A reporter’s rant: When we’re the story, you know it’s not good news

journalist pam sword speaks at a labour rally in March 2016 during the lockout of chronicle herad workers. - tony tracy photo

I see this photo every time I bring up my Facebook page. It’s on top of the default “photos of you” gallery. 

Union organizer Tony Tracy took the pic during a labour rally on March 8, 2016, in support of Chronicle Herald workers. Two months previously, 61 Halifax Typographical Union reporters, editors, photographers, columnists and support staff went on strike during a contract dispute.

Pam Sword took to the stage with a simple message: Fight for your rights as a worker. It’s hardly an uncommon theme at labour rallies but anyone who’s worked with Pam knows that’s not just a slogan for her. An editor and reporter with 35 years at the Herald, she’s one of the most talented, passionate journalists I know. 

Behind her to the left is the perhaps less passionate but certainly talented hirsute figure of Stuart Peddle, who’s also worked both the reporting and editing sides. Known for his bad puns and love of Monty Python and Tom Waits, he joined the Herald about 25 years ago. The rest of the folks on stage were also Herald newsers (that’s me on the right in the Elmer Fudd cap). 

Reporters usually don’t crave the spotlight - particularly print journos - but we were determined to stand by our principles. If that meant taking the stage in front of the cameras and shouting slogans at rallies, c’est la vie.

The company was just as determined to disrespect its employees by hiring replacement workers and denigrating their contributions. Editors are apparently the equivalent of backroom clerks in some small minds, and ha ha, we’ll see you in the snowbanks in January.

They also spent millions in hedge fund loans to create a new regional news network with the head-scratching name SaltWire. 

It took 19 months to reach a settlement. Despite our best efforts, 26 people were shoved out the door - leaving 25 unionized workers in Halifax - and our wages were cut by five per cent. 

photo by stoo metz

Pink slips

It was the latest round of cuts in an onslaught that began in 2009, when the Herald laid off workers for the first time in its history. 

The internet’s “free” promotion platforms had sucked the life out of the Herald’s advertising revenues. Like many others in the media industry, management couldn’t figure out how to handle the new financial and technological reality. In these situations workers - or more specifically the big juicy target of salary expenses - are usually in the firing line. 

I was one of the many people who took the long walk to the corner offices to get pink slips. I managed to hold onto my job through the dreaded seniority “bumping” process and the vacancies left by buyouts. 

I joined the Herald in March 1998 as a copy editor after toiling alone or with one or two other people in weekly newspaper offices. I recall feeling not a little intimidated when I came in for my job interview at the large, full-to-capacity newsroom on Argyle Street in Halifax.

At the time, the newsroom boasted about 100 people in the Halifax newsroom and at (now defunct) provincial bureaus.  

The year after I was hired, pay inequity and other grievances brought the newsroom into the HTU fold along with press and composing room workers. Founded in 1869, it’s one of the oldest unions in Canada. 

A decade later the newsroom moved out of the venerable Argyle Street building (now demolished with a convention centre in its place) to leased space on Joseph Howe Drive. Then came the first layoffs, the strike and the disintegration of SaltWire after hedge fund creditors finally came after their chunk of flesh. 

a rare shot of me smiling at work. this was taken in 2008 as the herald prepared for a move from its original location on argyle street to joseph howe drive. 

Newsroom decimation

Last month, Postmedia came out on top of the creditor protection battle with a $1-million purchase. As a result of its inevitable quest for “operational efficiencies,” there are now only 11 people left in the HTU. 

It’s hard to fathom. Eleven people. Compared to the hundred-plus when I walked into that bustling, intimidating newsroom 26 years ago. 

Go back to the top photo. None of those people work at the Herald anymore. Well technically I do but more on that later. 
Pam and Stuart were laid off last month along with another editor and reporter Jen Taplin.

Heartbreaking, infuriating, deflating. You run out of adjectives when you’ve lost so many skilled and dedicated colleagues over the years. Besides the Herald, the SaltWire debacle has affected reporters, editors, print operators and many others at the Telegram, the Guardian and beyond.  

As for me, my immune system went rogue in February 2023, attacking perfectly innocent blood cells. This disorder - on top of other health challenges that may include long COVID but that’s another story - has sidelined me to long-term disability.

I spend a lot of time napping, reading (I’ve read all the books by now, as one of my favourite TV characters once said) and taking pictures of birds and sunsets on short walks with my spouse. 

I’m about to hit the big six-zero so my employment future is punctuated by a whole bunch of question marks.

the chronicle herald is now owned by postmedia after the saltwire network's financial woes forced it into creditor protection. - john mcphee

What now?

It’s a crazy business, this journalism thing. The bitter contract disputes, power of corporate owners over workers, financial uncertainty and the politicians and business people who find it convenient to demonize the media. 

Have I asked myself over the years why in H.L. Mencken’s name did I go into this work? Absolutely.

Like a lot of jobs, it can be tedious, stressful and exhausting. But in journalism you’ve got the added bonus of the tyranncial clock. If you’re a reporter, you usually have to file at least one story - sometimes several if you’re covering court, council/legislature meetings and other institutional beats - per day. You’ve got to get it right, quickly, and make it concise, understandable and engaging - tight and bright as they say in the business.

On the editing side, you’re often hit with a pile of copy at the end of the day. If there are mistakes, you have to pick up on that. If it’s an incoherent ungrammatical mess - that’s rare but believe me I’ve handled some doozies in my years - you must massage the copy into something readable, again as fast as humanly possible.

By far the most challenging part is resisting a primal scream when somebody has left their dishes unwashed in the newsroom kitchen sink - again. Journalists may be creative geniuses who are essential to democracy and social stability but wow some of them are slobs.

But seriously folks, I’ve admired and respected my colleagues over the years (as with any gathering of humans, there were exceptions). Journalists are an interesting breed - curious, open-minded, often quirky. But steely enough to step over the usual polite boundaries to get at the truth.

Most days it’s an interesting and fulfilling job. We get to put a bullhorn in the hands of people whose stories might go untold, explore the shadowy corners of an argument, keep the powers-that-be accountable and, if you’re lucky, do some good. 

As our ranks diminish, government and business interests will have more power to control the narrative, spin their agendas. More people will get sucked into the black hole of online conspiracy theories, disinformation and outright lies. 

Journalists don’t like to be part of the story. But like the cold bitter days of 2016, this time we don’t have a choice. 

A walk with Grandmother Moon

The full moon rises above Herring Cove in August. (JOHN McPHEE)

Note: This article was first published in September 2016 so the references to planets and the moon don’t apply to the current night sky. Also after years of work, Dave and Cathy have published Mi’kmaw Moons: The Seasons in Mi’kma’ki. Illustrated by Loretta Gould, it’s availalbe through Formac Lorimer Publishing.

On this first evening of September, come outside with me and celebrate the coming autumnal equinox with a tour of the night sky. (The weather forecast isn’t hopeful so we may have to use our imaginations.)

Overhead  — we’ll also have to imagine there’s no light pollution — the path of gas and dust that marks the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way, splits the sky.

To the west, let’s enjoy a final glimpse of Mars and Saturn as they close out their summer show in the constellation Scorpius.

Now where’s the moon? Nowhere to be found. It’s the time of new moon, also known as no moon. Our closest neighbour in space is hidden in the glare of the sun.

From new to first-quarter (to the eye, that’s a half-moon) to full to last-quarter and back to new: This cycle of phases is created by the changing angle of sunlight on the lunar surface as our satellite traces an elliptical loop around the Earth.

Moonrise over dartmouth on nov. 14, 2016 - john mcphee

That’s the science behind the lunar cycle. But the changing face of the moon, particularly the timing of the 12 or 13 full phases during the year, carries a much deeper meaning in many cultures.

Ancient peoples such as the Mi’kmaq incorporated the lunar and other celestial cycles into their mythology as well as their daily lives. The Mi'kmaw calendar was based on crucial periods such as the hunt and the harvest.   

RELATED: Step out with the moon

The Mi’kmaw yearly ecological cycle is represented by natural events such as the running of the maple sap (Si’ko’ku’s), the croaking of frogs (Sqoljuiku’s) and moose calling their mates (Wikumkewiku’s). The common 12 Mi'kmaw moon times and full moons take their names from these events. Occasionally a 13th moon time is needed to keep the moontimes in step with the sun.

“Our people lived off the land so knowing what was coming up, what resource, was very important to their survival,” Cathy Jean LeBlanc, an expert in Mi’kmaw culture, told me in a recent interview from her home in Newcombville, Lunenburg County.

the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas on aug. 10, 2014. - john mcphee

“Knowing that the animals were about to get nice and fat and we were going into fall and that would be a time when we would hunt.”

LeBlanc and Dartmouth amateur astronomer Dave Chapman are the creators of the education website Mi’kmaw Moons, which celebrates the time-keeping and scientific interpretation traditions of the Mi'kmaq.

For LeBlanc, it’s all about the connection between daily life and the natural world, which for her is synonymous with the spiritual world.

“We believe every single thing in nature has spirit,” said LeBlanc, who is a physical activity co-ordinator for Acadia First Nation and previously worked at Kejimkujik National Park and Historic Site as a cultural interpreter.

“And so for us, everything is living and that’s why we respect everything around us. ... The rocks, the water, the trees, everything to us is a living being with a spirit.”

Not surprisingly, it’s sometimes a challenge for her to reconcile that spiritual view with the scientific approach of somebody like Dave Chapman. But it’s been a positive learning experience for both of them.

“We were working together ...  and we came across this concept of Two-Eyed Seeing,” Chapman recounted in an interview earlier this summer, an idea that was developed at Cape Breton University by Albert Marshall and Cheryl Bartlett.

 “It’s where you kind of look at everything from a traditional indigenous perspective but also from a western scientific perspective.

“You can express it different ways, it means different things to different people. A blend, a yin-yang, two ways of seeing and knowing, and one respects the other.”

The Mi’kmaw yearly ecological cycle is represented by natural events such as the running of the maple sap (Si’ko’ku’s), the croaking of frogs (Sqoljuiku’s) and moose calling their mates (Wikumkewiku’s). The common 12 Mi'kmaw moon times and full moons take their names from these events. Occasionally a 13th moon time is needed to keep the moontimes in step with the sun. (MI'KMAW MOONS)

The Mi’kmaw Moons project grew out of a 2014 presentation the pair gave to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's Halifax centre called In Search of the 13th Mi'kmaw Moon.

“I’ve always been interested in the cultural side of astronomy,” said Chapman, a retired federal scientist who volunteers much of his time promoting astronomy at Kejimkujik and beyond.  

“For many decades, I’ve read books about archeoastronomy, the astronomy of ancient peoples, different civilizations,” which led him to explore how modern aboriginal cultures in our region see and interpret the sky.

LeBlanc said she gets particular satisfaction from sharing her knowledge with young people, such as the children she works with at Acadia First Nation, and with family members. 

“I always use my niece Holly for an example. She’s eight years old and she’s been learning about the Mi’kmaw moon times and she’s been celebrating and living those for the last two years. And that’s what’s important to me — it’s fine if you can give people 12 or 13 Mi’kmaq moon names and people can learn them and memorize them. But it’s that deep connection — once you have that connection to them (seasons), you don’t forget it.”

Mi'kmaw Moons collaborators Dave Chapman and Cathy Jean LeBlanc. (FACEBOOK)

LeBlanc laughs as she recounts the first time that connection hit home for her. It was during a February day drive along the South Shore while holding a Bluetooth conversation with Chapman about the project. The glare off the snow was distracting her so “I said, 'Dave, I can’t see anything, I have to pull off and put my sunglasses on.'

“He said, ‘You know what time we’re in?’ And I said, 'Oh my God, I’m experiencing it, we’re in Snow-blinding Time!' ”

The Mi'kmaw Moons project has turned out to be a great success. LeBlanc and Chapman have held many presentations for groups such as the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, schools and the Minas Astronomy Group.

The work has gained international recognition as well. The pair submitted a paper on the project for the respected Griffith Observer Magazine, which is produced by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. The essay won second prize and will be published in the Observer in November, Chapman said. 

crescent moon and jupiter at kejimkujik on aug. 5, 2016. - john mcphee

LeBlanc admits she didn’t spend a lot of time looking at the sky before she became involved in the project.

“I’ve learned to look up and appreciate all the things above me,” she said.

And it's reinforced those important connections with her culture, ancestry and the natural world. 

“The moon in our culture is our grandmother — so we have Mother Earth and Grandmother Moon. ... My ancestors would have been looking up and lying on the ground perhaps around the fires and wigwams and telling stories. I’d like to think there was this anticipation, this excitement about what was to come."

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