Having a Grinchy Christmas

I just found out there's a major daily newspaper in Canada offering its summer interns $500 a week, with no benefits (which is normal for a summer internship). That would be a $26,000 annual salary if it were to run all year. The cost of living in that city does not support this measly salary. You could make that working two days a week in an entry level producing job at the CBC. Or in three days of paid-per-word freelancing for a newspaper.

Another newspaper that usually relies heavily on its interns has decided to cut its program entirely for this year. Another did interviews, and then put the successful candidates on a waiting list while they figure out how many positions they have money for.

Here's the thing. Interns produce way more copy than lifers at the paper. One editor I talked to was shocked at how many articles a year his interns put out. This is not the way to cut costs, unless you figure the assignment editors will quit in frustration and then you can save on their salaries too. These internships are incredibly important for the students who get them, but I would argue they're equally important to the news organizations who have pages or air time to fill.

$500 a week. Does anyone else have stories like this?

Vote!

Tis the season to vote on the year's best and worst lists. If you're interested in Canadian journalism, check out this one.

I think Graeme Smith is a good pick - he's been working his tail off in Afghanistan for about three years now, and does excellent reporting out of there. He broke the Afghan detainee story that helped set the agenda on Parliament Hill for over a year, between the original story and the follow-ups with the military police complaints commission. He also put together, along with his local fixer, this incredible series that gave readers insight into why people join the Taliban. He doesn't make judgments through his reporting, but goes about it with curiosity to provide readers with enough information that they can make their own judgments. And he's...the same age as me. Nothing like a little perspective to show you how much you could have accomplished.

Any of those journalists would be good choices - I'll always have a warm place in my heart for Ken Whyte for revamping my beloved Maclean's - but Graeme Smith deserves this.

The early bird

Blurg. I was at work at 5am today for an ungodly shift that isn't even the earliest one possible. It didn't end up being as bad as I'd feared, but there was lots of noise in and around my building last night and I didn't really sleep longer than a couple of hours without waking up. We have this problem where the snow removal vehicles that head down the major artery on which we live park outside our building while they clear this section of the neighbourhood. I don't even know how much they clear before moving on, just that it takes way longer than it would if they were doing only our corner. So we get a giant diesel truck rumbling, plus the plow-type truck that backs up (with that annoying high-pitched beeping) to dump the snow into the back of the first truck. It was terrible last year with Ottawa's near-record snowfall, and I can now predict pretty accurately what amount of snow leads to that noise at 2am (not that I expect them to be out during the day, but can't they start at 11pm? Instead of 1am?).

I did get out my microphone to record the sound, but by the time I convinced myself it could be weeks before I have the chance to record it again, the trucks had started to move off. I managed to catch the sound of the truck rumbling by though. It's so bad that if it happens while we're watching tv, we can't hear the sound. If it happens again tonight (which looks like, judging by the snowbanks that are still hanging around), I'll post the sound here. I don't think people believe me about how bad it is.

Back at it tomorrow. The shift is quite fun, so I'm looking forward to having a few more days to get to know it. Part of what I enjoy about freelancing is that I get to play with different forms of media.

And your (somewhat) daily dose of media study...Chris Waddell from Carleton University was on CBC Radio's All In a Day to talk about the death of newspapers. I thought one of the interesting points he made is that people still read newspapers, but they mainly do it online and nobody will pay for online content, so that's part of what's wrong with the model. I'll update with the link if it goes online.

The sound of music

I spent a very cold December night in an Ottawa church, where I witnessed something amazing.

People in Ottawa. Clapping and dancing. At some times, even singing.

In Ottawa.

At a concert.

In Ottawa.

Seriously. Ottawa!

I have never, ever seen anything like it. I took my mom-in-law to the Soweto Gospel Choir concert and it was fabulous. It took people a little while to warm up - there were small pockets of hipsters dancing at first, and mostly in the standing-room-only sections, and everyone around me turned to look the first time I whooped in appreciation. But by the end of the first half, people were clapping and grooving in their pews, and whistling and yelling. By the time they closed the show with Oh Happy Day*, it was like nothing I've seen in almost a decade here. I still can't get over it. The entire church (it was at Dominion-Chalmers) was rocking. There wasn't a single person sitting down. Maybe that's what Ottawa needs - a gospel choir.

The whole thing reminded me a little of the Rwandan dancers I had been lucky to see - twice - when I was in Kigali (we stumbled onto a national competition when we were looking for a market). The dance styles are different, and I have to say I prefer the Rwandan style (skip to 3:45 where it really gets going). Seeing the performers tonight also reminded me of the incredible sense of masculinity the male Rwandan dancers give off while they're performing. Every dance looked to me like the opening scene of a mating ritual. I've never seen anything like that either, and especially not in sleepy Ottawa.

*Or, if you prefer...**
**Okay, I may have linked to that to enable me to link to this too - because everyone needs a little Whoopi, minus the Elisabeth.

Come. On.

As someone who covered the federal election six days a week this fall (let me tell you, it felt like eight), I can't recall precisely how many times I heard Stephen Harper say something along the lines of "friends, he will take us back into a dark time of deficit," followed by the sound of boos from all of the Conservative supporters at whatever rally or speech he happened to be gracing. Suffice it to say it was in every stump speech he gave. He slammed Stephane Dion over and over on the deficit issue.

So I find this frustrating. Not because I'm a Liberal - I'm a free agent, party-wise - but because dishonesty and hypocrisy really, really bother me. It's not even like the Conservatives can blame the Liberals for hiding the numbers - the Tories were in power, and they knew exactly how much money was in Canada's savings account, and they had projections from the department of finance.

I don't know enough about finance and economics to know whether deficit-spending is a good or bad thing. But. Come. On. You can't grind a guy into the ground on an issue you know you're going to have to reverse yourself on later. This is exactly the type of politics the Reform party was founded to end, wasn't it? I know they're now the New Conservative Party, but their leader is a former Reformer. Way to forget your roots.

Most people dislike bullies. If the Opposition gets its collective shit together, there could be a real battle next time around.

anniversary

I realized last night that freelancing and I have my passed our two-month anniversary. And we're still madly in love with each other. You know what I don't miss at all? My blackberry. I was convinced I would have a hard time parting with it, but I realized last night that I haven't even thought of it in about six weeks. I sort of forgot that I had had one for a full year. Text messaging pretty much takes care of whatever I needed the berry for before.

In other news, I've been testing out a new medium this week. I think it's good for the brain to keep switching back and forth between media - there are variations in style - but I'm writing a print article right now and I keep reading my article aloud when I try to edit it. Like, without even thinking about it. I just start going over it and my lips start moving and I'm reading it like a script.* I'll have to watch that if I ever get back to an actual print newsroom.

*You non-journos should know that a broadcast newsroom near deadline always has a bunch of people in cubicles talking to themselves as they read their own scripts. Your ear will pick up phrases that don't work when your eyes won't. It doesn't happen nearly as much in print because consumers are reading it to themselves too - but in radio or tv they're hearing it, so you have to hear it first to make sure it works.

Media mayhem

Okay, maybe not mayhem. But alliterative headlines are always good.

News today that the only major media company in Canada currently hiring journos is now cutting 600 jobs:

CRAFT-Sun-Media-Cuts, NewsAlert
NewsAlert
INDEX:Advisories
HL:Canadian Press NewsAlert
THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO -- Newspaper publisher Sun Media to cut 600 jobs in
Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec.

A later story mentioned something about focusing on digital media, which this posting seems to be about, so maybe it'll survive.

And if that wasn't depressing enough, this came out this morning too:

URGENT-Detroit-Newspapers,
INDEX:Business, International, Labour, Media
Union: Detroit papers plan job cuts, less delivery
DETROIT - A union official says Detroit's newspapers plan to cut nine per cent of their work force and offer fewer days of home delivery at a time of slumping revenue industry-wide.
Teamsters' Local 372 secretary-treasurer Ron Renaud says it's unclear where the cuts will fall at the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.
Renaud says the Free Press will be delivered Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays starting in March, while The News will be delivered Thursdays and Fridays.
He says the papers still will be printed and sold at newsstands and readers also will be able to get the papers in a digital edition.
The News doesn't publish a Sunday paper.
The Detroit Media Partnership runs the business operations of the papers. It plans a news conference later Tuesday to announce changes.
(The Associated Press)
10:10ET 16-12-08

I can't see this doing anything but hurting the papers. Subscriptions will automatically have to be limited to two- or three-days a week, presumably cutting subscription revenue in half. But what are readers doing for their papers on the non-delivery days? Walking to the newsstand...or reading it for free online? Even worse, switching off the paper entirely and watching tv instead, or reading a couple of articles online and moving onto other websites? I guess the reasoning would be to try to get people subscribing to the digital edition. I just don't see market share increasing in a scenario that encourages readers to go to the web.

Could be worse

I have had A DAY. Ugh. Briefly, I slept terribly, got up early and got to an office for the first time in a while (that wasn't bad at all, other than my case of nerves). But it sort of went downhill from there, culminating in me booking a bad guest (which, really, probably makes the host's day worse than mine), then coming home to my tax re-assessment (upwards) and dropping a box of pasta all over the kitchen floor. ARGH.

But it could be worse. I have a cat, who is forced to give me affection in return for food, a glass of wine, and an invitation to go to a friend's place tonight.

"Le Chat," I said to the cat. "Meow" she said, (which probably means "why haven't you fed me yet!?!" but which I took to be an expectant "yes, human goddess who I love and respect?"). "Le Chat, here's to us, and to the day improving." Then she looked at me and blinked. Yes, it could always be worse.

Getting adjusted

Today was a little bit harder than yesterday. Another set of soldiers killed, at a time when the Taliban usually scale down their activity. Then a rocket attack on the base, which I have known for years to be relatively common, but which was amplified a bit by a frantic call from my mother-in-law, who is learning all this about Afghanistan at once.

We also had our first phone call from Kandahar, alerting me to the fact that I'm wound tighter than I thought. I managed to play it cool all through the first few days, including reassuring the M-I-L that all of this is normal and nothing to worry about. The thing is that it DOES worry me that we are still seeing major IED explosions and casualties, on top of news all summer and fall that the amount of ISAF-controlled land around Kandahar is shrinking. I mean, take this for what it's worth - simply my impressions from working in and watching the news. I have no expertise in military operations, insurgencies or international affairs, so for all I know it's better than it was at this time last year. But that's not what I have been hearing since last winter. Anyway.

I have played it cool since S left, right up until he called tonight. Then I lost it. The call was frustrating, with a time lag between when one person speaks and the other person hears it, plus the general "what are you doing tomorrow?" and "I can't tell you that" response. Now I'm feeling the pressure in my shoulders and wondering how long I've been hunched up like a stress case.

There's more to write but life goes on - I am working in a new newsroom tomorrow and more than a little freaked about it. Thank God for good friends who talk me off metaphorical ledges. There are many who have sincerely offered 24-7 support, and they will be the ones who keep me in the right headspace.

It begins

The man left recently for his tour of journo duty in Afghanistan. He will be happy to hear the first thing I did upon returning from the airport was wash the dishes. It's not a chore to which I gravitate naturally.

I am in much better spirits than I expected, and even his mom was tear-free at the airport. I think it's one of those things we were dreading far more than necessary - really, it's hard to miss him when he hasn't been away that long, so the goodbye wasn't bad at all. The sad will hit later, probably mid-way through the seven-week assignment.

We took care of the serious stuff, like him leaving me a list of passwords (including his facebook password - in case of bad things happening, I will control photo distribution, thank you very much). It's sort of morbid but has to be done. He also gave me orders not to do interviews if something happens. Our careers have at least given us an idea of what to expect in the worst-case scenario.

Anyway. Right now I'm focusing on how exciting this is, and how awesome he is to be 26 and reporting from a war zone. He's quite the guy.

Massively spoiled

We did Christmas yesterday because S is leaving so soon for the badlands. I got him a Patrick Roy Habs jersey, and he got me every make-up lover's dream.

I have often gazed at this on the Sephora website, wondering at its sheer luxury and decadence. I never even asked for it as a gift because it is just so much. And now it's mine!



That's the eyeshadow layer. S said it's every shade Sephora makes. But wait...



It's folds out to show the blush/bronzer/brush layer. And there's even more!



Oh yeah. That's the stuff. Another layer of lipglosses and lipsticks. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

Fridays are supposed to be fun

See, this is why people don't watch the news.

I'm so sorry for the families involved in these stories.

Impressions on impending doom

Thoughts on tonight...

1. Best line of the night goes to...Kady O'Malley. It really does look like dementors are about to swarm Parliament Hill behind Mansbridge's head.

2. Dion, despite being 20 minutes late with tape delivery, is out of focus and he's not framed properly, both with too much room to his left and too much space above his head. And I think the white balance is off (all the white stuff in the shot looks yellow). It looks like he had a high school class shoot his address. Seriously, it looks terrible.

3. At 7:31, CBC stays with Dion, CTV goes to...eTalk Daily. Well, networks do have schedules, you know. NewsNet either didn't get the tape or doesn't pick up the feed, however they arranged to do this. They replay Harper's speech and then their anchor takes over the interviewing of talking heads. UPDATE: CBC, as the pool network, didn't switch the feed to be carried to all the networks. That, and the explanation for why Dion's tape was late, here.

I heard a lot during the election campaign about how poorly-run Dion's communications were. His head guy, for example, didn't watch the evening news. The fact that they can't even meet the most basic requirement of being on time is a huge deal. There has been no other time this year that he had access to this many eyeballs, with both cable and main nets ready to air his message. This is a big thing to screw up. And he ends up looking like an amateur.

It's not eavesdropping when you're invited into the conversation

This has been...puzzling (?) me all day. Pierre Poilievre did a radio interview this morning where he insisted that Gerry Ritz was the victim of someone eavesdropping on a private conversation, when the Tory who recorded the NDP caucus call yesterday was a whistleblower.

Let's see...whoever leaked the story about Ritz making listeriosis jokes was a staffer on a daily briefing call. There were 30 scientists and communications staffers involved in those calls. That doesn't sound like eavesdropping on a private call to me. Also, aren't whistleblowers generally less powerful than the person on whom they blow the whistle? Or maybe it's the reverse - that whistles are blown on those in power. Either way, I don't think either example fits.

Everybody loves a makeover

Thank God. CanWest has finally applied the National Post's beautiful web design to the rest of the chain.

It's so much prettier and easy to read. Remember the old messy version, with a single tiny picture per page? That was all part of a template. Ugh. This one is MUCH better.