s program is the only simulated experience of its kind in the country.

Prior to heading out into the field, St-Cyr’s class had a crash course in military life and operations.

As part of the enculturation they receive basic military instruction where they fire modified weapons, learn the basics of mines and booby traps, sleep under the stars and are introduced to combat first aid.

But the training is hardly enough to make the students experts in military operations, St-Denis says.

“At best it is a cursory introduction to these various facets of the soldier’s trade.”

Regardless of the quality of military training provided, St-Cyr left with a new perspective on the military.

“I didn’t know anything about the military before these two weeks and it’s a whole different way of living,” she says.

As for a career in conflict reporting?

It’s something she could see herself doing in the long run.

“I think I’d be okay.You just have to remember it’s not Hollywood – people die everyday.” LJR

Photo Courtesy of Eve St-Cyr CBC Calgary’s Mike Vernon, left, briefs reporters Eve St-Cyr and Ashley Burkey in the field at CFB Wainwright. !"#

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A Fallen Storyteller

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n Dec. 30, 2009, members of a Canadian Forces provincial reconstruction team were on patrol in an armoured vehicle four kilometres outside of Kandahar City, Afghanistan, when they drove over a roadside bomb, killing all five occupants inside.

Sgt. George Miok, Sgt. Kirk Taylor, Cpl. Zachery McCormack and Pte. Garrett Chidley all lost their lives in the line of duty that afternoon.

Michelle Lang, a reporter for the Calgary Herald and Canwest News Service, was the fifth person who died in the blast. She was embedded with the troops, covering the Canadians’ involvement in the war in Afghanistan. She was two weeks into her assignment.

Lang was one of 71 journalists deliberately killed in 2009, the deadliest year on record, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Eleven days after her death, British journalist Rupert Hamer, was also killed by a roadside bomb.

Journalists like Lang and Hamer place themselves in dangerous situations because they believed that telling compelling stories from war-torn countries matters. But these deaths throw a harsh spotlight on the dangers foreign correspondents face working in unstable regions.

Lang, after having gone through safety training in Canada and at the military base in Kandahar, was eager to get outside the confines of the base, according to Chris Varcoe, her editor at the Herald.

“Michelle was the kind of reporter who believed that you had to be on the ground and you had to be with real people to tell the story.”

Lang, 34, was on the health beat at the Herald and approached her job with a intensive work ethic that made her stand out.

“She really attacked that beat with fervor to try and bring to light things that were going on behind the scenes to keep the government accountable,” says Gwendolyn Richards, a fellow Herald reporter.

What made her shine was her ability to take a broad story and find a human element that would resonate with readers. When she wrote a story on mad cow disease, a huge issue in Alberta, she not only covered the health aspect but took the time to travel to farming communities to talk to

By Tr e v o r C ra w l e y

ranchers about their fears and the threats to their livelihoods.

In the 2004 provincial election, Lang covered a press conference given by then-premier Ralph Klein at a senior centre. She noticed a young woman sitting in the crowd of seniors and after making some inquiries discovered the woman was living at the facility because there was nowhere else she could get the level of medical treatment she needed.

Lang spent the next few months investigating the woman’s predicament, and others like her, and ended up with a superb piece of journalism.

“It was a fantastic piece of reportage but also some incredible writing, and she just did such a marvelous story on it and that’s one of those pieces you’re always going to remember,” Varcoe says.

Lang began her career at the Prince George, B.C. Free Press, a bi-weekly paper and quickly demonstrated her passion for news. She moved on to the Moose Jaw Times-Herald and the Regina Leader-Post in Saskatchewan before landing at the Calgary Herald. Lang’s dedication and hard work paid off in 2008 when she received a National Newspaper Award for reporting on health issues.

All this without any formal journalism training.

“Michelle was an unbelievably hard worker. She was tenacious and if she thought there was a story there, she would keep digging until she found it, or she was confident there was no story there,” Varcoe says.

Outside of work, Lang enjoyed spending time with her fiance, Michael Louie, with whom she was planning a summer wedding. She loved playing ultimate frisbee and was a fan of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Lang had a great sense of humour and was either playing pranks on her friends and family or on the receiving end of them. When Lang first arrived at the Herald in 2002, Varcoe, a reporter at the time, got together with co-workers and convinced Lang that there was a rookie initiation where the newcomer had to buy everyone an expensive steak lunch.

Lang called her mother that night in a panic because she didn’t know how she was going to pay for it all. Her colleagues kept up the routine for a few days before coming clean. “When I told her, I was expecting to get an earful. Not at all. She immediately started laughing and she said, ‘I’m gonna get you,’” Varcoe recalls. LJR !"#$"%"&'()%#"*+,-&./0+/1&2343&

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Censorship in china taking a step forward

By Marjorie Ennis

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oes the rapid growth of China and its move toward Westernization mean that the country’s authoritarian regime is loosening its control over the media? Political issues involving Tibet, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and, most recently, Google’s decision to distance itself from a censored site, show that the Communist government is still very much in control of the flow of information. But some Canadian journalists who have recdently spent time in China say the clampdown on foreign reporters, at least, is not as stringent as it used to be, even though they concede the situation for Chinese reporters may be quite different.

Some of the most noticable changes occured just prior to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. CBC journalist and news anchor Ian Hanomansing covered those Olympics and says there

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were very few obvious restrictions during his stay. He reported from Tiananmen Square – the scene of the infamous anti-government protests in 1989 – free from any government interference. As far as he knew, no one listened in and no one waited in the shadows to unplug his live hit. He had a sweeping feeling that this moment was going to be a significant one for foreign media reporting from China.

And it was. Hanomansing spent a month in China covering various aspects of the Olympics, and the only hitch had been that his permission for the live hit from Tiananmen Square, which been arranged before the trip, was inexplicably withdrawn. After negotiations, however, the Chinese government reinstated its permission.

“We felt like we had the freedom to do the stories we wanted but we wonder if that was a result of, for us, a small

ing those in Canada and the United States window in conjunction with the Olymalso manipulate information to certain pics,” he says. “The Chinese may have degrees. He says that the Canadian govbeen on their absolute best behaviour.” ernment, for example, uses enormous Miro Cernetig spent almost four years in China as a foreign correspondent public relation machines paid for by the for The Globe and Mail. Cernetig, now a taxpayers to do exactly the same thing.

“It’s a bit grey about whether they do columnist for the Vancouver Sun, says the Chinese media is becoming freer in many it and we don’t,” he says. “I think we all do it in different ways.” areas. The government seems to have Cernetig notes that the U.S. adminless control over the media then it did istration is another example of a Western in the past, although he notes that it still nation controlling information. He says exercises degrees of censorship. the U.S. government uses the Internet to “If papers cover things that the govbypass mainstream media and send mesernment doesn’t want covered such as sages directly to selected audiences. democracy or human rights or corrup“They don’t think that we’re satisfytion scandals that touch too high or are ing them enough, and we don’t. Then too sensitive, then they’re shut down,” they try to take the news out directly,” he says. “It’s still a state-controlled medium, but not in the sense of how it was controlled under Mao or under Stalin [in the Soviet Union]. I would say it’s quasi-state media enterprise.”

Cernetig never felt uncomfortable filing a story while in China. The only problem he faced was having workrelated travel to Tibet denied.

He says that for a foreign reporter to be thrown out of Cheryl Minns photo China you would Miro Cernetig: Never felt uncomfortable in China. need to be writing something scandalous about a top leader or says Cernetig. “And the Chinese do the working as an activist journalist. For the same. They control the popular message most part the government does not cenby not having them in it…we do it in a sor what reporters write, but if officials much more subtle way.” do not like what they have written they will impose limitations and may censor future stories. he growth in the number of news “The bravest journalists in China sources in China seems to have are not foreign journalists, they’re the mirrored its explosive population.

Chinese journalists,” says Cernetig. “They There are now more than 2,000 newstruly are the people who take the risks. papers, more than 8,000 magazines, 374 Not that foreign correspondents television stations and 282 radio stations don’t, but Chinese journalists with a in China.

Chinese passport and Chinese residence The main government censorship are the ones going to pay the maximum agencies are the Genereal Administraprice for freedom of the press, and do tion of Press and Publication and the pay that price.”

Cernetig points out that China is not State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. Both have the authority to the only country attempting to control the message. Other governments, includ- license publishers and scan the content of

T

the news pieces, as well as ban subjects and shut down stations. The Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department is in place to make sure that the content of the news stays in line with the beliefs of the party.

K

am Razavi is a Canadian journalist who worked as a freelance reporter in China for Englishlanguage publications. He has experienced censorship first hand. He wrote a story for a business magazine on the massive growth of Chong Qing, a city whose expansion was largely fuelled by foreign investment.

In his story he quoted a local government official complaining about the central municipal government giving local officials orders and leaving them with little power to do their job. Even though the complaining official’s name was not in the article, his critical comments were taken out by censorship officials.

Razavi, who freelanced while attending Tsinghua University, says this was his only personal experience with censorship in the year he spent in China. He is now back in Canada working as a producer for Global National in Vancouver.

“I never changed my behaviour, or my writing, or my journalistic approach,” Razavi says. “I never tailored it in the context of China. I did it as I was trained and as I thought appropriate.”

Razavi believes that when reporting in China, it is important to look at the realities of the social, economic, and political system. It is not a democratic country and therefore, what might be realistic in the West is not what is realistic there.

The biggest challenge for foreign journalists in China is adapting to a system that they might not be used to, according to Razavi.

“Being a journalist in China is starkly different than being a journalist in Canada.”

Western journalists see their role as watchdogs of society, a position Chinese journalists traditionally do not share. Under the Communist system, journalists work for the good of society, as defined by the Party. Thus, as Razavi notes, the Chinese believe they need to simply report the news – as it is defined by the government.

However, despite restrictions on what they can and can’t report, Chinese

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journalists have recently criticized government policy, which is still much different than holding the government accountable.

“The Chinese Internet scene, the bloggersphere, if you will, is very, very active. There is a lot of discourse about government policy-making, more than one would perhaps expect in a country like China,” says Razavi.

Chinese journalists have a lot to learn from Canadian journalism, such as the drive to get a story, how to tell it in a compelling way, to question information and authority, to adhere to deadlines and to be investigative in their work, according to Razavi.

When China celebrated the Olympics, it also marked 30 years since the country’s shift away from Maoism and toward the embracement of Western concepts. In January 2007, the Chinese Foreign Ministry set new rules that gave foreign reporters more freedom as part of China’s Olympic commitments. These rules gave journalists permission to interview Chinese political parties without first asking for government permission, as well as the freedom to report outside the city for which they were accredited.

Although the rules were supposed to end two months after the Games ended, China decided to keep the policy.

But Western journalists covering the Games noted that China still had a heavy hand when it came to controlling information.

Razavi says it was just to try to make a good impression on the world. “I think any country that hosts the Olympics, including Canada, wants to put its best face forward and doesn’t want negative news to be part of the game.”

The Olympics certainly served to shine a light on censorship in China. But Chinese citizens themselves still have limited access to information. Google’s recent move to shut down its site in China came about because the international search engine refused to run a censored site. Users of China’s www.google.cn are now being redirected to Google’s Hong Kong server, available in Chinese. The decision came after an investigation into cyber attacks found evidence suggesting Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists with connections to China were being infiltrated by third parties.

According to Google, the hacking was most likely done through phishing !"#

scams or malware placed on their computers. “We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered – combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China, including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter,YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger – had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on www.google.cn,” wrote David Drummond, Google’s manager of corporate development, on the official Google blog.

“We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our

photo courtesy of Kam Ravazi Kam Razavi in China: He never changed his approach. services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement,” he wrote. “We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.”

D

uring the 1980s,Tsinghua University began a pilot graduate program for professional journalists taught by American professors. It was halted after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, but reopened 20 years later. The program brought Chinese and international students together to teach the Chinese to be more open-

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minded journalistically.

Still, the university gave the international students a list of taboo subjects that included Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Taiwan and the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is outlawed in China.

Annie Lui, a Chinese citizen who reports from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Beijing Bureau, believes Chinese journalism students are being taught journalism with Chinese characteristics.

“Chinese media get directives all the time about what can be reported and what can not, or how we should report on this. In China, at journalism school, you are taught that media is the organ of the party.”

Lui says that despite some of the apparent loosening of restrictions, the Chinese government still essentially controls the media. When the media do criticize the government, it is only within certain boundaries.

“It’s better to give media freedom even at the risk of libel than to limit media too much for fear that they are saying the absolute right thing.”

So while many journalism students in China are are learning to be critical, according to the Western model, Lui says once they are on the job, it will be a different story.You can be critical of the government, but at your own peril.

According to a yearly count by the Committee to Protect Journalists, by the end of 2008 there were 125 journalists in prison in China. This does not include those who were imprisoned some time during that year, and released.

Almost 90 per cent of Chinese journalists jailed were writing for print or online news sites, with the remainder spread between television, radio and film documentaries.

Being a Chinese national and passport holder, Lui says at the end of the day she is the one censoring herself. She is always reminded that some Chinese nationals have been put in jail for passing on information that the government considers a national secret.

Says Lui: “For some really sensitive stories such as stories on dissents, on Tibet issues, on June 4 [Tiananmen Square Massacre], I’d better keep my hands clear from them. I know this is not good as I am supposed to fight for justice as a journalist, but I don’t want to risk my own safety or life.” LJR

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25

C

Can sports reporting on team websites be trusted?

lare Farnsworth saw his 22-year career as a sports reporter vanish after his newspaper closed its doors.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, founded in 1863, became one of the many casualties in America’s struggling newspaper industry and Farnsworth’s newspaper writing career perished with it.

“I remember walking into the office and it looked exactly like a business you see in a going-out-of-business sale,” Farnsworth says. “It was a strange and empty feeling.” Farnsworth was the paper’s football writer, covering the Seattle Seahawks.

In an effort to cut costs, the P.I. concluded its existence in print and switched to an online format in March of last year.

The newspaper’s demise cost Farnsworth his job, but he wasn’t out of work for long. He’s covering covering those same Seattle Seahawks again – only this time for the team’s website.

“The way teams are covered has totally changed since I started,” he says.

“With blogs and Twittering, the print product is an afterthought. It’s become all about how quickly you can get stories out there.”

The new type of “coverage” is becoming a popular and lucrative part of sports reporting. Teams are learning that they can create their own content and reach out directly to their fans using the Internet.

Other pro teams are also hiring sports journalists. The NBA’s Chicago Bulls hired former Chicago Tribune writer Sam Smith to cover the team. The Los Angeles Kings of the NHL did the same, hiring former Los Angeles Daily News’ sports writer Rich Hammond.

Alfred Hermida, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia, believes that teamcreated content is the way of the future.

“Before, you had to own your own means of production. The digital age changes all of that,” Hermida says. “The sporting club now controls the message and makes revenue off of that product.”

According to Hermida, the key to

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team and sport-specific websites is the sheer volume they can produce. Websites can post content 24/7 whereas newspapers are usually limited to once a day.

Sports fans have a voracious appetite for any and all news regarding their favourite teams and the Internet satisfies that craving.

“These websites have journalists who will report on anything and everything,” Hermida says. “Often their stories don’t follow the typical news story pyramid but fans always want to hear the latest news. They want everything and they want small news bites in addition to the big news.”

“

The challenge here is readers aren’t stupid. If they only get vanilla news, team sites will not be seen as a complete alternative to newspapers.

-Alfred Hermida

But are readers of team-controlled sites getting biased coverage? Fans may be more than willing to turn to their team’s website for basic stats and player profiles but can they get objective analysis there as well? Will the site carry news of conflict in the dressing room?

Farnsworth insists working for the Seahawks hasn’t changed his reporting style.

“I’m being allowed to do what I’ve always done – cover the team,” he says.

“I do have to accentuate the positive

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but I have much more access to the team and there’s a lot less chasing of stories. If this is life on the dark side, I should have seen the dark side a long time ago.”

Hermida has his doubts.

“If there is a large scandal involving a league or teams, I wonder if the writers on their site would be willing or be allowed to write about it?” Hermida wonders. “At some point there will be an issue where writers simply won’t be able to talk. The challenge here is readers aren’t stupid. If they only get vanilla news, team sites will not be seen as a complete alternative to newspapers.”

It’s a theory that Vancouver Sun hockey columnist Iain MacIntyre is betting on.

“The [canucks.com] website is fine but critical thinking isn’t encouraged,” MacIntyre says. “Most people should be quite happy to go to the website for news but more sophisticated fans will seek out independent sources.”

Jason Botchford, a sports reporter at the Province, agrees.

“People writing for team websites might not be viewed as entirely credible to fans,” Botchford says.

“Is Kristin Reid [canucks.com reporter] allowed to dig for stories? I would guess no. The newspapers can offer things the website can’t. We’re unbiased and can provide much more indepth content, analysis and opinion.”

One of the major sports leagues, Major League Baseball, has tried to address this issue. The league employs beat writers to cover games and report on news for its website, MLB.com. All of the articles come with a disclaimer letting readers know that anything the writers produce is not subject to the league’s approval.

Hammond addressed the possible conflict of interest in a blog he posted shortly after signing on with the Kings’ website.

“I understand that this will raise some immediate, significant questions,” he wrote. “To put it as plainly and simply as possible, I will draw a salary from the Kings, but none of the stories and/or

blogs I write will be reviewed for approval by any member of the Kings’ staff.”

But Kevin Kinghorn, director of new media for the Canucks insists that the freelance and in-house writers involved on canucks.com are given freedom to write what they want.

“We may not have disclaimers on our site but there is no muzzle on any of our writers,” Kinghorn says.

He says the Canucks are not in a war with newspapers for content.

“I don’t consider newspapers competition. We have a great relationship with

“

If I can finger paint, I’m not an artist.

Woe be the day for journalism when we’re all lumped into the same category.

-Iain MacIntyre

Cheryl Minns photo Canucks fans in action: Can they get the story from the team’s website? the beat writers covering the team. Does the average web-viewer only look at canucks.com? I don’t think so. We’re not competing with one another at all.”

To further that point, Kinghorn notes that canucks.com has links to Canucks stories in other media.

According to Botchford, if sports fans have been flocking to the team websites, it’s because Canadian newspapers have been slow to embrace some of the advantages the Internet can give to sports coverage.

“Sports journalism is changing. Media in Canada is still at the starting gate as far as the internet and technology goes.

It’s like trying to pull a brontosaurus out of a tar pit.”

“The Internet should have been primed to be the next step for journalism,” Botchford adds. “The old way of thinking was that if you have a story, you sit on it and keep it for the paper.

With online, if you don’t post the story, the competition will get it. Online is all about breaking stories and getting out as much information to your readers as possible. Many journalists in Canada don’t understand or appreciate how important it is to break stories online.”

If the competition from team sites wasn’t enough, sports journalism has also been bombarded by blogs, Twitter and other social media.

“Twitter is an opportunity for teams, organizations and agents to connect

directly with their audience,” Hermida says. “It’s a fantastic tool for athletes with loyal fans. It helps develop a sense of connection for the athlete but it’s less clear if Twitter is good for teams and agents.”

Botchford agrees. “Twitter is really instant communication. It’s all about getting information out there and Twitter can enhance that.”

MacIntyre cautions that it’s not all good journalism. “Social media has caused a huge shift in what a journalist is.

[But] if I can finger-paint, I’m not an artist. Woe be the day for journalism when we’re all lumped into the same category.”

He does agree that websites, newspapers and team sites are all leveraging themselves to be relevant sources for the sports fan.

“Sports journalism is in a transition,” says MacIntyre. “I maintain that many people still want to read the newspaper every day and I find it very heartening that some people are not interested in turning on their BlackBerry to get the news. But newspapers have to recognize that digital media is not going away and we have to embrace it. This transition is a challenge and the industry is really learning as we go.

“Our end goal is to be a digital delivery platform,” he says. “It’s not just going to be marketing and news. Video on our site is going to make a huge leap forward and we are committed to creating content that fans won’t get anywhere else.”

Hermida sees more specialization ahead. “I think we’re going to see more niche sites. Sports and the Internet were made for each other and the platform is limitless.”

The Province’s Botchford has a similar view. “I do believe there will always be a place, a market and a demand for analysis, strong opinions, humour and information. I used to think there would always be a place for great writing as well. But now, I’m not so sure.

“I suspect in the immediate future, team web sites will become more powerful and newspapers less so,” Botchford adds. “I doubt newspapers, or news web sites, will disappear or stop being a factor. With the demand I see, there should be room for everyone. As long as millions of people continue to be fascinated by sports, you will need media, and a medium, to help feed the beast.” LJR

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25

Writing into the

storm Journalism schools are churning out grads eager for work. But where will they go?

By Kimiya Shokoohi

J

ournalism schools in Western Canada continue to fill their programs, but are there jobs waiting for graduates when they leave the comfort of the classroom?

Storm clouds have been brewing over the media industry for several years, and when the maelstrom subsides thousands of jobs will have vanished.

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Industry employment rates have taken a plunge since the recession hit in 2008.

Jeff Gaulin, director of the journalism job website JeffGaulin.com, says job postings on his site are down 55 per cent compared to 2008. He notes that in the fall of 2008 there were 368 jobs posted on his site, compared to 163 during the same time a year later.

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Not only are jobs a scarce commodity for the inexperienced but veteran journalists are being shown the door, or encouraged to take early retirement. Often, vacant positions are not filled. Major media organizations have shed employees like so much dead weight in an effort to become leaner and more efficient. Do more with less has become the mantra.

During the last two years alone, Rogers Publishing eliminated 900 jobs, Canwest cut 560, and CTV reduced staff by 105 people.

But journalism schools in Western Canada keep operating as if the major storm hitting the industry is nothing more than a summer squall. Students keep signing up, instructors keep teaching and credentials keep being handed out, all as if it’s business as usual.

“Yes, mainstream for-profit media is changing and in decline in some respects, lessening the number of mainstream for-profit media jobs,” says Mary-Lynn Young, director of the graduate journalism program at the University of British Columbia. “But journalism practice is growing.”

In the fall of 2009, enrolment at UBC’s journalism graduate school increased to 63 students from 54 in the year previous.

Young believes that while conventional journalism jobs are in a crisis, non-traditional journalism jobs in, for example, online media are increasing.

“Digital labour is still being worked through. How much are these people being paid? Is it enough? But it’s our belief here that journalism as a practice is in fact growing and that’s why there’s still a tremendous interest.”

Mitch Thompson, a second-year journalism student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, B.C., believes the new generation of budding journalists has a strong desire for knowledge, and that’s what has them turning to journalism schools. “Why not become a part of that so I can get that information faster and find it out for myself?” Thompson says.

He is also convinced that more young people are still turning to jschools because they aren’t able to find jobs in other sectors. “People are [saying] ‘I can’t get a job now so I’ll go to school and get my skills up.’”

Journalism educators will argue that even with the changing job scene, the industry still demands a certain level of education. The chair of Langara College’s journalism program, Anne Roberts, recalls the difference in education standards when she started.

“When I started out I had a BA and I applied for a job with the Canadian Press and they looked at me and said, ‘But you

“I personally connect a lot better with multi-media – with radio or television. I feel more compelled to watch those stories and pay attention,” Novak says.

While BCIT saw a dip in enrolment in the fall of 2009 compared with the previous year, it still has more journalism students than other schools in Western Canada. Its two broadcasting sections, TV and radio, collectively had 223 students in the fall of 2009, compared with 240 students the year before. But not all the students in these programs are aiming for jobs in broadcast journalism.

Novak, for example, worked last summer for W -Rebecca Cheung Network’s production company, on consumer-report shows such as The Shopping Bags, and ployers are looking for. People are more she is seeking to return to that area of and more educated.”

Roberts says over the years Langara’s broadcasting.

“It’s not that I don’t love hard news, curriculum has undergone changes to because I love hard topics. I just don’t keep up with the ever-evolving industry know if right now those jobs exist,” she but employers are raising the bar. They want young journalists to be able to work says. “There’s got to be a way to marry things that are entertaining and appealing with the latest digital technology, but but still have important messages and still they also want them to know something provide information.” about politics and history.

BCIT broadcasting instructor George UBC journalism graduate program student Faiza Zia Khan decided to get her Orr acknowledges that much journalism work has shifted from stable jobs to masters in journalism when she realfreelance or contract work, but adds that ized her communications degree and a broadcasters will always be needed to run with a couple of community papers wasn’t going to be enough to land her the produce and deliver a newscast according journalism jobs she wanted. “I realized it to their broadcast licence commitments.

“We’re not entirely a market-driven makes a world of difference,” Khan says. operation so there’s a degree of security “Education is an investment that pays in that,” he says. vividly in the long run.”

Some would-be journalists are vowTwenty-five-year-old Ryerson Uniing to ride out the storm, and noting versity graduate Katie Mercer may be that economic uncertainty means jobs one of the few exceptions to the notion in other sectors are not safe now either. that recent graduates can’t get jobs at Rebecca Cheung, who has a bachelor of big papers, especially in this economy. science and is completing the first year of Mercer landed a paid internship at VanUBC’s graduate journalism program, is couver’s Province newspaper, which led one of those. to a full-time job as a crime reporter. “I “A lot of my friends with similar still am getting used to the idea that I’m backgrounds – some who have PhDs – working here,” Mercer says. “With this kind of industry you don’t know if you’ll they’re having difficulties finding jobs. I think that finding a job and job security is have a job next week.” a concern in any field.”

While some young journalists are There’s no evidence to suggest still climbing aboard what many feel is a sinking ship – the newspaper – others are today’s unstable journalism industry will staking their future on broadcasting. Tara- see blue skies anytime soon. But Cheung is in it for the long haul.

Lee Novak, who already has a degree “It’s seems uncertain right now but in English literature, is taking broadcast I think there will always been a need for journalism at the British Columbia Instijournalists.” LJR tute of Technology. have a BA, you don’t want to work here,’ and they really were very reluctant to hire me,” Roberts says. She remembers employers insisting that someone with a BA would want to go on and do other things and she had to assure them that this was indeed what she wanted to do.

“The world has changed since then,” Roberts says. “It’s not just journalism.

Through our whole society there’s an increase in the number of credentials em-

I think that finding a job and job security is a concern in any field.

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25

Teaching a man to fish Joshua Hergesheimer photo Young boys gather to see the ferangi (foreigner) arrive at an Ethiopian development project partially funded by Canada.

Is Canadian aid to Ethiopia hitting the mark?

Joshua Hergesheimer, travelled to one of the world’s most impoverished countries to find out.

I

had just exited passport control and was standing in the customs lineup at Hailie Selassie Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia when I saw the X-ray machines. Two big, industrial-scale grey metal boxes stood between me and the exit doors – the last obstacle to my first overseas journalism assignment.

I opened my passport to the stillmoist entry stamp. As far as Ethiopian officials knew, Joshua Hergesheimer, tourist, wanted to snap photos of migrating birds. But the contents of my bag told a different story. Someone looking closely at my camera, computer, notebook and sound recorder might think I was trying to slip into the country under the radar.

I had been warned earlier not to apply for a journalism visa. “It is better not to mention such things,” an Ethiopian acquaintance said, pointing out that it would likely be denied – or, if granted, I would be assigned a minder and watched constantly. Neither sounded appealing. So I had written down “tourism.”

In the customs line the man ahead of me struggles to load his suitcase – wrapped in duct tape – on to the conveyor belt. The customs officer glances at the video screen, then signals him toward a long table. I hear the sound of tape ripping as I shuffle forward. !"#

My laptop backpack disappears behind the black plastic flaps. “Can you explain this bag?” the customs agent inquires in my direction, his eyebrows rising ever so slightly in the style officials in the developing world seem to have perfected.

“It has a laptop and camera,” I responded. No need to mention the voice recorder and microphones. “And a small bottle of whiskey. For a friend.” My bag always contains duty free delights that can be “donated” to officials if the need arises.

“Is any of this equipment professional?” he asked. I paused, not wanting to respond too quickly, then shook my head. Behind me a woman was transferring boxes bound with fraying twine on to the conveyor belt. There were five big boxes for him to scrutinize. He waved me through.

I left Canada with an ambitious assignment: to report on the work of two development organizations receiving funding from the Canadian International Development Agency. I arranged a week with the United Nations’ World Food Programme observing a project called MERET, designed to address issues of soil degradation and land conservation.

To contrast this, I would also spend a

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week with Hope International Development Agency, a small New Westminster, B.C.-based organization working to address water and sanitation issues in the mountains of southern Ethiopia.These two agencies are at opposite ends of the development spectrum. The UN’s WFP is a massive organization that receives funding from donor governments. HIDA is a small, non-governmental organization that relies primarily on private donations supplemented with CIDA grants. Canada has contributed about $20 million more to MERET than the $500,0000 that was allocated to HIDA. I figured it would be interesting to see what each organization was doing with this money – and how well it was or wasn’t working.

A

t this point, I should offer a confession. I am not an unbiased observer. I have yearned to visit Ethiopia ever since I set foot on the African continent – and fell in love with – more than a decade ago. So as much as I wanted, and knew I needed, to be a dispassionate, objective journalist, I also desperately wanted to find some positive stories. I wanted to believe that some of the money and effort the world has invested in Ethiopia has actually helped its people help themselves.

Critics of foreign aid have found plenty of ammunition in Ethiopia’s troubles. Each year the country struggles with chronic food shortages. And 25 years after Live Aid rallied globally aware citizens to fight famine, the Ethiopian government last October had to ask the world for emergency food aid for more than six million people. Nearly three quarters of Ethiopia’s 85 million people do not have access to clean water. The country ranks 191 out of 193 on the Human Development Index. If you want to be cynical about the accumulated benefits of foreign aid, you need look no further than Ethiopia.

But cynics may want to stop reading now, because the remainder of this article might just plant seeds of doubt in their minds.Yes, I saw some failures.

But overwhelmingly these were failures of bureaucracy or administration, not failures of imagination, determination or innovation. On paper, Ethiopia may seem destined for failure. But I found Ethiopians who had refused to accept that designation. Some had even succeeded.

T

wenty kilometres from Hosiana town, the muddy road melts into a maze of ruts. A rooster crows.

Smoke seeps through the thatched roofs of circular huts standing in a grove of enset and banana trees. I am here to meet Worke Sima Mogo. She comes out smiling.

Mogo looks happy – with good reason. Her land used to be barren. Now, the 28-year-old mother of four harvests three crops per year from her backyard garden. Since she began working with MERET five years ago, she has earned enough money to send her children to the local school and send her husband to South Africa for work.

“Before MERET, I did not even know some of these vegetables and fruits existed,” she tells me excitedly. “Now I sell them at the market for cash.” She may never have taken an economics course, but Mogo can see the benefits of having capital to invest back into the land. “I have a water catchment system now, and I want to expand the farm even more.”

In Konso district I met farmers building retaining walls to stop erosion and catchment ponds to conserve rainwater. In Alaba district, I spoke to community members who voted unanimously to close overgrazed land to cattle.

And I saw subsistance farmers-turnedfruit tree cultivators in Chencha growing seven varieties of apples to be sent to city markets.

I saw how humans can shape their physical environment to rescue land that would otherwise degrade. I saw water catchment ponds filled with rainwater that last year would have washed away precious soils. I ran my palm across spiky green grasses growing in closure areas.

And I touched tiny seedlings destined to grow into fruit trees.

Not every MERET project was successful. I found farmers whose crops stood stunted; sometimes for lack of water, sometimes for lack of knowledge. Farmers seemed to recognize the problems of overgrazing, yet I saw boys driving cows through closure areas. I spoke to four unemployed men who said officials of the World Food Programme directed them to construct a fish farm but failed to provide them with the fish.

The pond that was supposed to contain the fish sat unused, growing only algae.

The WFP said it was the responsibility of the Bureau Of Agriculture and Rural Development to provide the fish. But when they inquired, the bureau didn’t reply.

The men said they were discouraged by the setback but wouldn’t give up.

Following the funding trail proved challenging. Farmers in Konso said BOARD officials told them that there was no grain to pay them to work on a retaining wall. BOARD officials said they didn’t receive the grain from their head office, and the head office said the WFP federal office hadn’t sent the grain. When I asked about this discrepancy I was sent a copy of a 2009 report that blamed international donors for only delivering about half the grain and cash promised.

CIDA media officer Denise Robichaud said that Canada had met its commitment of $20 million, but declined to comment on the apparent funding shortfall or on donor contributions generally.

As journalists, we often cite numbers in our stories. But stories are not really about numbers, even if they involve tens of millions of dollars (though taxpayers might think otherwise). They are about how real people are affected by decisions made on the basis of numbers. To me, the story about MERET is not that it faces a massive budgetary shortfall. It is about the sad irony that tens of thousands of farmers will now have to watch their

land degrade – after they signed up for a program that promised to help them rehabilitate it. At the same time the world will likely spend billions on emergency aid for Ethiopians who face starvation.

This is clearly a short-term investment that saves lives but does nothing to help people live better and more productive lives.

A

fter a week spent trying to untangle the intricacies of the WFP, it was refreshing to spend the time with HIDA at their remote campsite high in the mountains of Dirashe district.

The problem here was that women and girls had to walk hours to collect water.

Even then the water is often dirty. The solution was to install a spring cap and gravity-fed water distribution system that pipes water directly to the village water taps, saving the women and girls a long, arduous walk. The process was utterly unique and stunningly effective. HIDA provided the materials and the expertise, and the community provided the labour.

Every able-bodied person was recruited to dig trenches and transport the pipes.

And they did all this without the promise of payment. They did it for themselves, by themselves.

The project was refreshingly transparent. “Everyone here knows what we are doing,” Wubliker Teklu, HIDA’s field officer, told me. “If there is any corruption, any cheating, the people will know because they see the pipes and they see us working with them.”

And it seems to have worked. Before HIDA arrived in Dirashe, only 10 per cent of the population had access to clean water. Now, nearly all Dirashe’s women and girls walk a few hundreds metres to a water point – saving time, energy, and lives.

Of course, water pipes cannot by themselves change society. Women and girls are still expected to do the majority of the domestic work in Dirashe. But social change starts small, and while the women of Dirashe will use the time they save to do other chores, Dirashe’s girls now have more hours to attend school.

And for some reason, that makes me hopeful. LJR Joshua Hergesheimer graduated from Langara College’s Certificate Journalism Program in 2009. He was winner of that year’s CIDA-Langara College Journalism Development scholarship.

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By Je r o m e Tu r n e r

Tony CHEKs in – And Maybe Out

T

ony Parsons, Global BC’s trusted news anchor for nearly 35 years, once started to grow a mustache.

This did not go over well with viewers. Parsons found that the people who depended on him to deliver the news are also averse to change. They wanted Tony Parsons just the way he always was.

Yet change is exactly what is happening to Parsons. The veteran anchor so familiar to Global BC (formerly BCTV) viewers for so many years, slid into retirement two years ago, only to resurface – not once, but twice – on two different stations. Parsons first took on the anchoring task at the newly revamped and employee-owned CHEK-TV in Victoria. He had barely started his assignment there when he appeared alongside Gloria Macarenko on CBC Vancouver’s local supper-time news, replacing Ian Hanomansing, who left for greener pastures at The National in Toronto.

In taking over CHEK’s 10 o’clock news, Parsons says he wanted to be involved in making history as part of the employee endeavour to keep the station running after Canwest threatened to shut it down. “One of the things that drove me here was the possibility that the station, with all its heritage, might close and the community wouldn’t be served by two competitive stations, Parsons says.”

CHEK used to simulcast BCTV’s six o’clock news, anchored by Parsons. “In a sense I have already worked for CHEK,” he says. He likes the concept of employee ownership – unchartered territory for major media ownership in Canada – and expresses respect for his new colleagues who are trying to make it work. “It’s not like they need a saviour,” says Parsons.

“They are all hard-working, fire-in-the-belly-kind of people.”

Parsons seems downright thrilled to be working five days a week, compared with the two days he was workingduring his last few years a Global. He is also keen on being part of the experiment.

“It’s a unique situation in television to have an employeeowned operation,” Parsons says. “If we do everything right, then we can prove to other people that it’s a sustainable thing and it can be done.”

The transition to becoming employee owned involved a lot of work and negotiations with the station’s ailing former owner.

“

In early 2009 Canwest announced it was going to sell, close or rebrand the station. “They said if an offer was not made before mid-June the station would be shut down completely on August 31, ” Pollard and company looked to Nanaimo’s Harmac Pacific pulp mill, which was taken over by employees after previous owner Pope & Talbot went bankrupt. CHEK managed to forge an agreement with Canwest using contract elements learned from Harmac and became the first TV station in North America to be employee owned.

“It was the idea of these people believing in what they did so much, that they invested their own money in reviving what could have been a dead station,” says Parsons. “I thought, ‘Now there’s a group I could work with,’” Thirty-five years of trusted anchoring would have been Parsons legacy had he retired – Tony parsons to his homes in Arizona and Kelowna. But apparently he can’t get enough. Adding CBC to his plate shows his reluctance to retreat from the lights.

Parsons now flies from Vancouver to Victoria and back every day. For all that effort it appears not too many evening news viewers are taking notice, at least not initially. Ratings show that Parsons’ first broadcast with CBC on April 12 drew fewer viewers than Coronation Street, the British soap that follows the news. During the same supper-hour significantly more people watched Global than watched CTV, CBC and CITY-TV combined.

Parsons was visibly uncomfortable on his new set, and the usually slick and relaxed CBC news team nearly slipped into amateur hour. The tension was palpable enough to produce a playful comment from irrepressible weather woman Claire Martin, who quipped something about certain people’s nervousness.

It’s not clear if Parsons will stay on with CHEK. He is in his early 70s and no matter how much he enjoys delivering the news, the commute and workload seem incredibly taxing. And he still looks out of place at CBC, perhaps quite simply because of his long association with the competition.

But who knows? Parsons might try growing another mustache. It could give him a whole new identity. LJR

It’s not like they need a saviour.

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Surfer’s Nightmare

Service providers control the speed of webites.

What does this mean for the free flow of information?

B y A l e k L e s c a n & Je r o m e Tu r n e r News is delivered via the Internet on a steadily increasing basis and those companies that provide Web access to consumers – the Internet service providers, or ISPs – can determine what sites get preference. Is this desireable? Steve Anderson doesn’t think so. He is one of a number of people who believe that indivuals and organizations should have equal access to the Internet – a concept referred to as “net neutrality.”

Anderson is spearheading a campaign for net neutrality, which is the focus of his website, SaveOurNet.ca.

Canadian law does not guarantee high-speed Internet to everyone. Canada’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), has created a new policy concerning Internet use but proponents of net neutrality say the policy does not go far enough.

So what does this all mean for journalism?

The delivery of news is rapidly moving to the Web. Traditonal news outlets – newspapers, radio, television – use websites for news dissemination, and

there are now a plethora of web-only sites providing different types of news and information.

“There is a new day for media,” says Anderson. “There is a crisis in traditional journalism. It’s an exciting moment and we are relying more and more on the Net.” The problem is, explains Anderson, that large corporate ISPs such as Bell and Telus have the capability to “throttle” a website, thereby slowing down its load time, if they consider the site undesirable.

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Advocates of net neutrality have raised concerns about the ability of telecom companies to act as “gate keepers” in controlling applications and online content. A throttled site takes longer to load. A site that immediately loads will undoubtedly receive more views.

The CRTC decision last October did little to ensure that all websites are on a level playing field. Its clarification of the federal Telecommunications Act gave ISPs the right to give some websites a fast lane, while others can be deferred to a slow lane or outright discontinued. If an ISP wants to throttle a site it must simply give 30 days notice before doing so.

Anderson welcomes news and information organziations that are alternatives to the corporate mainstream, but fears they are the very ones who could be relegated to the slow lane, and thus have their existence jeopardized.

“More media is created through independent collaborative efforts. Independent producers create something more original and genuine compared to what we are offered by giant conglomerates.”

He sees the evolution of independent media on the Web as the only way journalism can expand its horizons. Net neutrality advocates encourage journalists to create new tools and modes of reporting and lower the bar for citizens to participate.

That hits home for Irma Arkus, host of HiSciFi, a radio program on the Web dedicated to politics, science and technology.

“While we hear from corporations that freedom of access to content, or net neutrality, is bad for business, shows like HiSciFi very much depend on having unlimited access to the international exchange of content,” she noted on one of her recent shows, in conversation with Anderson.

Her program depends on a fast, open Internet to connect with her audience.

Currently, HiSciFi gets 20,000 downloads per week by distributing its content through BitTorrent files, which is vital for distributing large amounts of data.

Marc Bisonette, owner of Canadian ISP, an online catalogue of service providers, says general knowledge of alternatives to Bell Canada, Telus and Rogers is

“

Cheryl Minns photo Irma Arkus: Her program requires unlimited access to the Internet. virtually non-existent.

He says there is no solution to Bell’s domination in Ontario – short of “erecting five telephone poles in front of every house,” – because major telecom companies own the delivery system.

The ISPs companies use a method called deep packet inspection (DPI) to red-flag sites. A site is usally throttled, if a scan shows it to have red flag content.

Before the CRTC decision, throttling was automatic. Now, websites have 30 days to conform to an ISP’s demands before the punishment is inflicted. The corpora-

complained and Bell had to adjust to demand, despite its objection to how its service was being abused. Since the CRTC decision, only Bell customers who pay for the unlimited package in Ontario have unrestrained access to the Internet, according to Bisonette. This should raise an alarm to any journalist, because of the level of intrusion an ISP has regarding website traffic.

Throttling is likely for journalism websites simply because of the nature of the craft. Ideas can be unpopular to those whose interests are challenged. How long would a blog dedicated to criticizing ISPs – or their sponsors– survive?

Anderson hoped the CRTC decision last October would provide some punishment for ISPs that arbitrarily throttle –Steve Anderson sites. He feels the CRTC could have done more, but he does believe the policy is headed in the right direction.

“I think ISPs are naturally hostile… and they only got pushed into this by us,” he says. “They would much rather have a private network that they own and control… you can make more money when you control a resource.” LJR

They would much rather have a private network that they own and control... you can make more money when you control a resource.

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tions follow Web use closely and have an intimate knowledge of all customer information.

Using DPIs, Bell realized that nearly 90 per cent of Internet traffic consisted of illegal downloads. In an effort to combat this phenomenon all Bell customers were throttled. But customers

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In Jest We Trust S

By Diego Syz

Vancouver Observer, likes to think he “brings the sensibility atirical comedy lights up people’s lives through televiof a journalist through the eyes of a playwright.” He says when sion shows, websites, newspapers and various comedic producing comedy there is sometimes a dilemma between the performances. The satire prevalent in North American element of truth and the entertainment factor. pop culture often focuses on current events – politics, “For me I do my absolute best to make sure that the stuff war, social trends, people in the public eye – and truth can that I’m writing is absolutely factual,” he says. sometimes become expendable to get a point across.

If you try to bend the truth to fit your own purposes you In the context of contemporary North American culture, risk undermining the comedy you are trying to get across. “I’d the question has been asked: Is John Stewart a journalist? That be doing the same thing I’m critical of the mainstream media is, through his satirical way of looking at current events, does for.” he provide his Daily Show Espejo concedes that audience with certain truths sometimes when he’s perthat so-called “objective forming he’ll say something journalism” cannot? Or is he that isn’t entirely true, an entertainer using humour perhaps stretching the facts, to simply poke fun at serious -Comedian Lalo Espejo but the humour is obvious to situations and famous people? the audience, so he feels it’s “In media, you get small harmless. pictures of fact and sometimes Satire emerges organically from a culture, points out Joe the big truth is wrong. Comedy is like the opposite of that,” Cutbirth, who teaches a course on satire as news at the Universays B.C. author and satirist Charlie Demers. sity of British Columbia. People need to let off steam and that’s Demers’ way of looking at the world is through the satiriwhy personalities like John Stewart or Stephan Colbert do so cal looking glass, as evidenced by his two novels – The Prewell in angst-ridden cities like New York, Cutbirth says. scription Errors and Vancouver Special – which display some Cutbirth came to Canada from the U.S., where he taught of the follies of life in Vancouver through the eyes of someone Journalism at Columbia University. “There seems to be a born and raised there. stronger sense of citizen-bond for me here – I mean coming “It’s just most important that you get the big truth,” he says. straight from New York,” he says. “I notice that there’s less depDemers notes that satire can be subtle and that it can backersonalization, less alienation here in the Pacific Northwest.” fire if those who are its intended victims exploit it for their People often say they get their sense of news from The own benefit. Canadians politicians, for example, have a very Daily Show or Colbert Report, says Cutbirth, but he believes advanced way of exploiting satire, Demers says. He points to this audience is really quite aware of the issues and that makes Canadian entertainer Rick Mercer and how his show became a it funny for them. campaign stop for various politicians in recent federal elecCutbirth sees satire as a tool for the disenfranchised, and it tions. That brings into question the effectiveness of the satire, provides a subtext for current events on a more intimate level Demers says. The political figureheads who are supposed to be than just straight hard news. parodied are instead given what amounts to free PR. “But I’m really not sure that comedians go out to convey “They kill you with access,” he says. information. Ninety-nine per cent of the time comedians want Because of our closeness to the U.S., Canadians really have laughs,” he says. two political cultures and our comedy is also influenced by Espejo would disagree. He says comedians can shed light on them, Demers says. subjects people are sometimes uncomfortable talking about.

In the U.S., you find African-Americans and Jewish-Amer“Look at Afghanistan. There’s some pretty dark shit going icans dominating the realm of satire and comedy. Canadians, on over there,” says Espejo. “The value of satire is that it can who are considered to have a pretty good sense of humour, are relay to people the news about something serious like war, but under-represented in the larger U.S. sphere. with a softer impact on the audience.” LJR Comedian Lalo Espejo, who writes satire online for the

I do my absolute best to make sure that the stuff that I’m writing is absolutely factual.

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Campus Papers Fun or Functional?

Erin Steele photo

An opportunity for students to voice their views is also a training ground for future journalists. !"#

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By Cheryl Minns

P

aul Bucci, coordinating editor of the University of British Columbia’s student newspaper, The Ubyssey, says his foray into journalism wasn’t as a result of any particular passion for writing or muckraking. It was because of more basic needs – food, drink and some good company.

“I came in here and there was camaraderie and there was creativity and there was drinking, so it was like, ‘Excellent! Free food, drinking and friends. That is exactly what I want.’”

Four years later, Bucci has indeed been smitten by the craft, evidenced by the many hours spent in The Ubyssey’s production office. In fact, he finds it so enjoyable that he spends more hours there than working on his general studies course work.

This seems to be a common trait for those involved with campus newspapers. Many journalists have not taken the journalism school route, instead gaining valuable experience via the more freewheeling student press.

“A lot of people come in here in their third and fourth year and stick around for an extra year, take one class after they should have graduated.”

So, besides the food, the drink and the camaraderie, what’s the attraction of a campus newspaper? One of the many appealing qualities is that student journalists have a degree of freedom that other journalists working for mainstream media may not have.

Jon Woodward, a reporter for CTV British Columbia, worked on The Ubyssey while he did a math degree at UBC in the early 2000s. He says the newspaper gave its reporters a lot of liberty.

“I could really enjoy the freedom of being put in a position where I was responsible for what I said but not for who it might offend,” says Woodward, whose experience there resulted in a summer job at one of Vancouver’s dailies, The Province.

from your teacher and you’re afraid of what they’re going to say if you don’t agree with them, that’s not promoting healthy thinking, that’s not promoting critical thinking, that’s promoting how to get a good grade.”

Allen Garr, a long-time Vancouver journalist and weekly columnist for the community newspaper The Vancouver Courier, says working on Simon Fraser University’s campus newspaper The Peak in the 1960s gave him the freedom and encouragement to pursue stories he might not have otherwise.

“I remember my first student newspaper conference that I went to and we passed a resolution saying that the role of a student journalist is to be an active agent for social change,” he says. “We would try and promote positive change in society and cover stories that lent themselves to that.

So there was a very clear progressive political agenda amongst student newspapers of the time.”

He says today’s campus newspapers are less inclined to publish activist stories because the need for advertising has made them more conservative.

“What the major concern became of student newspapers was generating advertising revenue so they could pay for their production, as opposed to o ot ph ns Cheryl Min making the revolution or whatle e h s the freew e k ever we thought we were doing li e H i: l Bucc at the time.”

Editor Pau t press.

Graham Templeton, the ing studen opinions editor at The Peak, agrees that much a advertising is an important part of the student rag, it lets you do so newspaper, but he says the main focus is without legal problems,” she says. “The being an outlet for students’ work. bottom line is that you don’t learn how “It’s to be a platform for students to be an expert at anything until you to be able to talk if they want to, and be learn what breaks something and you’re heard.” not afraid of breaking it.You cannot The Peak, like The Ubyssey, is funded be afraid if you ever want to be a good by a student levy added to each student’s reporter.”

She also says the learning experience tuition. Templeton says the levy is part of the reason why the newspaper is driven at a campus newspaper is unlike any a to focus less on social change like it used student would get in a journalism class to and focus more on what the students because the work is not graded. want.

“If you’re looking for a good grade

Campus newspapers also have very few rules, which is what makes them so appealing and educational, says Katherine Monk, a film critic for Canwest News Services and a former Ubyssey reporter and editor.

“A student-run college paper teaches you how to fall and it lets you fall without consequences. And, because it’s pretty

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umns to clear, concise writing with flow did not feel the need to get involved in “The onus was on us to be open to and with tension, which is not something equally representing all students who are campus activities if they were leaving you especially learn, it’s just something soon, Lam says. paying.” that you have to do a lot,” he says. “HavWith The Runner, “we can tap into At Kwantlen Polytechnic University ing been able to do that for three or four thousands of more people that have inin the Lower Mainland, former student terests in every area instead of just having years, I do think I can walk into a newsDJ Lam identified the need for the sturoom and definitely be okay. I’ve gotten journalism students with great skills and dents’ voice at the school and founded a over all those anxieties about calling a great goal to produce the news.”

Kwantlen campus newspaper called The people up and going to places.”

This is how a campus newspaper Runner in 2008.

Templeton says news outlets look should be, Garr says, with a variety of Prior to its creation, the school’s for campus newspaper involvement on a students who all have different interests only campus paper was The Kwantlen résumé because it shows experience and and skills. He says the people he worked Chronicle, which was with on The Peak were skill. He says this is especially prevalent produced by the school’s among local newspapers. journalism program and Liam Britten, restricted to the jourthe editor-in-chief nalism students. of The Other Press Lam was part of at Douglas Colthe journalism prolege in the Lower gram when he realized Mainland, says the weekly newspaper working on a camwas not able to cover pus newspaper can the variety of things prepare students for that were happening work at community on campus because newspapers. He says there were a limited it prepared him for number of journalhis first journalism inism student reportternship at The Maple ers.

Ridge-Pitt Meadows “The ChronTimes in 2008. icle just couldn’t “The fact that I do what other had editors to teach me student newspabasic news structure at pers do and that’s The Other Press first be an open voice was very helpful – what for any student the work environment in any program Ubyssey’s student ed is like at a newsroom, of any skill set,” itorial staff how you need to meet he says. : Food, drin Cheryl Min ns k and goo Alan Bass, d compan photo deadlines and what is y. expected.” a journalism Britten also emphainstructor at Thompson Rivers University sizes how important a in Kamloops, agrees that the drawback of interested in the reporter’s clippings from a world first and then became interested in journalism program newspapers is that campus newspaper can be. He believes journalism. they are technically assignments with they are one of the most significant things That’s how it works at The Ubysguidelines. a student can gain from working on the sey too, Bucci says, who notes he didn’t “Because the publications that are newspaper. have a strong interest in journalism until connected to the program are usually “It’s not enough to just be on the recently, after four years of working on done by a specific class, it’s the learning paper. Editors are looking for a specific the campus newspaper. objectives that impose restrictions,” he type of writing,” he says, explaining that “Some people will become more says. “There are certain types of formats that the students are going for and there- interested in it because of working here,” a student’s clips show if a reporter can handle news or feature writing. he says. “When I first stepped in here I fore certain types of stories that they’re Woodward agrees that campus newsthought there was no way I would be a covering.” journalist, but now I’m actually consider- paper clips can get a journalism applicant At Kwantlen, Lam says The Runner a long way. ing it as a career option.” has brought a new-found connection “Clips of mine from The Ubyssey – I Bucci says this is because The Ubysbetween the students and the university. was still sending them to jobs even after sey puts students to work on their first The school has been known for having a I interned at The Province,” he says. “I dispassionate student body because when day in the newsroom like a real newspawas proud of them and I’m still proud of per would. it was a college it was primarily a unithem.” LJR “I’ve gone from real hack-job colversity feeder school and many students !"##$%&'%(%#)*+(&%,-./#012-13#4565#

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Envision the Future.

Langara College provides University-Transfer, Career, and Continuing Studies programs and courses to more than 19,000 students annually. Our progressive programming adapts to the changing needs of our community to provide quality education that is both current and relevant.

University-Transfer Studies We have the most comprehensive Arts & Science University-Transfer program of any college in the region. This year, we added two new program areas â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Health Sciences and Recreation Management.

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www.langara.bc.ca