When I was at the Prince George Free Press a dozen or so years ago, I kept a bit of blog (they were a thing then) detailing some of the goings-on in our newsroom. Unbeknownst to me, I apparently kept a lot of the postings and recently came across them tucked away in secret corner of my laptop … a place called ‘desktop.’
The specific stories are dated, but the themes are still relevant to community journalism today. It might just be a bit of a trip down memory lane, but hopefully, they will give some insight into what happens in a newsroom.
I hope you enjoy reading:
The temptation to not edit (Jan. 27, 2012)
Despite what some may believe, we newspaper editors are nice people. Often unknown to the average reader are the efforts we go to helping our fellow man, even though we may be tempted not to.
Case in point: Received a letter from a city councillor today, taking umbrage with today’s editorial. The letter is fair comment, I don’t have a problem with that and I’ll run the letter. However, what the average reader won’t see is how I ‘edit’ the letter. Yes, many think we edit letters to suit our particular position or political ideology. Not so.
The editing on this particular letter from one of our elected leaders will include the proper spelling of a fellow councillor’s name and the proper usage of the word libel, rather than slander (there is a difference).
Yes, the temptation is to run the letter as is and insert (sic) in several places, but we newspaper editors are too nice to do that.
GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS (Sept. 20, 2011)
Here’s one for open government.
A spokesperson for the Government Communications and Public Engagement Office spoke to Omineca Express reporter Hannah Wright only on the condition that they not be quoted.
It really is a disturbing trend. More and more officials in government and large corporations will only speak to reporters on the condition of anonymity and, often will not grant interviews, opting instead for reporters to e-mail in their questions to which they will supply e-mailed responses. This is hardly open communication and/or public engagement.
The problem? Media allows it to happen. When the media stops allowing this to happen and calling public officials on it, it will stop.
THE PERILS OF CUT AND PASTE (July 1, 2011)
With the media getting most of its new electronically these days, it’s easy to simply cut and paste copy into a story. It happens all the time. The problem is, when there is a mistake what you’re cutting and pasting, it makes you look bad, not the person who actually made the mistake.
Case in point: A logging truck cut off a car on Highway 97 in Prince George this week. The car ended up on the row of concrete blocks in the middle of the road. The police, in issuing the press release, announced that the car ended up on the meridian. Luckily our astute associate editor Allan Wishart pointed out that a meridian is a circle of constant longitude (to which I quoted the Hip … at the 100th meridian, the great plains begin).
Caught the mistake and everything’s fine.
What is distressing though, is I’ve seen two other print publications use “meridian” with this story and, to top it off, heard a local newscaster say, over the air, that the car landed on the “meridian,” which, in truth, it might have. But I think they meant median.
Ah, the perils of cut and paste and of media that operate without editors (okay self-preservation bit there, but you get my point).
IS IT NEWS? (June 28, 2011)
Received an e-mail notice the other day informing us lowly media hacks that our two local MLAs were heading down to the Service B.C. office to hand in their HST ballots. Given that they are both Liberal, they didn’t even need to be in an envelope.
My question is: Is that news? Is it a legitimate photo op? We decided that it was not and avoided it all. Our esteemed competition, however, didn’t and ran a pic of, guess what, a couple of smiling politicians mugging for the camera with HST ballot envelopes in hand.
I think we made the right choice. This isn’t news.
LIFE OF A JOURNALIST (June 6, 2011)
So what makes this job interesting?
Last week I was at the B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting, in two capacities. I participated as a director of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, representing the Free Press, and covered some of the goings on for the paper.
This week I was at the British Columbia Federation of Labour conference here in Prince George … got to interview Jim Sinclair and Adrian Dix.
You get to see it all in this business.
Then there’s the multi-tasking (a term I’ve never liked because no matter how much you have on your plate, you can only do one thing at a time). But today I’m trying to fill a reporter’s position here at the Free Press and helping the Northeast News and Cariboo Advisor with similar searches (I get first pick, ha ha); as well I’m looking over pages for the Northeast News and Vanderhoof Omineca Express before they go to press (thanks to technology); and trying to get my stories written and video processed from the BC Fed meeting on the weekend. Plus, all this must … MUST … be done before the puck drops tonight.
SHOULD I SIGN THIS? (April 29, 2011)
Had a great editorial seminar weekend here in Prince George a couple of weeks back, followed by a week or R&R at the ranch in Fernie.
It was interesting that the same issue came up at both places … signed editorials.
We seem to see more and more of it lately, particularly at smaller papers. Perhaps I’m a little old-school, but the editorial spot in a newspaper should always be reserved as the position of the newspaper. Editors quite often pen that position, but publishers have inked a few editorials and, usually at larger papers and dailies, editorials are sometimes a collaborative effort.
But they are the position of the paper, not any one individual. Yet, you often see a name tagged on to the editorial space. There are various reasons. Years ago Quesnel Cariboo Observer editor Jerry MacDonald and then-reporter Neil Horner started adding names to their editorials because Jerry got elected to the school board. The feeling was that the public needed to know who wrote the editorial, particularly if it was about the school district, to avoid the suggestion of bias.
Some papers have added names onto editorials so different editorial writers can take different stands on the same issue i.e. the paper supports gun control in one issue, then pans it in another. While I wholeheartedly agree with presenting differing opinions, the opinion of the paper should be that of the paper … not individuals.
For me, as soon as a name attached is ceases to be and editorial and becomes a column. It should be treated as such with a byline at the top, not a tagline at the end. And it shouldn’t be in the spot normally reserved for editorials. Plus, editorials are always written in third person, not first person. The infamous editorial ‘we.’
That was the criticism when I went to Fernie … people don’t want some tripe about the editor walking his/her dog in the editorial hole, they want an editorial.
Part of the problem, I think, is that editors aren’t as comfortable writing editorials as they should be. That is exacerbated by the fact there is a lot of turnover at papers. Editors are often new to the community and are, understandably, hesitant to tear a strip off city council. Editors often feel they haven’t earned the right to be critical of local issues when they are new to town and editors certainly feel the pressure, whether real or perceived, to not rock the boat.
The other problem, of course, the time crunch. At the smaller papers, particularly the one-person newsrooms, the editor barely has enough time to get enough stuff together to the fill the pages, not to mention put together a thought-provoking piece on sewer bylaw discussions at city council.
It’s too bad because readers always, always clamour for good, strong editorials. The more local, the better. We can read editorials about provincial and federal politics in the dailies. But no one other than the local newspaper can really comment on local issues.
SOMETIMES BEING A CRANKY EDITOR WORKS AS MAJOR MEDIA GETS SUCKERED (March 18, 2011)
The e-mail hit my in-box early in the morning.
I was on deadline and when I read the first line about Enbridge teaming up with hair salons for something or other, I immediately prioritized the press release to the bottom of the pile. “Enbridge trying to clean up its image with some sort of charity program, should be a paid ad,” I thought.
About half an hour later another e-mail rattled in. Someone from Greenpeace was condemning Enbridge’s actions with the hair salons. Not a surprise. In this business you learn very quickly that reactions are swift and predictable. If Enbridge sneezes, industry groups support it and environmental groups condemn it. If there is talk about raising the minimum wage in B.C., business groups oppose and labour groups support it. I’ve seen so many reactionary press releases, I don’t pay much attention to them anymore.
A little while later, I received a call from a Dina Thompson, asking if I had received the press release from Enbridge. Not a surprise. There are whole host of people who send out press releases and then call every media outlet they’ve just sent it to see if we’ve received it. Now you know why I’m often a cranky editor.
I told her I had received it and I was on deadline. Dina didn’t quite get the message that I was on deadline and prattled on about how she worked for Enbridge and this was a good campaign and how the company was really trying to clean up its act.
Still cranky, still on deadline, I listened for a couple of minutes and said I’d look at it later, thinking to myself that I probably wouldn’t. It’s not my job to clean up Enbridge’s image.
About a half-hour later another e-mail came in from Enbridge … this one decrying the hoax e-mail that was circulating about Enbridge teaming up with hair salons to gather human hair to help plug oil spills … a la the BP oil spill of last summer.
What?!!?
Yup, the first one, including the call from Dina Thompson was a hoax. It was very well done. The e-mail had an Enbridge logo on it and the return e-mail address had an ‘enbridge’ location.
But it was a hoax and several major news outlets were taken in by it. The Province, The Calgary Herald, The Edmonton Journal, Regina Leader Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Ottawa Citizen, The Windsor Star, The Victoria Times-Colonist & The Nanaimo Daily News (among others), according to the hoaxsters, all ran the story without checking it’s veracity with anyone.
The kicker, if anyone in the media had taken the time to click the link in the original e-mail, it would take you to a website that explains the hoax.
The hoax was created by a group called PERM, People Enbridge Ruined In Michigan, a group formed fight against Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline through northern B.C. No indication who they actually are, though.
I tried to phone Dina Thompson back, as she did leave a phone number and it’s on the original e-mail, but she didn’t answer. It is an actual phone number and there is a message saying “you’ve reached Dina Thompson.” I don’t know if she was part of the hoax or was punked along with everyone else.
So, for me, being on deadline and being cranky, definitely helped. It’s shameful that the hoax got past so many in this business. A sad day for journalism.
DON’T FOLLOW THE PACK (December 1, 2010)
The number one rule of pack journalism … don’t follow the pack.
Case in point this morning at the Prince George courthouse when the assembled journos, including the big city media from down south, were here for the first appearance of Cody Alan Legebokoff. He is the 20-year-old charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Loren Donn Leslie.
With all the camera crews assembled, Legebokoff”s court-appointed lawyer emerged and told the assembled scribes that he hasn’t seen his client yet, hasn’t looked at the file yet, hasn’t done anything other than be told he’s defending the guy and that, as such, he won’t be in court today.
The media promptly shuffled off to whatever other big story there is to work on today. All except Hannah Wright of the Omineca Express, the paper of record for this incident. She decided to talk to the court clerk, who told her that the case being moved to courtroom 305 and that he will likely make his first appearance today.
Less than a hour after Legebokoff’s lawyer told the media it’s unlikely he’ll be in court today, there he is in front of a judge with only one journalist in the courtroom.
Kudos to Hannah for not following the pack.
DWARF RAPES NUN, FLEES IN UFO (November 16, 2010)
One of my favourite books about the newspaper industry is “Dwarf rapes nun, flees in UFO.”
It’s about a newspaper editor who always wanted to run the headline “Dwarf rapes nun, flees in UFO,’ and through a series of unfortunate and hilarious events, actually gets to write that headline.
So, in that vein, I’m waiting for the day a diminutive psychic is wanted by police. The headline shall read: Small medium at large.
DYING TO BE SEEN (August 31, 2010)
Should newspapers print pictures of dead bodies?
It’s an issue that has come front-and-centre here in Prince George lately. Since the publishing of a photo of Darren Munch lying in a pool of blood on Oak Street, I’ve been asked several times whether I would run such a photo in the Free Press.
Tough question. It’s easy to say that Black Press has a blanket policy that we don’t publish pictures of dead people. It’s easy to say. Confronted with a photo of a brazen daylight shooting, the debate in any newsroom would be hot and heavy. The easy decision is to not run it. The tough call is to run the photo.
The decision comes down to the very core of what a newspaper is, and should be. If a newspaper is truly to be a mirror of the community, then such photos should run. This is something that happened in a public place in the middle of the afternoon. The photo only shows what anyone there, at that time, would have seen.
And, it was a murder, so it definitely is news.
Or, should newspapers do what we are often accused of doing … manipulating or soft-selling the news so what we are presenting, while truthful, is something less than what it really is?
Should newspapers be a filter for the community? When it comes to violent death, that is often what is expected.
A couple of years ago we ran a photo of a gang member who had run afoul of one of his buddies and had been stabbed several times. It was supplied by the RCMP and showed the guy’s back with blood oozing out of a half-dozen stab wounds. Quite graphic.
We received lots of calls and letters about the photo and how it was inappropriate to run in the newspaper.
When I was in Williams Lake, we ran a photo of an accident scene where a 10-year-old boy was run over by a semi. The body was not in the photo, but his mangled bike was. I had three priests in my office the next day basically telling me I was going to Hell. These men, known for their compassion, told me the mother was suicidal and that if she killed herself it would be on my head for running the photo of the accident scene.
That is how visceral the response is to newspapers running such photos. So, knowing that, it takes courage for a newspaper to do so. The response here has been no less intense. As an interesting aside, at accident scenes the police go out of their way to shield dead bodies from newspaper photographers, but in the Munch case, seemingly did not.
So where is the value in running a photo of a man shot down in the street? It’s an intangible. We will never know if it served any real good. However, as a newspaper, if we run such a photo we do it in the hope that somewhere in this city, there is a young fellow on the fringes of the gang world who saw that photo and decided he doesn’t want to end up dead in the street.
The community also has been calling on the police and the courts to get tougher on crime. Shouldn’t that call also be extended to the media? And the only tool the media has is to show crime through an unfiltered lens.
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE (August 20, 2010)
Lots of talk this week about the Citizen photo of murder victim Darren Munch lying in a pool of blood on the street.
It has sparked a debate over whether newspapers should publish photos of dead people. I have to give credit to the Citizen for having the courage to run such a photo. They had to know there would be significant fallout from it. I also have to give credit to David Mah for shooting the photo. Firstly, for being there. That’s what spot news is about. Secondly for having the wherewithal to shoot the photo. He would have known it was going to be a tough call. However, as an editor I always tell people to take the shot, we’ll sort it out later whether to run it or not. If the photographer doesn’t take the shot, then there is nothing to debate.
In the newspaper world, when the local furor over the photo has subsided, the fact of the matter it David will likely win one or two spot news photo awards for the photo.
I have been asked several times since then whether I would run such a photo. I’ve kind of sidestepped the issue because until confronted with such an issue, we don’t really know what we would do. I would certainly have run something and wouldn’t have been shy about showing the body. The photo of the paramedic checking for a pulse was just as powerful but less graphic.
When we first saw the photo, we here at the Free Press immediately noticed that it looked like it had been doctored … the face was blurred. The Citizen admitted, in its subsequent editorial, that it had blurred face. The reasoning that the police hadn’t yet identified him is, in my opinion, a weak argument. In addition, my feeling is that if a newspaper alters the content of an image, it should let the readers know that it has been altered. One of our primary mandates is to be truthful to the reader. A black box over the face, would have been just as effective and would have let the reader know that the newspaper was intentionally obscuring the face.
Although the Citizen editorial defending its running of the picture was written in a high-handed, arrogant tone, I agree with the sentiment. This type of activity is going on in our community and a newspaper, if it truly is to be a mirror of the community, must show that community … in all its beauty and ugliness.
POLITICALLY CORRECT OR ACCURATE? July 8, 2010
I received a letter last week and one of our sister newspapers had someone complain to the B.C. Press Council about the use of the term “non-white,” by RCMP.
The inference, by those who don’t like it, is that the police are being politically correct by not saying someone is First Nations or Asian or whatever. However, police do use the term when the ethnicity of a person is not abundantly clear. For example, someone robs a convenience store and all the clerk, who spent most of the incident looking down the barrel of a gun, knows is the guy wasn’t a white guy.
When the police post an alert saying they are looking for someone, in our case the Crime Stoppers ad, they want to be as specific as possible.
However, in the case that irked one of the readers in our sister paper, the police press release was talking about someone they had in custody. Okay, they should have known his ethnicity. Or, more appropriately, at that point who cares about the suspect’s ethnicity unless it’s a hate crime and germane to the crime.
Should police say whether someone is “non-white?”
IT’S ALL IN THE WORDING (March 25, 2009)
The newspaper biz is all about wording. Sometimes we write things and everyone knows what we mean. The problem is, that isn’t what was written. I had to shake my head this week at a headline in our competition. The story was about police finding a second body at a homicide scene. The headline read that police are now investigating “twin murder.”
Since the deceased were not twins, it wasn’t really a twin murder, it was a double murder. Perhaps a finicky point. But what made the headline really goofy was that the police had released the name of the first victim, but not the second. So, if you read the story and headline literally you would think that twins had been murdered, the name of the first had been released but the name of the second hadn’t, as police were waiting until they notified the next of kin before releasing the name of the second victim.
Something is wrong here.
NO FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (March 16, 2010)
The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act has gone a little wild. Here in Prince George students are moving to a new high school today. The school district organized a walk-over from the old school to the new, as it is only a block away. It was to be a great event. Hundreds of students walking, en masse, from the old school to the new.
When I arrived I was informed by the school board chair and the schools superintendent that, due to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, I was to not take pictures of any faces. I was told I could take pictures of kids walking from behind.
Huh? Yes, I am serious. Other media were told the same thing.
The way around the issue is to take pictures on the street or from the street. Once off school property, the district cannot dictate whether photos are taken.
I just found the entire thing ludicrous, so I left. Some things just aren’t worth the hassle.
SCANNING THE NEWS (February 17, 2010)
There is, or was, a debate in journalistic circles, regarding whether we should report on what we hear on the police scanner. The argument for is that we can get information out very quickly. The argument against is that what we hear on the scanner has not been confirmed and, as such, could be incorrect. So, how much do we report on what we hear on the scanner?
Case in point: This morning there was a report of shots fired on Hemlock Street. Our reporter heard police, on the scanner, calling for the coroner. It then becomes pretty obvious that there is a dead person at the scene.
With web reporting we can get information out instantaneously. We could have had that information on our website before the coroner gets his shoes on.
Should we be publishing that information as soon as we can, or should we wait until we can get it confirmed that there is a dead body at the scene? What are your thoughts?
SHODDY JOURNALISM (February 15, 2010)
I’m fast becoming one of the media’s worst critics, even though I’m probably viewed as part of the problem with this industry (being an editor and all that).
But one of the things that really bothers me is how reporters often pull fast ones over the readers. I witnessed two cases in point last week. There was a story about a fatal accident in the local daily, complete with quotes from one of the local RCMP sergeants, who we had been pestering for a quote. When the story appeared and the other guys got a quote, well we wondered why. The officer told us that he had not spoken to the other paper. So how did his quotes appear? I seems they took a press release the sergeant issued and used those items as direct quotes.
The problem I have with this type of reporting is when quotes appear in a story, the assumption is made by the reader that the writer actually talked to the person who is being quoted. Not always the case.
The policy here at the Free Press is to properly attribute everything. In other words, if we pull quotes or items from a press release, we let the reader know it came from a press release. To do otherwise is to be unfair to the reader and that, in my humble opinion, is the biggest mistake a journalist can make.
The other instance of shoddy journalism occurred recently. There was yet another press conference with the usual gaggle of politicians. The politicians, however, were running a bit late so we journos had to wait. Nothing new there. It happens all the time.
One reporter, ticked that she had to wait and probably on deadline, snapped up the supplied press release and headed out the door, saying she had all she needed. When the story appeared the next day, her story was complete with lots of quotes from lots of politicians and mucky-mucks, including one who wasn’t even there. Had she stuck around, she would have known the person she quoted wasn’t even at the meeting.
The sad part is when the reader picks up the paper in the morning, they don’t know the difference. They think the reporter has talked to half a dozen people in tracking down that story when the truth is they talked to no one and simply took a press release issued by the government, put their byline on it, and called it reporting.