Tag: journalism

Categories
Opinions

Fact-averse journalism is not journalism

For all pandemic news, journalists must base themselves on fact, not opinion.

According to the Canadian Association of Journalists’ ethics guidelines, journalists should not make assertions in their pieces. An assertion is a declaration used to express one’s personal beliefs, opinions, and feelings. Even if an assertion bears some truth, it is not a factual statement.

So because assertions may hold some factual integrity, they are sometimes hard to distinguish from facts. For this reason, social commentators who masquerade as journalists pose a threat to public safety — especially during the pandemic. Journalists should therefore separate their opinion from fact. If they do not, they should acknowledge how their views impact their ability to report with accuracy.

According to Statistics Canada, 90 per cent of Canadians relied on the internet for up-to-date information about COVID-19. This group mostly consulted online news sites, but they also consulted social media posts from news outlets, influencers, and other users. Furthermore, 53 per cent of Canadians have shared information about COVID-19 on social media without verifying its accuracy.

Based on these numbers, many Canadians do not have the time to fact-check the information they read. So, for the benefit of public health, journalists need to commit to the truth. 

One media outlet that blurs the line between assertion and fact is Rebel News. This right-leaning media outlet pairs factual information with misinformation. At the very least, they seem to omit information to increase the credibility of their claims. For example, this October a Rebel News journalist reported on the effectiveness of natural immunity to prevent COVID-19. They argued that this immunity is a more effective way to fight COVID-19 compared to Pfizer vaccines. To support the argument, they cited an Israeli study that also formed this conclusion. However, this study has not been peer-reviewed.

Once someone gets the virus and recovers, their immune system retains some memory of the virus. This means that their body has a blueprint for how to combat the virus in the future.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a peer-reviewed study in November that also studied the effectiveness of natural immunity versus vaccination immunity. It found that natural immunity does help stave off future infections but it is not as reliable as immunity gained from vaccinations.

These researchers also explained that the Israeli study analyzed the benefit of Pfizer vaccinations six months after injections were given. This time gap may have skewed the results because the immunity effects of the mRNA vaccines may have worn off.

The study also found that in some cases, natural immunity can help protect someone from COVID-19.

However, to become naturally immune to COVID-19, one needs to get the disease. So, it becomes a public health concern when journalists encourage people to get the disease or imply that all of our bodies can protect us from it.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, unvaccinated people are more likely to contract COVID-19. Since December 2020, there have been 837,239 reported COVID-19 cases. Of this group, 82 per cent were unvaccinated. Further, unvaccinated people accounted for 77 per cent of COVID-related deaths.

Misinformed health journalism becomes dangerous when you consider the death toll of COVID-19. This is especially serious because many people do not have time to fact-check every piece they read.

Also, in my opinion, misinformation pushes people to fear the COVID vaccine. A Canadian study looked at a randomized sample of 3915 tweets from Canadians who express anti-vaccination sentiments. They found that 48 per cent of tweets included worries about vaccine safety. So, if you pair this fear with the consumption of misinformation, it may encourage more people to expose themselves to COVID.

When it comes to health news, journalists have an imperative to consult and disseminate factual information. Those who assume this role cannot cherry-pick information to reinforce a political stance. They must investigate and accurately explain vaccine safety. Without this commitment, so-called journalists let Canadians down.

 

Feature graphic by Madeline Schmidt

Categories
Opinions

Why am I telling the story this way?

Podcasts are a form of journalism that reach audiences differently with various perspectives

Podcasts are the new radio. They create a space where listeners can plug in their devices during their daily commute and gain insight not only into what’s happening in the world but to any topic they can enter in the search bar. In the 2020 Signal Hill podcast report, Canadian adults represent 27 per cent of monthly podcast listeners, showing that there is a good reason to look at this medium as a form of journalism. Concerns about news representation and the format of podcasts has led to several discussions about the journalistic value they have. Catching popularity in the early 2000s, this is not a discussion we should still be having. Podcasts are a form of journalism.

Indeed, podcasts can extend to various topics, from news to lifestyle content, and listeners might not categorize every show they listen to as reporting. Still, what journalism is and how we cover stories are highly debated topics and adding podcasts as a medium has created differing opinions on how journalism should be represented. However, the fact is that podcasting fits into various categories of recognized journalism like investigation, news, reviews, features, and columns.

One of the answers to the question “What is a journalist?” often argues that journalists are primarily content producers. This can put them in the same boat with content creators and online platforms who create content in a specific niche to share with followers and subscribers, including but not limited to podcast channels.

“We’re all journalists in some right,” said Alyson Fair, consultant at Bluesky Strategy Group, a public relations firm. “Podcasts are an extension of journalism and allow more voices to be heard.” Fair explained that while being a producer for CTV and working with Don Martin, the two saw podcasting being introduced as a way to share stories, news and content — prompting them to jump in and not fall behind.

In recent years, the amount of adult podcast listeners has increased and the 18-34 age range make up over half of adult Canadian listeners, according to the 2020 Signal Hill podcast report. More specifically, the top podcast genres for this age range include society and culture, news, arts and sports. This shows that all the topics we find in traditional media are also being covered on podcasts, the majority of which have no extra cost to the listeners.

“You have a worldwide audience. You never had that before with traditional media,” Fair said, adding that podcasts are a way to engage in longer, more in-depth conversations about topics in all spheres, including news and politics. The less restricted media becomes, the more opportunity it gets to grow its audience.

Millennials and older Gen Zs spend more time listening to podcasts, with news remaining in the top three most popular genres, according to Signal Hill in 2020. These generations demonstrate an interest in understanding what is happening in the world, but crave a more in-depth comprehension compared to the short clips we see or hear in traditional media. The younger generations live in a time where cellphones are ubiquitous, as they are how we gain access to information. With podcasts readily available for free through multiple platforms and applications, we are more likely to gravitate towards podcasts to hear stories and gain knowledge whenever we want, as opposed to tuning into a timely broadcast or paying a subscription to a newspaper.

In 2019, 34 per cent of Francophone and 28 per cent Anglophone Canadians read the news almost exclusively in text form, according to the Digital News Report; this is only marginally higher than the number of Canadians that listen to podcasts. This shows that the use of podcasts as a form of absorbing news is similar to text-based news, one of the most traditional mediums.

Podcasts create in-depth stories, a format that doesn’t fall under “hard news.” Still, it shows that hard news is not the only news. Canadians are interested in different approaches and perspectives to the same stories we hear in shorter, less detailed formats, like television and radio news packs. Podcasts build on many niches, subjects, and themes, but what is common is that they have details about a topic that helps their listeners build a better understanding by sharing a storyline with relatable conversation. They integrate interviews, clips, and research that creates depth in a simple way that makes them easy to listen to. For example, the podcast Canadian True Crime provides extensive detail for listeners about crimes and cold cases in Canada. This niche-specific podcast involves investigation, interviews, and retells each story comprehensively. As journalists, that’s what we do.

The Globe and Mail Monday to Friday news podcast, The Decibel, released an episode on Sept. 22, 2021 about a sexual assault case at Western University, where young women were drugged and sexually assaulted during orientation week. The host of the episode interviewed an education reporter and the coordinating news editor from Western’s student paper, the Western Gazette, who discussed more details about the event. The episode shared background information, commonalities between the number of reported cases and how social media posts started the police investigation. This information thickened the storyline, with open conversations that allowed listeners to get a better idea of the situation that they wouldn’t have been able to get in the two-minute television broadcasts.

The most effective way to understand podcasting as a form of journalism is understanding that journalism itself evolves and adapts cohesively with new mediums. As the formats change, so should our perspectives on progressive journalism, finding ways to share stories, facts, answers, and opinions that appeal to a wide variety of audiences.

 

Feature graphic by James Fay

A journalism student’s wake-up call: first time reporting about homelessness

… Or how NOT to be a journalist

During reading week, I spent my Wednesday afternoon at the Abri de la Rive-Sud (ARS), an emergency shelter for homeless persons based in Longueuil. To be clear, I wasn’t there as a volunteer, I was there to complete a photojournalism assignment.

At the end of the day, I came out of this experience with two conclusions:

  1. I am not ready to be a “real” journalist.
  2. I am an even worse person than I thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot more than that during my visit. I have met great people and the ARS is an organization worthy of imitation. However, that is not what I am here to talk about.

On March 3, I did everything a professional journalist shouldn’t do.

For starters, I let social anxiety win and wasted way too much time thinking: how do I approach people without being invasive? Do I look like I’m taking myself too seriously? Do I look serious enough? What if I ask dumb questions? What if I do/say/think the wrong thing?

I was so scared of disturbing people that I shied away from asking more questions and ended up cutting corners. I even refrained from recording some interviews because I was afraid of asking people experiencing homelessness if I could put a microphone in their face. Thankfully, I only had to take pictures and gather enough information to write captions, but if I were to produce an extensive piece of journalism on the subject, there would be major holes in my story.

As an example, take Mr. A, who lost his job and his home due to COVID-19. Even though he did not seem to mind giving details about his life prior to the pandemic, I could not gather the courage to ask him: Why him, why now? What happened that made him unable to stay afloat, like many others did thanks to governmental support like the CERB or Employment Insurance?

Should I have pushed for more information?

At the end of the day, I talked to an employee at the ARS who made a comment that really made me regret not asking those questions to Mr. A. I don’t remember the exact words (always record your interviews, kids!), but the person said that, to become homeless — with no previous history — in the specific context of the pandemic, you almost “have to want it.” Referring to the government’s laxity in terms of monetary aid distribution, the employee told me that COVID-19 had actually made some of their clients better off.

“You have to want it” ???

I was so shocked by the comment that I froze. It was the last thing I thought I would hear from a social worker. I think they were able to read the disbelief in my eyebrows because they then took it upon themselves to specify that they were specifically referring to the current situation. At least, that’s what I understood… but instead of making sure that I had well interpreted the comment, I just stared in silence trying to process what had been said.

Whether it is because I didn’t want to be a burden for the employees who had “real” work to do or because I didn’t want to disrespect the few residents who were willing to talk to me, I shot myself in the foot by not digging deep enough for answers. By not addressing those missing pieces of truth, I threw the journalistic mandate in the trash and did not do justice to anyone who agreed to take part in this project.*

And here is another big no-no for all newbie journalists (and I guess people in general): I forgot to set aside any preconceived ideas.

I consider myself very open-minded, but as a person who was brought up in a very sheltered middle-class environment, I was never inclined to talk with people experiencing homelessness beyond the usual brief greetings.

At the ARS, I got to speak with Mr. B, who became homeless in 2014 and has been on and off the streets since then. He told me about his last psychotic episode and how different the situation is in Longueuil compared to Montreal. He was very articulate, perfectly lucid, and completely open when talking about his difficulties with substance abuse and schizophrenia.

Our exchange lasted a bit less than 25 minutes and let me tell you: it was the first normal conversation I have had with a stranger for a very long time. By “normal” I mean that I did not have to pretend to be someone I am not (i.e. a pseudo-reporter, a top student or a person who knows what they are doing). In fact, I was struck by how much Mr. B and I have in common, which ended up making me lose my journalist goggles. Obviously, I am not even close to knowing the same kind of struggles he did, but it only confirmed what I already knew: anyone could end up in this situation.

When I arrived on location, I had my main question ready and had prepared myself for the most plausible answer. Since the pandemic had made a lot of people lose their jobs and become isolated, I thought they would all say that COVID-19 had made the situation worse for people experiencing homelessness.

But my ignorant self had not thought of one thing: the homeless were already isolated. For many of them, nothing has changed. For many of them, things could not get much worse. When talking to Mr. B, I learned that most people in the homeless community did not spend their time worrying about the pandemic.

“An acquaintance of mine once told me that he had taken so many drugs in his life that COVID wouldn’t want to get into his body,” he said.

Under which privileged rock was I living to think that people without homes would experience the pandemic in the same way as everyone else?

In the end, a lot of the things I thought I knew about the issue were proven wrong when I visited the ARS. And all I can do about it is to tell all five people who will check out my not-so-thorough school project.

When I started working on it at the beginning of the semester, my intention was to achieve something truly meaningful. I agree; it was a bit delusional and I might have aimed a bit too high for a first-year student without any relevant experience.

Still, since I have started studying journalism, the same thought keeps lingering in my mind: maybe I am not made for journalism.

In two months, I visited two homeless outreach organizations and have been asked twice if I was a new volunteer or a recently employed social worker. Both times when I answered “no,” I was overwhelmed by the same feeling: guilt.  

If I cannot become a successful journalist, will I keep feeling bad for reporting on issues that I don’t have any real power to eradicate? If I wanted to change the world so much, shouldn’t I seek to actively help others instead of writing about things that I wish would change?

Putting that little existential crisis aside, I have to say that I am not ready to give up on journalism just yet. After all, I’ve only been studying in journalism for six months. Maybe this time I was not as good as professional journalist Christopher Curtis who’s been covering homelessnessness consistently for years, but facing these kinds of challenges so early in my student career only motivates me to do better. To be honest, I don’t think I will ever be able to grow into this groundbreaking investigative journalist I had envisioned myself becoming. But that doesn’t mean I should stop trying.

*This is why I decided not to mention my sources’ real names. They have signed a waiver regarding a specific assignment, but they were not informed that their story would be repurposed in this context. This article is about my own mistakes and “journey,” and until I am able to reach out to the persons involved, names will not be disclosed.

 

Feature photo by Christine Beaudoin

Categories
Student Life

It’s a sign of the times: how Canadian universities struggle to adapt to changing times

Universities aren’t keeping up with evolving technologies and calls for diversity

Following my graduation from high school, I was very vocal about how the education I received was too workplace-driven, with a small proportion of material geared towards self-improvement and general culture. I felt that the growing societal awareness of our lack of diversity had fallen on my school administration’s deaf ears.

But in the few months preceding my graduation from Concordia, I’m noticing quite the opposite effect. I find that a divide has been growing between the university’s disconnected attempts at promoting diversity and better inclusion, and its ability to properly prepare us for post-graduation life in a rapidly evolving world.

A friend of mine who studies Design at Concordia recently told me about her frustration with the disconnect between the program’s advocacy for a more diverse design industry and its lack of professors of colour. In many of her classes, she also felt the expectations for her work weren’t on par with the demands of the design market, and that it would be difficult to compete in the arts scene with the portfolio she was building through class assignments.

It seems to be a pattern, from hearing other people’s experiences in the arts programs at this school, that the training it provides focuses on a dissociated idea of the knowledge we will need once we enter the job market.

In my three years studying Journalism, some of the most important topics — how to find work as a freelancer, or writing an invoice, for example — have been presented to us under the form of optional extracurricular talks to leave space for mandatory courses about the basics of photography and writing local crime stories. Furthermore, despite being promised a course on Indigenous reporting since our first semester in Journalism, it still hasn’t been offered three years later.

Throughout the past year, many of my peers have anecdotally told me about their struggles with keeping up with the department’s expectations because we’ve never learned to produce quality content without using expensive softwares and equipment or $2,000 iMacs. In fact, using an iPhone camera was grounds for docking marks in pretty much every photography class we had to take; our professors preferring we borrowed the 2008 DSLRs provided by the school.

Don’t get me wrong, I cherish a lot of the information I took away from my time in both programs I’m enrolled in. But the truth is, Concordia, just like many other Canadian universities, falls short when it comes to adapting fast enough to rapidly changing times.

In 2015, McGill’s School of Medicine was put on probation for, in part, failing to provide their students with proper instruction on women’s health and domestic violence issues. This was despite the fact that there were calls to bring the curriculum up to date with the status of social issues in Canada for years prior to the decision. Yet, even after the faculty went off probation in 2017, many reported an ongoing lack of diversity within the program.

Last semester, Concordia Film Production students wrote a statement demanding their department to address the lack of diversity, and to be held accountable for their responsibility to raise the voices of underrepresented groups.

And just this week, the students at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism issued a public letter calling out its failure to “represent and support its students who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC) and LGBTQ2IA+,” a letter which led to the resignations of the chair and associate chair of the program, Janice Neil and Lisa Taylor.

It’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern. Canadian universities aren’t equipped to adapt their teaching to the needs of the modern world, just like they aren’t prepared to make the structural changes required by society’s increased sensibility to diversity and social issues.

It’s unbecoming of our schools, which we so often brag about being among the best in the country, to forget about currency and adaptability as part of their commitment to high quality education. Being unable to compete in a technology-reliant, socially aware society isn’t what we thought we were paying tuition for.

 

Graphic by @the.beta.lab

Girls, are you on-air ready?

Female broadcast journalists and their efforts to be noticed for their work

It turns out that the “effortless beauty” exuded by female broadcast journalists takes a lot of effort. Waking up and washing your face isn’t enough to be considered on-air ready.

As far as Laura Casella, anchor at Global News Montreal is concerned, “The Laura Casella who walks into work from bed with [her] hair tied up in a bun and no makeup … that Laura can’t necessarily go on TV.”

For female broadcast journalists, physical appearance plays the biggest part in one’s success. These female anchors are the liaison between viewers and the news station, but their journalistic talents are often overlooked.

Laura Casella speaks on behalf of all female journalists when discussing how she wants to be recognized for her hard work and talent within her profession. She wants people to watch her for her stories, not her good looks or wardrobe choices.

So, you noticed my hair but you didn’t hear anything I was saying? I want people to pay attention to the context of my story like they do with male anchors,” Casella adds.

Double standards between men and women are very prominent in broadcast news, according to Caroline Van Vlaardingen, anchor for CTV News Montreal. She believes that male anchors are easily forgiven. Whether they are balding, carrying extra weight or even wearing the same clothing day in and day out, men are not criticized.

Van Vlaardingen continues, “In fact, one Australian male anchor proved it by doing just that, wearing the same suit every day for a year while his female co-anchor changed her outfits every day, and no one noticed.”

Karl Stefanovic conducted this experiment because his co-anchor Lisa Wilkinson was receiving unsolicited critiques from viewers on her appearance. After a year dressed in blue, Stefanovic wasn’t surprised to see that no one ever commented on his wardrobe choices. His experiment confirmed that he is judged on his journalistic talent while his co-host is not.

There are some observations that can be made among the female anchors at both Global and CTV News. To name a few, heavy makeup is an essential part of the ‘getting ready’ process, as well as tighter clothing.

Through observation of 16 women who appeared onscreen on Oct. 23 on CTV and Global News Montreal, every single woman was wearing makeup and jewelry. 75 per cent of these women were white and approximately 65 per cent were blonde and thin. More than half of these women were under 35 years old.

“Acceptance of aging among women on the air is … a challenge,” says Van Vlaardingen. “The sad irony of this job as a woman, is that just as you step into your most experienced years and feel your most confident, your body and face begin to show your age.”

According to Van Vlaardingen, women who gain weight or develop wrinkles as they age tend to disappear from high-profile on-air jobs. Those that manage to stay on-air have a lot of work done to maintain their desired look. Botox, consistent hair colouring and dieting are common ways that female anchors preserve the youthful look.

Kim Sullivan, weather specialist at Global News Montreal, states that she never felt pressured to look a certain way by the management at Global.

“In my first year at Global, I gained 40 pounds because I was going through fertility and never once did I feel that I had to lose it.”

On the other hand, Sullivan does feel as though she doesn’t fit the look of the ‘ideal weather woman’ but emphasizes that this was a pressure she imposed on herself.

There’s one dress that all weather women have to have, so when I started my job at Global I bought it as a joke. It’s called the ‘weather girl dress.’”

There are underlying standards women must adhere to when considering a professional career in media. Huda Hafez, Journalism student at Concordia University, is an aspiring news anchor. Hafez explains the criticism these women receive in regards to their appearance makes her uncomfortable.

“I want to be a hard core journalist, not a piece of eye candy. I’m definitely aware of what I’m getting myself into, but we are a growing society and I’m hoping that things start and continue to change once I get on the air.”

 

Graphic by @the.beta.lab

A soundtrack for troubled times

An ode to the personal narrative podcast

Before the world came to a screeching halt, my favourite part of my weekday routine was the morning commute. It was a carefully choreographed dance: put my headphones on, walk to the metro, chip away at the daily New York Times crossword on the blue line, transfer from metro to bus, and so on, all the while listening to a carefully curated queue of podcasts.

The first course of my audio diet was always a daily news podcast, the New York Times’ “The Daily” being a longtime favourite, followed by some NPR show that taught me something new about economics or racial justice or psychology. If I found myself waiting at the bus stop for longer than usual, I’d slip in some media criticism or global politics, but most of the time I impatiently skipped straight to dessert: personal narrative audio stories.

On more than one embarrassing occasion, these podcasts have (literally) stopped me in my tracks, or have made me break into a goofy grin at the most inopportune times. Once, while listening to a podcast about the #MeToo movement on the metro, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Unknowingly pointed in the direction of a nice old lady, my face was creased into a somber glare as abuse after abuse was recounted by the victims themselves.

Writer James Tierney encapsulated the essence of my brief, yet frequent departures from earth: “Podcasts represent an atomization of experience, muffling the sounds of the immediate environment and removing the individual from a synchronous community of listeners.”

I first turned to narrative podcasts to get out of my own head in those quiet periods of transit limbo. Those moments of deep listening, of letting someone else do the talking for once, provided a convenient escape hatch from the confines of my cramped inner world, a way to alleviate the claustrophobia of mundane thoughts and profound worries alike. Despite the initial intention to distract and entertain, podcast listening has never felt like time wasted. On any given day I can be brought up to date on Canadian politics, hear a stranger’s deepest, darkest secret, and learn about the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act all before I land back on my doorstep at the end of the day.

But merely calling a podcast informative, entertaining, or distracting, though all these qualities may be applicable, misses the point of what podcasting brings to journalism in general and listeners in particular: the podcast, in the words of radio producer Jay Allison, is a medium through which the human voice can “sneak in, bypass the brain, and touch the heart.”

The tradition of oral storytelling has endured precisely for this reason; stories whispered across time and space can instantly wrench you from your surroundings and transport you to a different place entirely. It’s the strong sensory, emotional connection of audio storytelling that pulls on familiar heartstrings, the way catching a whiff of a certain perfume you can’t name brings you right back to your grandma’s house. A 2015 study by Lene Bech Sillesen, Chris Ip, and David Uberti on the empathetic connections between audiences and personal narrative storytelling showed that such “narratives spark feelings of empathy … we identify with others’ pain and in ways our brains intertwine our own and others experiences.” This is to say, in the stories of other people we are really just searching for ourselves.

In stark contrast to the thousand car pile up of social media feeds and crowded homepages of news websites, the empathetic connection is strengthened by the direct line of communication between the storyteller and listener. As Jonah Weiner observes in his essay, “Towards a critical theory of podcasting,” “In an antidotal and almost paradoxical way, podcasts are the internet free of pixels.” Somehow these anonymous, fleeting connections are startlingly intimate.

Personal subjective journalism is by no means new to journalism, and the practice of organizing a story around a human voice is perhaps the oldest trick in the book. “Journalists should embrace reporting stories of everyday life and people’s subjective experience of living,” wrote Walt Harrington, over two decades ago. “As people try to make sense of their lives these stories open windows on our universal human experience.” That much hasn’t changed, but the novel power of the podcast comes from the specific time and technological era we’re living through; perpetually plugged in and now sequestered in our houses, we long for the effortless human connections that once bound us to our communities.

Enter: personal narrative podcasts. A year ago, imagining our current reality would have seemed far-fetched by TV drama plot standards, yet just dystopian enough to write a best-selling YA novel about it. But here we all are, physically distanced yet deeply connected by the blessed, cursed internet and the fact we’re each living our own iteration of the same story. The news doesn’t offer much of a respite from our daily struggles, whatever they may be, but in narrative podcasts I know I will find connection and comfort in a supremely uncomfortable time. There is no cure for this modern loneliness, but podcasts are a pretty good remedy to manage the symptoms.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember, in a world devastated by natural disaster and disease and corruption and ignorance, that the small stories are meaningful. It’s easy to forget that the pain and triumph of others actually chips away at our big, seemingly impenetrable questions, because, as Walt Harrington wrote, “As people try to make sense of their own lives, these stories open up windows on our universal human struggle.”

I no longer commute to work or school, but I do maintain a steady intake of podcasts. Next up: A 99% Invisible episode about the design philosophy of the NoName brand, or perhaps I’ll listen to This American Life’s episode on isolation (again). I’ve vicariously lived thousands of lives through the stories of other people, and I think I know a little bit more about myself and the world because of it. After all, isn’t that the point of journalism anyways?

 

Feature graphic by @the.beta.lab

Jack Todd presses on with new stories amid publishing and print media freefall

Heavyweight sports columnist Jack Todd talks journalism and his new novel

Newsrooms are abandoned. Bookstores await shipments to stock their empty shelves. As Quebec braces for the next wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jack Todd is hunkered down in his basement office in Longueuil’s Greenfield Park. Despite the decline of the print media and publishing industries, Todd is focused on penning his next piece of writing on his own terms. Whether it’s a new novel or commenting on a Canadiens game, Todd is typing up the new stories he wants to tell.

“All in all, life isn’t that different for me,” Todd says. “I spend much of my time holed up in my basement office anyway. I write very quickly so the usual pattern is, faff around for three hours, then write 2,000 words in an hour and quit. Then tear it all up and start again the next day.”

The Nebraska-born writer had worked in the newsrooms of the Miami Herald and the Detroit Free Press before being drafted to fight the Viet Cong in 1969. Although he wanted to write about the battlefront first-hand, Todd conscientiously objected to the Vietnam War. He defected from the U.S. Army and moved to Canada in 1970.

Thirty years after his military desertion, Todd published his 2001 memoir, A Taste of Metal, which marked the start of his literary career outside of the newsroom.

On the journalism front, Todd has fired up his readers with hard-hitting sports columns and features for the Montreal Gazette since 1986. In his signature combative style, Todd has sparred with sports figures and angry fans alike, including Don Cherry whom he called a “national disgrace” in a 2019 article and accused of espousing “bigoted, semi-coherent rants.”

Todd was furloughed for the first eight months of the pandemic, but he has since returned to the Gazette.

“Journalism right now is at a bit of an impasse – there has probably never been so much good journalism done in so many places but it comes at a time when advertising revenue has dried up because of COVID-19,” he says.

“I hope there’s a future for print journalism,” he says. “I think that print has to remain print to succeed and to stop turning itself into a pale imitation of television or the web.”

Despite the media turmoil which has also seen the literary publishing come to a near halt, Todd released a new work of fiction in July, The Woman in Green. As a ghost story and romance mystery novel, it is a departure from his earlier work that mainly focused on stories about surviving the violence and desperation in the American heartland. It is also his only novel set in Montreal.

“For some reason, I’ve always found writing about Montreal difficult,” he explains. “I have a love-hate relationship with this city that I have to work out some day.”

Lucinda Chodan, Editor-in-Chief at the Montreal Gazette, believes that Todd is the rare breed of writer with both literary and journalistic chops.

“In his fiction he has an incredible sense of detail and a command of setting a scene which is also something that he does very effectively as a feature writer and as a columnist,” she says. “He is a masterful writer in making sure that the tone is a multidimensional tone, not just painting a picture, not just reporting facts.”

Although his journalistic career began in the 1960s, Todd released his first novel in 2008.

“I think I’m much more confident now than I was when I first began writing fiction,” he says. “It was what I have wanted to do since I was 18 years old but an early obsession with the work of writers like James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon did not help at all. I’d write a few pages, compare it with their work, feel that it just didn’t stand up, and rip it up.

“My goal now is actually quite simple. Having spent a long stretch of my life flying around the world to cover sports, the thing I valued most was that book that would get me through a flight to Australia,” he explains.

Todd’s goals moving forward remain unchanged.

“For the past 15 years or so I’ve always had multiple projects going,” he explains. “One of my problems is that I have trouble settling on one thing.” The Shadow Boy, a psychological horror story set in New Mexico and Maine, is the one he hopes to see in print next. By the sound of it, the novel-in-progress represents another departure for a writer unafraid of embarking on new territories in both fact and fiction.

Newspaper revenue may be plummeting and the writing world may be subsiding around him, but Jack Todd is soldiering on.

 

Feature photo by Christine Beaudoin

Intimidation, violence and fines: The struggles of being a journalist in 2020

At a time where the world needs them the most, reporters face strong impediments to their job

Over a month ago, The Concordian published an article covering pro-Armenia student protesters who called on Montreal city mayor, Valérie Plante, to support Armenians in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh territorial dispute. It’s the kind of beat story that’s perfect for young reporters who want to get their feet wet in news coverage: a conflict being covered worldwide, with a local connection to grassroots support among fellow students.

Unfortunately, this reporting attracted the wrong sort of attention, prompting a stern letter from the Montreal Consul General of Turkey, sent not to The Concordian, but Concordia University. Key to their concerns was the inclusion of two photos, each featuring a woman holding a sign stating “Turkey = Terrorist,” no doubt a response by the protester to the cluster bombing in the region, often aided by Canadian drone technology.

Politicos in office or at the dinner table have long opined how journalists are vital to a democracy and the need to protect them and their work. After all, public discourse from news coverage is often the only way we educate ourselves once we leave school. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s book, The Elements of Journalism, found in almost every journalist’s bookshelf, describes this urgency as news reporting’s chief commitment, “to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”

But that goal is challenging and getting harder. Reporters are working with less time, less money, and fewer resources than those who would seek to influence their coverage. Young, freelance and student journalists are especially vulnerable, as they have nowhere near the same security as employed reporters. And even those privileged few still face trials, as diminishing advertising revenue has seen their budgets evaporate. Adding to the issue, journalists have a long history of dealing with intimidation, and you can see why it’s becoming tougher to inform people of what’s going on.

It was only a few years ago when I was an undergrad, and the Maple Spring was raging. Red squares adorned almost every student coat, and pots and pans protests took place every night. While the demonstrations garnered international attention, eventually leading to the fall of that administration’s time in government, student journalists’ treatment was less covered. Being kettled, heavily fined for photographing and documenting, or straight assault were standard plays inflicted on young reporters by the Montreal police department, that saw anyone under 30 as a threat. As a student journalist struggling to pay your rent and tuition, how do you have the time to fight huge fines, fees, and court dates, on top of all the regular challenges life flings in your direction?

This past summer, a few reporters over at The Link were intimidated by police following a Black Lives Matter protest. Non-lethal guns were drawn on them and medics who were also present, as they pleaded with officers while kneeling on the ground at Place des Arts.

And when we aren’t scared of power-tripping cops, journalists can be threatened by the public. In 2018, far-right activists (read: fascists) stormed Vice Montreal’s offices after they published on the rise of attacks perpetrated against anti-fascist protestors. And this year, a TVA reporter was assaulted by two anti-maskers, who bear-hugged her while she covered their protest live on television. And let’s not even open the can of worms that is reporter harassment on social media.

Was the Turkish Consul’s response intimidation? Probably not directly. But it’s telling that a student newspaper in Montreal, thousands of kilometres from the conflict, caused such concern that they not only wrote a letter but sent it to the school where these same reporters were learning their craft. The editorial staff’s emails are publicly available on The Concordian’s website, so it’s unlikely this was an oversight.

Student, freelance, or full-time, a journalist commits to journalism. I say commits because we are committed to accuracy, fairness, and representative work and because we commit to this vocation. We pledge to this despite being routinely demonized, so much so that our safety isn’t a priority.

But let’s remember — without good journalists, you have nothing but marketers and merchants influencing you to buy and believe what is on their agenda this minute. We need better protection, but it can’t only be through legislation. It has to come from you. So the next time you see a journalist intimidated, please speak up. Whether it’s at your dinner table, in your Zoom call, or on social media, defend those who defend your right to know. Because without us, you won’t be ready when the intimidators come for you next.

 

Feature graphic by @the.beta.lab

Categories
Arts

Julian Sher on narrating curious stories through documentaries

Workshop series invites students to explore documentary filmmaking

The Department of Journalism held a workshop on Nov. 18 led by Julian Sher, veteran of investigative journalism and former senior producer at the CBC, on making crime and war documentaries.

The workshop was the second of a visual series organized by Francine Pelletier, the department’s journalist-in-resident. The focus of the workshop was on using documentaries to tell stories of unfamiliar persons and nations and demystifying their lives.

Although Sher has been making documentaries for 35 years, he still finds it challenging.

“Every time you do a documentary, you get into this hellish situation in the edit room,” he said, “[where you tell yourself,] ‘This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever made.’ And then somehow, miraculously, it turns out usually well.”

Sher analyzed three of his TV documentaries during the workshop. The first one was Steven Truscott: His Word Against History. When he was 14 years old, Steven Truscott was convicted of murder and spent 10 years in jail. Thirty years later, in 1999, Sher made a documentary about his story. “I said, ‘Steven, I’m a journalist, I am here to dig for the truth. I’m not here to prove you innocent,’” Sher said. “And [Truscott] said, ‘I have no trouble with that.’”

In 2007, Truscott’s conviction was overturned.

The film starts with scenes from the actual prison where Truscott spent 10 years. “The visuals of the prison are stunning,” Sher said. “It was one of the most — no pun intended — arresting scenes.” The film recreates some scenes from 1959, but Sher said it’s best to avoid recreation, because it would look fake. “Avoid it at all costs,” he said. “And if you have to do it, then do it in a minimalist way,” adding that, in this case, they had no choice but to recreate.

“The music should never tell you what you’re supposed to feel,” he said.

“Music is one of the trickiest things in documentary,” Pelletier added. “One of the most frequent errors is overusing music.”

The second documentary, A Mother’s Ordeal, narrates the story of Brenda Waudby, a mother accused of murdering her toddler. Sher said that to have a story, the character must go on a journey. In other words, they must grow and change over time. The difficulty is that when the documentary is being made, the character is usually at the end of their journey. So, to illustrate the journey, the trick is to ask the character to talk about their story from the beginning to the end.

“So in the pre-interview, when Brenda said ‘I was a bad mother,’ I said, ‘We have a story,’” said Sher. “We take you on a journey too, where you thought she was guilty until the end of the movie.”

The third documentary analyzed was Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear, filmed in Afghanistan. Sher filmed the parts which take place in Kandahar. It was particularly challenging because of what he called the 20-minute rule.

“You can never be outside for longer than 20 minutes. Because that’s when … you could get kidnapped,” Sher said, so he had to make a very detailed list of exactly what shots he needed.

Documentaries that discuss an issue — war in this case — and have no specific protagonist are called issue documentaries. “I hate issue documentaries,” Sher said. “They can be exceedingly boring. They’re a nightmare to make.”

For character-based documentaries, you follow the story of the main character, but for issue documentaries, it can be difficult to know where to start, he explained.

Sher encouraged workshop participants to start making documentaries. “You can do your own filming and put your stuff on YouTube,” he said. “Just keep doing it until you get better.” To make good documentaries, you have to think about what makes you special, Sher said.

“[For example,] you come from a certain community that nobody has access to,” he said. “Or leave Montreal and go somewhere nobody has gone to. Think how you can be a foreign correspondent in a way nobody else could be.”

Pelletier added that there is a huge appetite for documentaries.

“There are documentary film festivals. People want to see documentaries,” she said. “The problem is it’s hard to finance”

“It’s a nightmare,” Sher agreed. “It is really hard to get financing, even when you are an established filmmaker. But don’t give up!”

The workshop was the second in a series of three. The last one will be on Dec. 9 with David Gutnick about radio documentary and podcasting.

 

Photo credit: Julian Sher

Categories
Opinions

What in the wawawewa is Borat wearing, and why does it work?

Borat’s success depends on a painful truth in western culture — that a poorly tailored suit is sometimes more effective at reaching the truth than the perfect outfit. Here’s why.

“Borat,” a satirical film released in 2006, stars Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev, a caricature of a local news journalist from Kazakhstan who embarks on a trip to “the U.S. of A.” to learn about “the greatest country in the world” — America. His hilarious-yet-cringy findings shocked audiences around the world, and gave energy to a form of self-exposing, subjective journalism that first made its debut with Hunter S. Thompson’s radical writing in the late 1960’s, Gonzo journalism.

Gonzo journalism is making a comeback, with big media companies like Vice Media piggybacking off its reputation with their series “One-Star Reviews,” and independent media like All Gas No Breaks using the style to create original, culturally relevant content.

What do they all have in common? An ill-fitting suit. So the real question becomes, why does a shitty outfit work so well at disarming people, and why does it matter?

Borat exposes the underbelly of western society through painfully awkward interactions with politicians, celebrities, and the public. He is a cocktail of pathetic, bigoted, and lovable (at a safe distance). His look is the visual equivalent of a stiff one — with a mix of ignorance, moustache, and slapstick, the combination relaxes people into singing with him, “Dr. Fauci, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu. WHO, what we gonna do? Chop ’em up like the Saudis do.”

How does this wacky character work so well at exposing people’s ignorance?

A lot of Borat’s success is the result of his tapping into a sense of nationalism that is downright intense in America. Canada shares this self-congratulating vein, despite our many failures in championing human rights, animal rights, and environmental rights. With these shortcomings in mind, Canada has managed a pretty cheerful international reputation, thanks to an excellent public relations team that tirelessly works to reinforce the notion that North America is a civilization run on the basis of freedom, dignity, and integrity. Despite Canada’s efforts, Borat calls bullshit on western values, especially American western values. Baron Cohen’s work has resulted in ousting the otherwise inaccessible political figures and upper crust, some of whom are caught with their literal hand in their pants. This really happened.

A crowning jewel in Baron Cohen’s career as a satirical entertainer comes from his collaboration with Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, the co-star in his sequel to “Borat,” “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” which was released just a few weeks ago. The film stars Bakalova as fictional character Tutar Sagdiyev, Borat’s 15-year-old daughter, who interviews President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.

We are in an age where the court of public opinion is brutal, and the gladiator sport of our time is catching people’s worst sides and worst moments on film. In 2006, Borat popularized the sport, and now in 2020, Borat has perfected it.

We’re in the confessional age of journalism. We want to see firsthand accounts of events. We want to see corruption with our own eyes. We want to see real-life villains describe their evil master plan to our heros while they’re slowly lowered into a tank of hungry sharks. We want a video confession.

Borat gives it to us.

What does that say about the subjects of Baron Cohen’s interviews, that they so readily lean into bigotry when a man with an accent and loose suit nudges them? What does it say about her interview subjects that when Tutor (the young journalist with bleach-blonde hair and an accent)  performs Borat’s classic antics, she endures very different consequences? What does it say about us, the viewers, for the fact that we watch this — the demise of bigoted people and the discomfort of vulnerable people — for entertainment?

Wawawewa?

 

 Graphic by @ariannasivira

Award-winning journalist Christopher Curtis on his new venture, The Rover

Curtis spoke with The Concordian about leaving the Montreal Gazette and what he would say to his younger self

Christopher Curtis is an award-winning journalist in Montreal, who chose to leave his job at the Montreal Gazette to start a crowdfunded investigative journalism venture called The Rover with Ricochet media. Bursting out of the 24-hour news cycle, Curtis says his reporting is about going in-depth into unreported issues.

I spoke with Curtis about how he came to leave the Gazette, his new venture, and what he would say to his younger self.

HA: How was the Montreal Gazette experience for you, working there for so many years?

CC: It was great, I learned to become a journalist there. It was a really nurturing, caring place, but it was a place that had this cloud of uncertainty hanging over us. When I started out there were maybe 120 people at the Gazette and by the time I left there were like 60.

What happens is that over time when you’re not investing in journalism, and when you’re constantly having to cut employees, which was the case across the board at all Postmedia properties, the quality of the work begins to suffer.

We can feel that crunch and an urgency to produce content everyday. And if you have to produce something everyday, then you don’t have that extra time to build relationships in your own community or in a remote community. So, that’s why I started to consider leaving.

HA: What made you make that jump? It’s hard to leave a job!

CC: What happened was just, I think [over] the summer, I thought about the journalist that I was when I started out. I remember for one story I slept in a tent, just outside of a reserve in the middle of nowhere one night on a day off, just to get access to a story that might turn out to be good or might not turn out to be good. I was willing to take risks.

Would that kid look at me, almost ten years later, and say they’re proud of what I’ve become? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

I thought long and hard about my future at the Gazette. It felt like we were really just surviving and I didn’t really just want to survive anymore.

HA: I saw your video that announced your The Rover project, where you travelled to where the John A. Macdonald statue once stood, what was the significance of that?

CC: Well, my girlfriend suggested the John A. Macdonald statue, and I thought it was great. I think to me it was kind of apparent that there’s this pretty big disconnect with a lot of the traditional reporters and journalists and what’s actually happening on the ground in Indigenous communities. There isn’t nearly enough good journalism that feels like it comes from the ground up.

HA: What is good journalism?

CC: I think good journalism feels real. Good journalism talks to the people who are affected by a decision that’s made in a parliament, or in an office, or in the halls of power somewhere. It should always be about the people who don’t have a say in what happens, and [who] don’t feel like they have access to justice. That to me is good journalism.

HA: What would you say to yourself, if you could go back and talk to the younger, student reporter, you?

CC: I would say that journalism is a set of skills that take a very long time to master. You need to put in hours, that’s the one thing I did get right back then was I put in my time. You need to build journalism into your muscle memory, or at least the mechanics of journalism: interviewing, transcribing, writing fast copy. I think one year at The Link I wrote something like 120 stories.

What I would say is do all that, but when you get your hands on something that you really think is different or exceptional follow it through. But you need to master that basic shit. Bust your ass, and hustle hard, and when you can stand out, stand out!

 

Feature photo by Christine Beaudoin

Categories
Arts

Veteran journalist Francine Pelletier on making documentaries

Documentary journalism workshop series invites students to become creative storytellers

The Department of Journalism held a workshop on Oct. 21, led by Francine Pelletier, the department’s journalist-in-residence, about different forms of documentary making, what makes a good documentary and what makes it a unique form of storytelling.

The workshop was the first of a visual series, through which Pelletier plans to increase the profile of documentary journalism within Concordia. Documentary filmmaking lies at the intersection of journalism and arts, where the artist uses creative storytelling to raise awareness and make an impact in the world.

“Documentary filmmaking combines the best of journalism, telling great stories, and the best of you, finding the creative side in you,” said Pelletier.

After leaving her job at CBC in 2001, Pelletier became an independent documentary filmmaker and has made 11 films so far. She made the switch because documentary making “had exploded” in the 1990s and was a hot medium. She also found it to be a more creative type of journalism and more satisfying to work independently.

Pelletier said the oldest feature-length documentary is perhaps Nanook of the North (1922), which captures the struggles of an Inuk man and his family in the Canadian Arctic. It established the cinéma vérité form, where the filmmaker is but a passive watcher. Pelletier said the film Harlan County, USA (1976), which narrates a coal mine strike in the US, is a notable example of this form. She emphasized that this does not mean the filmmaker is neutral.

“In fact, documentary filmmaking is often called point-of-view filmmaking,” she said. “In this case, [the filmmaker] is definitely on the side of workers and not employers.”

Michael Moore, with his first documentary Roger & Me (1989), invented a new documentary form, in which the filmmaker is the main character. Another documentary form, which is simply an extended television news item, shows an orthodox correspondent who represents the audience and interviews affected people of the story. An example is the Canadian film Just Another Missing Kid (1981), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1982 (Pelletier said it is “too corny” for today’s taste and would never win an Academy Award today).

Pelletier said that the 1990s was a wonderful decade for documentaries, as the equipment required to make one became more accessible, causing the number of independent documentary makers to explode. Digital cameras were invented, which are much smaller and lighter than analog ones. 

“[So] little women like me can go out and actually use a camera and not die from the 50-pound weight of the television cameras,” she said. Also, many documentary film festivals, like Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, the largest documentary festival in North America, started in the 1990s.

Today, documentaries have various ways of reaching people; they appear on newspaper websites and services such as Netflix. Pelletier said the first documentary she watched on Netflix was Blackfish (2013). It is about the consequences of keeping whales in captivity, and narrates the story of Tilikum, a captive whale at the marine park Seaworld, who was involved in the deaths of three people. The film was quite impactful, and in 2016, SeaWorld announced it will end its live performances involving whales.

“What’s amazing about documentary filmmaking is that anyone can do it; if you’re really passionate about something, it’s possible to do a great story and really make a difference,” Pelletier said. “I always joke that it is the easiest way for a nobody to become a somebody.”

Another reason to make documentaries is to keep the light shining in the right direction, Pelletier said. 

“There is a truth in the documentary because you aren’t telling people what to think; they’re seeing it for themselves.”

To make a good documentary, “The story is key,” Pelletier said. “The essential ingredient to any good story is conflict or tension.”

One does not need a huge scandal — even telling a personal story compellingly can make an effective documentary. For example, Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020) describes the decline of the filmmaker’s old father in a creative, playful manner.

Pelletier said that another ingredient of a good story is a strong character.

“Any story is carried by a character,” she said.

Finally, she stressed that there are many ways of making a documentary about a given story; the filmmaker needs to be creative and find a suitable form for their message.

The workshop was the first of a series of three. The second will be on Nov. 18 with Julian Sher, about making documentaries amid conflicts and wars, and the third will be on Dec. 9 with David Gutnick about radio documentary and podcasting.

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