Why Wente’s actions matter and why everyone’s talking about them

In an industry that’s already trying hard to figure out how to stay relevant and profitable, a crisis of confidence is the last thing we need.

Over the last few days, I’ve been following the recent coverage of plagiarism allegations against Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente pretty avidly, especially on Twitter.

(Craig Silverman has a great summary of the whole thing here. The Globe responded tri-fold, with words from editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, media reporter Steve Ladurantaye and Wente herself.)

I’ve seen friends express they wish they could block the whole thing out, to please give Wente some leniency or avoid eviscerating her as a person, or wonder why the hell everyone cares so much.

As someone fairly new to the world of journalism-as-your-full-time-job, I have been extremely hesitant to explain why I think the wider discussion in publications like Maclean’s, Poynter or the National Post, is important. Toronto Standard managing editor Sabrina Maddeaux pointed out, the journalism industry in Canada is extremely small. I worried saying anything would put me on a blacklist for any possible writing or employment opportunities at the Globe in the future.

That being said, I think it’s fair to point out that many journalists my age are expected to produce copy (and sometimes photos) more than three times a week, at far less pay than Margaret Wente, with less opportunities for mentorship or figuring things out.

For my generation, there is immense pressure to be excellent right out of the gate, be it journalism school or internships, in order to earn our spots in newsrooms and on mastheads. We know that 100 or more people are lining up behind us fighting for our jobs and competition only gets more fierce every year.

When I was in journalism school, any instance of plagiarism meant the assignment was given a zero. Once, I reused a source for a different story, didn’t tell the professor and was deducted 10% essentially for laziness.

Recently, a Wall Street Journal intern was fired for plagiarism.

Basically, I seriously wonder if a much younger journalist would be treated the same way by public editor Sylvia Stead.

This is not about how I often disagree with Ms. Wente’s opinions. I understand that she has years of experience at the paper and has earned her position. But the way that the Globe has handled this case affects everyone in the industry. It gives extra ammunition to critics who say the mainstream media can’t be trusted. It makes every journalist who puts in extra efforts at accuracy and attribution to wonder why the hell they’re doing it. And it casts a shadow on the Globe’s reputation, despite its fantastic redesign, award-winning investigative work and the many other excellent journalists employed there.

Disclosure: I personally know many people who work for the Globe or have worked there. I’ve visited the newsroom twice. I would love to write for them. I even signed up for the Canadian Securities Course after reading a Ryerson Review of Journalism profile on John Stackhouse.

I think I watch how this case is being handled with extra interest because I’m someone who gave up a career in public relations, which is often accused of spin, lies and miscommunication. I, like many others, care about this industry in a way that extends beyond it being “just my job”. And I often defend publications when its columnists are criticized for sparking controversial discussions.

But I believe you should take full responsibility in the case of plagiarism and a public editor should be someone who responds on weekends when a crisis occurs. In our line of work, ethics and accountability don’t take a day off.

Ch-ch-changes

Big things have happened in the last few weeks.

1. I published a lot.

There were short investing pieces:
TD, CIBC and BMO most likely to hike dividends as bank earnings loom
BMO gets price target hikes
Dollar Tree Canada expansion not a threat to Dollarama
CIBC hikes Metro target by 5%, but warns Target and Wal-Mart could dent profits
Yellow Media posts Q2 profit, beats Street despite revenue slip
Metro raises dividend as third-quarter profit and sales rise
Torstar Q2 profit drops as ad revenues remain under pressure
Wi-LAN adjusted earnings down more than 50%, increased focus on dividends
TVA Group second-quarter profit rises on growth in French-language services
BMO ETF sales rise by $1-billion in two months
Canadians snapping up ETFs

Long pieces:
How the freemium model can make — or break — your tech business
Back to school: Let the borrowing begin
Between a rock and a great place

Blog posts:
Polar Mobile hack day sparks apps for a cause
Facebook’s Q1 earnings fail to light up social media, unlike IPO: Infomart

And even features in Arts and the Toronto section:
The 51st shade
FanExpo: Escapism, nostalgia and good feelings for sale at Toronto convention

Basically, I took Ira Glass’ advice and tried to kill my beginner-ness with a massive amount of work. There was much struggling and many late nights, but I’m lucky to have amazing editors and co-workers who all helped me through it.

2. My internship was extended.

The National Post graciously gave me four extra weeks in their newsroom. However, I have to cut that short because…

3. I got a job.

Full-time, with benefits, for business reporting. I was surprised too. It’s with Star Media Group, the publishers of the Toronto Star, Harlequin romance novels and digital sites like Toronto.com. I’m really, really excited.

4. I’m planning to move.

The new job is in Mississauga, which would make commuting from Scarborough something like two hours each way. So I’m hunting for an apartment for the first time. It’s an eye-opening experience so far, but one I’m really excited about.

***

There are a long list of people I’d love to thank for helping me get to this point and changing my life from where I was before, but I know I would forget someone.

I’d like to give extra thanks and acknowledgement to my family, my mentor, all the fantastic staff at the National Post and Financial Post and all my great friends who I bugged for advice about pitches, doing an MJ or travel.

Also notable are Ellin Bessner’s panel on business journalism this summer which really re-ignited my passion, Andrew Westoll for keeping my journo-brain sharp, Tim Falconer telling me I didn’t need any more writing classes and Edward Keenan who helped me figure out how unpaid work could really pay off.

Twitter definitely played a roll in allowing me to stay in touch with the industry while I was in communications, away in South America and before my internship. I really recommend it for how it enabled me to be informed about my friends, potential jobs, and maintain contacts. There are also dozens and dozens, if not more journalists, friends, acquaintances and colleagues who provided help, support, references, advice, mentorship and guidance. All of this allowed me to have the confidence to make the changes and do the work to get me to where I am today.

I know I didn’t do this alone and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities ahead.

In short, holy crap, guys! It really happened! I changed my life!

Things I wrote recently

I’m officially in Week 4 of my internship at the Financial Post and things are definitely humming. I have stories on the go, I’m pitching regularly and every day I’m still wondering how much I can soak up in the next few weeks. Summer is practically flying by.

I go to work with a mix of fear and absolute joy. It’s the anxiety of not doing enough or well enough and also the kick I still get when I call people and say, “Hello, my name is Karen and I’m a reporter with the National Post.”

Sometimes I write things and they require immense amounts of fixing, other times they do not. But one of the fun parts about what I do is that I never really know what I might write next. And I’m learning all the time.

Small stories
Salesforce.com snaps up interactive Web startup GoInstant
Canadians more positive about RIM than rest of the world: Infomart
Dollarama rolls out higher-priced items early
Strong box office, rapid expansion power jump in Imax Q2 profit
CIBC hikes price target on Agnico-Eagle Mines by 19%

Big-awesome-crazy feature
“Fifty Shades of Grey” sets fetish industry sales on fire

Being a beginner and bridging the gap

When it comes to writing, I am a beginner. I mean, I’ve been writing on blogs since I was 14 and making up stories since I was very small and writing in some sort of journalistic mindset since I was in my mid-teens, but make no mistake, I am still a total beginner.

I didn’t realize how much of a beginner I was until I started my internship at the National Post last week. I work in the business section, the Financial Post, surrounded by incredibly smart, wonderful people. Some of them have been working there since the mid-80′s, well before the National Post had even come into existence. There are former lawyers, very established columnists and many excellent beat reporters with more than 10 years covering one particular topic. Some have been at the paper longer than I’ve been alive.

The senior intern is a wonderful woman who has already done two daily newspaper internships, turned down an MBA acceptance and is going back into her second year of law school in the fall.

Then there’s me.

So far I’ve written two, small online posts and both have been so heavily edited I wonder what wasn’t spackled and fixed. I have a feature due tomorrow and I’m terrified it will be awful and I don’t have enough quotes, despite it being a fun, interesting topic. I have another feature due next week and just thinking about the list of contacts makes me nervous.

I am terrified of being awful at this internship. Not being productive enough, annoying the other reporters and editors, not making the most of my time in the offices, not learning fast enough and generally becoming a big mess.

I’m already lucky. I know enough people in the newsroom I can frequently ask out for coffee and get advice from about how to be a better intern and reporter. But that doesn’t help eliminate the fear in my head that tells me I can’t do this, that I should give up, that things aren’t going to get better and doing all of this was the wrong decision.

When the video of Ira Glass’s words of advice to beginners came into my Twitter feed last week, I listened to it three times. It wasn’t the first time I had heard the interview, but in my moment of growing panic, listening to it reminded me what I was feeling was totally normal.

And I am ready to work.

Big news!

I wrote recently how I thought I wasn’t really sure what to do next after coming back from South America. I applied for a few jobs and things, but they all didn’t work out (bad fit, didn’t get hired, irrational inner fear).

A few weeks ago I made an appointment with my friend Michael the career counselor. He helped me realized I knew exactly what I wanted to do next and think about what I would do if I wasn’t worried I would fail.

I am THRILLED to let you know that I will be doing an eight-week internship at the Financial Post starting on Monday. I am incredibly excited to work there. I am already nervous about the first day, but the kind of good nervous you get when you don’t know what awesome things might happen.

I also recently passed the Canadian Securities Course, after lots of late nights studying and rambling to people on Twitter about hedge funds. It was super-crazy-close, but the important thing is I did it, and I am going into my internship with at least a decent foundation of knowledge about the markets, commodities, and how to read a company’s annual financial report.

When I realized last year I wanted to change my life, I blogged about how quitting my job was Step 1, travelling was Step 2, and returning to journalism was Step 3. I soon figured out financial reporting was my real passion and so I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to work at the Financial Post. I’m also fortunate to have two very supportive parents, who have helped me immensely and supported me through this journey of transition and change.

For a moment, I forgot

I took this picture after I learned all my summer clothes, my underwear and my travel towel had been given away to someone else after a laundromat staffer in Norther Peru mistook me for a Japanese girl. Judging from the size of the her clothes, she weighed about 50 lbs less than I did. Still, the laundress insisted we had looked so alike and that was the reason for the mistake.

The only clothes I had left were my winter layers, two other tops, and the shirt and shorts on me. All of my underwear were gone because for the first time in my life I had gone commando like a guy and assumed I would be getting all my clothes back in about five hours.

The cleaned clothes were put in black plastic bags and I had the foresight to open what was supposed to be my bag before heading back to my hostel. The Japanese girl didn’t. She was also no longer staying at the same place, which meant she could be anywhere, with a backpack full of my clothes. She could have even flown home.

I was supposed to take an overnight bus that night to Guayaquil, Ecuador, then fly out to the Galapagos Islands the next day. I had to cancel both tickets, rebook new ones and deal with calling my insurance company to see if they could compensate me for the loss and delay.

Before I did, I took a moment to go to the beach and see this sunset. A wedding had just taken place nearby, and surfers were still trying to catch the last waves of the day. There was a world of stress about to close in on me. But for a moment all I could see was the beauty of the sky.

Do not be afraid to ask for help

I’m going to see a career counselor tomorrow. I figured out last week I don’t really know exactly what I want to do next, just that I have a bunch of rough ideas and I haven’t fully committed to anything, which makes it hard to focus.

Luckily, a good friend of mine works at the career counseling centre at my alma mater. He was the one who helped me figure out my initial plan to quit my job and travel. Now he’s going to help me plan the next step.

From my experience the career counseling services at many universities and colleges are some of the most underused yet valuable services offered. The University of Toronto is nice enough to provide career counseling sessions to alumni up to two years after graduation among its sessions on study tips, resume writing, and its extern program.

If you’re a twenty-something recent grad like me who’s not exactly sure what to do next, feel like you need a change or want guidance on whether your current job is right for you, an appointment with a career counselor is definitely worth your time. And in many cases, doesn’t cost you anything.

Asking your friends, family, mentors or industry colleagues for advice can
certainly help, but a career counselor is experienced enough to help you figure things out and provide guidance from helping many people in the same position.

Who else has helped you figure out your career? Let me know in the comments.

Well, that was awkward

On the night of Saturday, June 2, I was sitting at home when news of the Eaton Centre shooting broke. I follow a lot of journalists and editors on Twitter, and details of the event started to flood my Twitter stream.

About three hours after the first 911 call to police, I tweeted this:

Which was immediately retweeted by Jonathan Goldsbie and five other people. (Jonathan has more than 5,600 followers on Twitter, including many city councillors and other well-known journalists in the city. I knew I was kind of stuck after he had re-broadcast that particular tweet.)

Alex Flint suggested I create a Facebook event, which I uploaded about 15 minutes later. Then I posted the link on Twitter:

Only after posting the event link did I realize I was so incredibly naive and clueless about the whole thing. Did I need a permit? What kind of supplies did I need to bring? I had never organized a vigil before. What had I gotten myself into?

I expressed some of these worries on Twitter, where friends and strangers replied with advice, offers of help and key contacts in the community. Matt Elliott also let me know CP24 had mentioned the vigil as part of their ongoing coverage.

The next morning, I started to get a few media inquiries through Facebook. I tried joking around with the reporters, racking my brain for people in their newsroom we might have in common. I had no idea the size of the media circus I would encounter later.

After a last-minute stop for extra supplies, I arrived at Yonge-Dundas Square around 5:45 pm. I was supposed to arrive almost an hour earlier for interviews and logistics. After quickly meeting Himy Syed, a few other early attendees, the YDS coordinator and a Toronto Police sergeant from 52 Division who was on-site with a few other officers, a small plan was created to determine how to start the vigil and gradually draw people to our spot on the square.  While other people were putting candles into cups and trying to organize a circle, Armina the National Post reporter and I started to chat, before another cameraperson saw us talking and turned their camera on me.

What followed for the next hour was a lot of interviews, meeting lots of attendees, community representatives and politicians, hand-shaking, trying to figure out people’s comments and simply trying to go about the vigil as best as I could. It helped that friends like Andrea Houston, James Le and David Hains had showed up alongside a few acquaintances I had personally invited on Facebook. Andrea was able to give me advice about temporarily turning off my journo-brain in the moment and not worrying too much about the questions from reporters.

The media interviews were strange, only because I quickly realized I had to remember to repeatedly spell my name and state my profession while figuring out key details and sound bites. I kept trying to stress that I was the last person I would ever expect to organize something like this, as a reporter it was strongly emphasized that I should never get involved with a story and that event-planning was not something taught at journalism school. I was just someone who was born and raised in Toronto, really loved the city, and was struck by how the person who died was so close in age to myself and many of my friends. I said I felt helpless watching my friends edit and report the story while I sat at home. I mentioned the recent shooting at Scarborough Town Centre and the relative lack of attention that got in comparison. I talked about how the Eaton Centre was a private space, but that pretty much everyone had stories about going there, meeting up with friends or spending time with their families near the fountain. And with info from Matt Elliott and David Topping in mind, I tried to stress how I felt Toronto was still an incredibly safe, wonderful place to live, but that we could also do better as a community to reduce the possibility of this happening in the future.

I also did a live television spot at some point in front of the Eaton Centre, which made me realize just how under-dressed I was.

I didn’t have a bullhorn or mike, so I simply shouted out instructions and information when needed, like the time of the moment of silence. James very kindly helped me figure out when to end it and call for the end of the vigil just after 7 p.m. There were a lot of photographers and cameras clustered near me during that moment, which made for a slightly-less-than-somber atmosphere, but there was nothing much I could do. Someone also thoughtfully handed me a candle, which was nice, but also ensured I showed up in half a dozen photographs.

Overall, the turnout was roughly what was confirmed on Facebook, with a significant media presence. Despite my background in print, I think I did okay in most of the radio and television interviews. We ran out of candles, and only had a few extra cups even though I had brought about 100 of each.

After doing this, I feel like I have a little bit of a sense of what Daniel Dale must have felt like being scrummed after the whole Fencegate incident. I’m used to being on the other side of the recorder, taking notes, observing how many people have gathered, even having to be in the position of jostling to take photos. It is incredibly awkward finding yourself on the other side, especially when you did not expect to find yourself in a position where you would be scrummed.

I am not an activist. I don’t have any religious or political affiliations. I even shot down a suggestion to use an Occupy method of amplifying information through repeated answers by the crowd. (Mostly because it seemed like it would take a lot of time.) I am also easily embarrassed in large crowds and very much a print person. The first time I saw myself on television, I screamed and ran away from the room.

There was also a very small number of comments online that didn’t understand why a vigil was being organized in the first place, or stated I had made the event about myself. Those people made me never want to organize anything similar again, which made me a little sad.

I think the reason why I ended up organizing the vigil was also because I figured someone else eventually would think up the idea and do it. Then I thought it wouldn’t require that much effort on my part to do. That other people felt just as helpless as me, and it would be nice to have a place to gather, meet them, talk and have a moment where we could all be together and not feel so alone in our feelings. Then I realized sometimes you have to step up to the plate and do things yourself.

At the end of the day, the memory that sticks is the young woman who came up to me and told me how she worked at the mall. She was glad something had been put together after the shooting. The vigil was also for people like her, who just expected to go to work on what should have been an ordinary Saturday in the summer. If anything, I’m happy I got to help show her there were lots of people like me who cared about what happened and wanted to offer their support, even if all we could do was listen.

***

Twitter was crucial to this vigil taking place. However, special thanks go to David Hains, James Le, Andrea Houston, Lucas Costello, Himy Syed, Ward 27 Executive Assistant Alina Chatterjee and Sara Peel of Yonge-Dundas Square. Thanks also to all the volunteers and everyone who RT’d link to the Facebook event.

Supply, Demand, and the Systemic Problems of Business Journalism

On Saturday, April 28, 2012, I attended a panel on business journalism at the CAJ National Conference in Toronto. There were a lot of complaints about problems in the Canadian finance industry, what journalists were doing wrong, and what everyone was missing due to the constraints of time, staffing and lack of access. There was a lot of yelling. When it came time for questions, I found myself yelling back.

Some of my arguments:

People, especially young people, aren’t really interested in business reporting.
FALSE. Interest in finance is everywhere. It’s on the cover of The Grid. Everyone is talking about debt from credit cards, student loans and ballooning mortgages. A generation of young people are facing the possibility of never being able to own a home due to astronomical prices. Gail Vaz-Oxlade is practically omni-present. A recent Maisonneuve cover feature on the snow-removal racket in Montreal has led to Hollywood agents calling editor Drew Nelles.

The problem isn’t a lack of interest, it’s reframing stories about money in a way that makes “non-business” people interested. When you remember everything has to do with money, then almost anything can become a “business story”. Sometimes making something interesting and appeal to the general public require additional resources and interesting approaches to storytelling, like Jennifer Wells’ coverage of Haiti’s mango industry in the Toronto Star or NPR‘s Planet Money podcast.

Becoming an qualified expert in business reporting is intrinsically expensive and more difficult
One of the panelists pointed out it would be great if we could have more journalists with backgrounds in business, finance, economics, or other related fields. But the costs of undergraduate degrees in these areas are now often significantly higher than a Bachelor of Arts because there is an expectation the person will soon be earning enough to justify that difference.

Yes it would be great for new journalists, business or otherwise, to complete the Canadian Securities Course, a Certified Accountant qualification or a Master’s in Business Administration. It would help them better understand, well, everything. But none of these programs are cheap and very few publications offer to help subsidize or fully cover costs.

This kind of financial education would also normally qualify someone to become a financial analyst, work on Bay Street, or do any number of things that would pay significantly more than journalism.* Everyone knows journalists aren’t in the industry for the money.** But asking the ones interested in business reporting to put themselves in an expensive position to better educate themselves for a job that will pay them significantly less than anything else in the finance industry is grossly unfair.

Dearth of in-depth reporting is due to constraints in general newsroom resources
One of the presentations was on the lack of access and resources available in Canadian media organizations for covering the oil sands. It was pointed out that there was no one reporter assigned to cover it full-time. I pointed out despite the growing demand for business journalism, most business reporters are facing the same problems as their general reporter colleagues. They’re also expected to do more and cover more, all on less time while also reporting on complicated daily subjects like commodities, market gains and jobs reports.

Publications like Report on Business, Canadian Business, Profit, MoneySense, and even Maclean’s are doing a lot of money-related features and investigative reporting. However the reality of television and radio, especially outside of programs like Marketplace or newsmagazines like W5, mean most people are getting short, quick hits on personal finance and easy-to-understand subjects like consumer reports. There will always be television spots of people at the pumps the day before a major spike in price because it’s a simple thing to film and produce. Explaining why those prices are going up is going to take more than a two-minute spot and a few streeters with irritated drivers.

I pointed out to Mike Eppel of 680 News it would be great to hear more about things like the background behind rising gas prices, but his station would never have time to tell that story because their popularity is based on broadcasting traffic reports every 10 minutes.

It is easy to complain, it is harder to change systemic problems
Journalism schools are also partly to blame. When I attended Centennial College for their joint-program with the University of Toronto Scarborough, there were no classes on business reporting. There was no time for them. The curriculum barely had enough time to do a semester on journalism law and ethics. And everyone kept joking they chose the major because they were bad with numbers anyway. The reality is there may not being enough time or additional resources for many journalism programs to devote entire classes or semesters to the subject. However, in any class that deals with writing and reporting, educators can still encourage students to look for business stories that matter to them or think about the role money plays in a particular story.***

The future of business reporting
Business is one of the few places in journalism that’s actively growing and recruiting new people. It’s a lot like sports: there are winners, losers, key players, earnings reports, weird trends, scandals and even specialized equiptment. I don’t know if business reporting needs a specialized school or program like the ones that exist for sports reporting.

All I know is I have realized that business reporting is what I want to do for a career and it was incredibly disheartening to hear people complain about problems in the industry without providing any actual solutions beyond buying their book.

Footnotes:

*Tim Kiladze wrote a great column about what it was like to switch from Bay Street to a job at the Globe and Mail: “I no longer met the $60,000 minimum salary for the Infinite Visa I once used to pay my bar tabs at Bymark and Vertical“.
**This is lesson #1 in journalism school, right next to scaring us about crappy hours, the likelihood of working in small towns, and the sharp decline in jobs for new graduates.
***The journalism program at the University of King’s College in Halifax is one exception. Program director Kelly Toughill (MBA, Queen’s) and Steve Proctor both regularly teach courses on business journalism.

Inca Trail: Tips for thriving and surviving Peru’s most famous hike

My group at the very start of the Inca Trail in October 2011.

When I signed up to do the Inca Trail, I didn’t really know what Machu Picchu was, I didn’t know much about Peru, and it was more than 10 years ago since I last did any real hiking.

That in mind, I researched the hell out of the trail, polled my friends, and even did an extremely expensive Colca Canyon tour the week prior to train my body.

This guide will tell you what I packed, preparation tips, trail stuff and things you wish people told you, but rarely do. I hope it helps you on your own journey through the mountains.

Page 1: You’re going to need a lot of stuff. Seriously.

Page 2: How to make the most out of your gear.

Page 3: Five Things Worth Fighting For (And Why)

Page 4: Seven Super-Useful Multi-Purpose Travel Tools

Page 5: This is going to hurt now, so it doesn’t hurt later. (Coming soon)

Page 6: The Trail Itself: You’re Not in Cuzco Anymore (Coming soon)

Bonus: In a rush? Here’s my top 25 tips for doing the Inca Trail.