Well, like one of my managers once said to a co-worker, “this is Abby’s world, we just live in it.” So, I’m going to write, once a week, about being a journalism student trying to make it in the big, bad and cynical world of journalism, while maintaining her sanity, kind-of.

This is my blog, you’re just reading it.

In the previous post from 10 thousand blog-years-ago, I wrote about collecting gurus. These are basically people you talk journalism with, and they expel journo-wisdom onto you. Well, I’m dragging one of my guru’s viewpoints into the open to be lightly flogged and heavily contemplated: journalism is not going anywhere, there’s just no money in it.

Now, I entered j-school in 2008, which was during a time when newspapers all across Canada and America, or I should say more in America than Canada, were cutting back or flat-out shutting down, which is still prevalent today. The effects of the recession on the news industry was rampant and seriously bleak, but quite frankly I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hear it, and I still don’t.

If you were to walk into one of my first classes in 2008, you’d see me and 15 other j-school wannabes, watching a man pace back and forth at the front of the class, fiddling with a dry pen, untucking his shirt from his faded jeans and speaking fluently about the journalism industry and how screwed it was, but in an upbeat fashion. He was convinced, and still is, that journalism is doing well, despite the fact that many journalists are out of a job or creating a sort of piecemeal career.

Now, I don’t know what j-school teachers told their students about the j-industry pre-recession, but I heard three messages loud and clear. First, people are getting fired and no one is getting hired, secondly, newspapers are being shut down faster than binners collect bottles from outside my window and thirdly, you have to be good, no better than good, you have to be Super-Journo. You have to interview, write, cut audio, make movies, market yourself, program, blog, research every little story until you’re a Phd on the subject, and don’t even think about making a spelling or grammar mistake, and do this in 30 minutes. This is what a journalist must be today. If you can’t do it, a robot journalist will take your job.

To be eloquent, I was pissed. I had just committed to four years of my life studying journalism and all I was hearing was that I shouldn’t have bothered filling out the application form.

I figured it was just my teacher nicing out and over exaggerating, but I soon found that this sentiment was not exclusive. Speakers from various publications came to talk to us about what they do, only to hear how depressingly demanding and under-appreciated the profession had become. I stopped going to these presentations.

Today, I’m in fourth year and one of my classes is focused on the economics surrounding media, and once again the philosophy that journalism is doing amazing, but the industry is broke has resurfaced.

As much as I’d like to be as virtuous as the next guy, and how awesome-cool it would be to work for a really radical and underground publication that doesn’t care about money, or the “man”. Fact is, I live in an expensive city, I have bills to pay, I like food and I like the odd jaunt down to Seattle. Maybe I’m thinking like an accountants daughter, which I am, but I can’t imagine people who know they are the best in the biz, sticking around when they could be putting their skills into something that will actually feed their children. Furthermore, what about the future messiah’s of journalism? Those people who could have been the Jesus’s of journalism, but decided to go into teaching because it’s “stable”.

So, I present this question to you, as I presented it to the class, how can journalism not suffer when the finances aren’t there?

It’s hard to really have an opinion from my university chair, but outside of the classroom the debate ensues on blogs like Reflections of a Newsosaur, and solutions considered in publications like Columbia Journalism School’s The Story So Far: What We Know About Digital Journalism. No one knows what to do or what’s really happening to classic reportage. Journalism is in an evolutionary phase and no one knows if it’s going ape.

But here’s the thing, I look around at the five peers I have left in my fourth year class, and I think of the few that left after receiving their two-year diploma, and I don’t think there is one person who took journalism seriously who hasn’t made some money as a journalist. Whether it’s writing for a sports blog, or shooting for a community newspaper, writing for radio, or slaying terrible bands in the Georgia Straight, everyone has had real work as a journalist. One student even has an internship at msnbc in New York.

I realize now that my guru-teacher-man didn’t tell us about the apocalypse hitting the newspaper industry so we would drop out, instead he opened the Sunday morning curtains on us so we would wake up and get industrious. In essence, he’s the parent telling his teenage kids not to drink, and we’re the spiteful teenagers who not only got wasted, but made their own fake ID’s and stole the tequilla out of his liquor cabinet.

Should I be thanking him? Maybe when I get a proper journo-job, if they exist in a year.

So, you’re probably wondering what the hell has prompted me to get back on the blog bandwagon (which may just be a guest appearance). You’re probably thinking “thank God…I’ve been waiting so long.” I know, I know and I’m sorry. What has brought me back from the blog-abyss is a deep and self-indulgent desire to reflect publicly on some of the things I’ve learned about journalism in the past while. The reason why I need to do this is because right now I’m interning at CBC, and have moments have shear panic, and stupidity. I swear that my confidence will go on regular smoke breaks. Many of my teachers will say this a common theme with me, and they would be totally correct. The problem with having moments such as these is that I completely forget all those simple fundamental rules of journalism and get lost in the pressure to perform. In other words, I have total performance anxiety. I’m glad I was born a woman.

Now, I know that I’ve just painted a picture of myself that makes me look like a frightened little girl that rocks under her desk and avoids the world, but I’m not. Some words of wisdom I would give that poor Google searcher who was looking for words from a wiseman is find a way. There is always a way, so find it.

So, like I said, this is a reflection on some of the things I’ve learned, and in all honesty I’m writing this all out to remind myself. So come with me down my path of self-indulgence.

Learn grammar, punctuation and spelling

I’m terrible at grammar and punctuation, but I can spell. Learn how to use a comma and apostrophe, then come up with a genius way of teaching me, because honestly fucking up on such minute details is embarrassing. The worst is that as a journalism student and occasional real-reporter, everyone you meet will be like “my grammar is fucking amazing…what happened to you?” If you feel that this is unfixable, than do your future children a favour and tell that grade 12 English teacher that “she’ll figure it out in university” is not an acceptable answer.

Know thy story

One of my teachers has always said that my biggest problem is that I don’t get to know the story I’m doing well enough. He’d say “you don’t know the story.” I really didn’t understand what the hell he meant by that. Then, one miraculous day (emphasis on the miracle), I wrote a story I totally understood, and it was pretty decent. My teacher, Mark Hamilton, was actually genuinely proud, I think. And then he said “your right, you’re a slow learner, but when you get it, you get it.” Not to make him look like a jerk, I actually am a slow learner. I could’ve easily continued through elementary school being illiterate if it wasn’t for a teacher who decided to take me under her wing. Thank you teacher. Anyways, when you get a story think about every detail you could possible need to know if you were kidnapped by a group of psychotic, tweeted-out editors who would only release you when they felt satisfied with your responses.

Collect Gurus

This is more of a piece of advice than a reminder. I have many, and for some odd reason they are mostly male. I think I should figure that out. Talk to these gurus, and ask how they do it. Absorb their words, make them draw diagrams, ask why they do things a certain way, ask why they don’t do things a certain way. I’m often that annoying person who asks stupid questions…loudly. I am aware that it makes me look like an idiot, but it is better than being an idiot who didn’t ask. Besides, there is always, always, some chicken-shit in the room who doesn’t know the answer either. Collect gurus and then maintain a relationship. Drop a line, tweet, email, whatever, but stay in touch.  These people are the best people in the world, I promise you. You may think that they don’t want to be bothered by you, but remember a fundamental thing about that we’ve all learned in journalism: unless your Strauss-Kahn everyone wants to talk about them self.

Relax

I’ve done two internships in daily news and been an editor of my university paper. I think I’ve learned a thing or two about pressure and what it does on the brain. I sometimes think of my brain as an etch-a-sketch. I may be writing the most mind-blowing, earth-shattering, superhuman-genius thing you have ever read, and then someone says “hey can you do this story on this dog for like an hour from now?” And I’ll be like “you just shook up my etch-a-sketch. Now I’m totally blank. Thanks.” It’s pressure. It fucks up everything. if you let it get to you, as I often do, that simple dog story will take to long and be a pile of crap that needs to be completely re-written. So I try to console myself with this thought. “I’m young and I’m new. Plus, there is always that guy who’s been doing this for 30-years and nobody knows how he has a job.” Just remember that.

The 5 W’s

Don’t forget to ask who, what, where, when, why. Seriously.

How to find stories

I was so relieved to hear people talking about how to find story ideas, because it is tough. This is what I know: Go for a walk, look at posters, ask clerks questions, troll twitter (although, I think it is a little overrated). Just don’t do the same thing day-in and day-out, because that’s totally uninspiring. That’s just good life advice, I think.

Pitching

Fucked if I know, but this is what I’ve been told: seem excited about the story, do some of the research, know who you’re going to talk to(ish), and start with “so there’s this guy.” The thing I haven’t figure out yet is how to do this all before an early morning news meeting.

Cliches

Weather stories are the hardest stories to avoid cliches. No doubt.

That’s all I can say for tonight. I think this list will continue though. Thanks for going down my yellow-brick road.

The $117-million program does not just support the Alex Bilodeaus and Maelle Rickers, it also funds such Olympic athletes as Bruno Yizek, a two-time silver medalist in wheelchair curling, and Brian McKeever, a seven-time medalist in para-nordic skiing, but to a smaller degree.

Olympic athletes received $70 million, over four years, in funding for coaches, sports science and medicine and national team athletes. Paralympic athletes got a much smaller piece of the pie, with just over $10 million.

Gerry Peckham, director of high performance athletes with the Canadian Curling Association, said that the reason for the difference in funding is that there are far fewer Paralympic athletes. He also said that the program met all the athletes’ needs.

“Until Own the Podium came around, our Paralympic program would have been under-funded, for sure,” said Peckham. “Since their arrival on the scene, we’ve been able to run, in my opinion, a first-class program for able-bodied and Paralympic athletes.”

Peckham’s only concern about the program is whether the funding would continue after 2010, a question partly answered by the March 4 federal budget. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that the federal government will give $22 million a year to winter sports through the Own the Podium program.

“It’s kind of up in the air because that great money-making machine VANOC had the ability to attract sponsorship for the 2010 efforts. Without that vehicle still in place, the question is where the other half of the funds would come from,” said Peckham.

Before the program began, athletes received much less funding and had to rely on sponsors and family for support.

According to Own the Podium, for the 2006 Torino Olympics athletes had received $19 million, and for the 2010 Olympics, they received just under $98 million.

Rob Needham, the director of high performance athletes with the Canadian Paralympic Committee, shares Peckham’s sentiments, and said that the funding has given Paralympic athletes more opportunity to compete internationally and to train together.

Needham would like to see the same level of funding in the future. He said he believes that the athletes’ performance at these Games will show Canadians how important the program is so it will be carried on in the future.

“One of the priorities on the Paralympics side is developing a true national program that’s from playground to podium, so people with disabilities can become active and take up sport for the physical, social and emotional benefits,” said Needham.

That was four years ago. Hastings is about to walk into another group of strangers as she prepares to graduate and enter the real-world work force.

“I’m not exactly hopeful. Especially not in Vancouver,” said Hastings. “We’ve just been told that it’s just really tight right now and not a lot of people are hiring.”

Four years ago when Hastings started the bachelor in graphic design for marketing program, the job market for the young was significantly different.

Statistics Canada reported that the unemployment rate for 15- to 24-years-olds in 2006 was at a low of 11.6 per cent.

Hastings faces a much different job market, with the unemployment rate at 16.1 per cent as of December.
This has Hastings feeling a little trepidation, and she admits that she is already prepping herself for failure.

Ken Hughes, the coordinator of the design for marketing program, is also facing the challenge of training students for jobs that may not be available.

“I’m sure they are very nervous. I don’t think they would claim to be super-confident,” said Hughes. “I think that they are aware, which is good, of the challenges.”
Hughes believes that it is important to be honest with students about the job market for designers.

The slump in the economy hasn’t just hit the design sector; most professions are feeling some sort of crunch.

Bruce Weir, an instructor in the school of business at Kwantlen, didn’t have the same air of concern as Hughes, but did said things have been shaky for students in the past year.

According to Weir, things are starting to look up for business students, but he isn’t popping the champagne yet. Instead, he said he’s watching the industry with “guarded optimism.”

Sarah Davies is graduating this year with a BBA in entrepreneurial leadership. She is already working part-time at HVAC Systems and Solutions, doing marketing and event planning. She feels sure that she’ll stay with the company after graduation.

She landed the job through the co-op program at Kwantlen, which works with students on job search skills, such as writing resumes and preparing for interviews. They also keep students updated on available jobs.

Davies didn’t feel the same level of concern about job prospects as Hasting’s does, but she did notice that the there were a lot of people, students and or not, vying for every position she tried for.

After applying for 13 positions and sitting through six interviews, Davies finally found her job and firmly believes that perseverance will win in the job race.

“I think a big part of it is the student themselves,” said Davies. “You have to make the effort; it’s not going to just fall in your lap.”
All hope isn’t lost for students in the design field.

Kate Allen graduated from the interior design program last April and found work fairly quickly through networking at design events.

“I think what made me get a job over other people was my flexibility and my willingness to look into other areas that I didn’t necessarily see myself doing,” said Allen.

Allen saw herself going into commercial design with a large firm after graduation. When the opportunity to work at a smaller firm came up, she jumped at it.

She’s happy she didn’t go the commercial route and said that working with a smaller firm is giving her more hands-on experience.

“I think you can really benefit from remembering that you might not start where you wanted to, but you may not end up where you wanted to either. That can be a really good thing,” Allen said. “The five-year plan doesn’t always work.”

UBC professor Barbara Mitchell says young people still want to get married even though divorce rate is high.

In a 1979 article in the Globe and Mail called “Did the family unit become the casualty of the seventies?” a bleak picture of what divorce had done to society was painted.

“There were runaway wives and mothers; children were kidnapped by divorced parents who didn’t have custody; middle-aged men going through what psychologists termed the male menopause walked out on their wives of 20 or more years and took up with much younger women,” said the article, which later on described children of divorced parents as “latch-key kids” because they lived in high rise apartment buildings without parents waiting for them after school.

Barbara Mitchell, a sociology professor at UBC feels that the image of divorced families in the past wasn’t fair.

“A lot of these children were regarded as different. I think there was this stereotype that divorce would lead to all kinds of problems with children and family dysfunction, and kids would grow up to be delinquent criminals and have a lot of these psychological problems,” said Mitchell, who has studied family relations for 20 years.

Thirty years after the Globe and Mail article was written, being a kid of divorce is just being a part of the club to many.

Erica Bauer was 15 when her parents split up, but to her, she was joining most of her friends who had already been through a family break-up.

“When I was in elementary school, most of my friends’ parents were getting divorced then and I was one of the only people who had parents together,” said Bauer, now 23 and living with her boyfriend. “When they ended up getting divorced, I was just like everybody else.”

According to StatsCan, divorce hit its peak in 1987, around the time many generation X’ers were kids and Y’s were being born. In that year, said StatsCan, there were 96,200 divorces, mainly because the laws for divorce were softened in 1985, when the divorce act was revised and anyone was allowed a divorce as long as they could prove they had lived apart for one year.

Divorce became an everyday occurrence, and with that the opportunity arose for generation X and Y to do what other generations couldn’t: break with tradition.

Instead of going from dating to marriage, many people started taking a middle-step by living together in a common-law relationship before marrying or choosing not to marry at all.

In 1991, according to StatsCan, there were 719,000 common-law couples in Canada, and in 2006 the number has nearly doubled to 1,377,000.

“I don’t think that the institution of marriage is going away and the ideal of wanting to marry somebody for a lifetime, you know till death do us part … I think most young people still ideally want that,” said Mitchell, who sees co-habitating before marriage and common-law relationships as the way of the future.

With the added step before getting married, the average age of marriage has gone from 24 for women and 27 for men in 1968, to 32 for women and 34 for men reports StatsCan.

Colin Macdougall, 25, can’t envision himself getting married, but doesn’t write it off. Macdougall was 17 when his parents divorced, something he says affects the way he thinks about marriage and relationships.

“I think it is probably right for some people, but I think it’s a little different in this day and age to get married,” said Macdougall.  “People have different values and I think people are beginning to understand that they don’t need to be in marriages as much anymore.”

The cautious attitude towards marriage that generation X and Y have is a far cry from those of their parents, but Mitchell sees it as a good thing and believes it’s the reason for a drop in divorce rates.

In 2005 there were were 71,000 divorces said StatsCan.

Mitchell admits though that even with all the precautions, marital instability is a common trait among those from divorced parents.

Charlotte Stokes was quarantined for five days in Australia.

When Charlotte Stokes boarded the plane to go from Vancouver to Australia in August, she was amused by the people who wore masks to protect themselves from catching the H1N1 virus. It hadn’t occurred to her at that time that they were protecting themselves from her.
“I walked into the plane and there were all these people wearing masks, and I thought to myself what stupid over-reacting people,” said Stokes.
Stokes was going to Sydney to be a bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding. Two days after she arrived, she was quarantined in her mother’s house because she was suspected of carrying the H1N1 virus.
When the plane landed, Stokes was fatigued and achy, but assumed it was just the effects of a 20-hour flight, so she went to meet the bridal party for a dress fitting.
Soon after, the symptoms started getting worse.
“I saw all the bridal party and then the next morning I felt really sick, it felt like I had taken an aspirin on an empty stomach,” said Stokes.
She went to a clinic and told them that she had just arrived back from North America and they automatically assumed she had the H1N1 virus. Because test results would take about a week to process, she was quarantined at her mother’s house.
“Immediately if they thought you had the swine flu you weren’t allowed to leave the house for five days,” said Stokes, “so I went all the way to Australia to sit at home for five days.”
At first she did not believe she had the H1N1 virus because she didn’t have all the usual symptoms.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the symptoms of H1N1 are those of any other flu: fever, aches and pains, sore throat, coughing, diarrhoea and headaches.
Stokes says she did not experience the cold-like symptoms like coughing and a sore throat, but certainly felt the other flu symptoms such as alternating chills and fever. She says she felt as if she was hung over from dehydration and had an intensely high fever.
To Stokes, who usually combated the flu by resting for a day and then heading back to work, the H1N1 virus was like the flu on steroids.
“I seriously have never felt so sick in my life,” she said. “I could not have left the house even if I wanted to. I couldn’t even get up to get a glass of water without a huge amount of effort.”
WHO makes clear that those with underlying health issues and weakened immune systems are the most vulnerable to H1N1 and will have more severe symptoms than the average healthy person who catches the virus.
“I could see how if you already were really sick how this could put you over the edge,” said Stokes.
After the five days of quarantine, Stokes had another check up and was given a clean bill of health.  She found out a few days later that it was the H1N1 virus that had made her so sick.
None of the people in the wedding party contracted the virus and Stokes was able to be a part of the wedding, although she did have to deal with the stigma of being the “swine-flu girl.”

For the 20 year old musician, this is his first encounter with the media, but certainly won’t be his last as he, and his band Grey Leather Boots, prepare to sign with Vancouver’s 604 Records.

Though he is new to the music industry, Kieran has a clear direction of where he wants his career to go.

“I think there is a lot of the same crap out there on the radio and there’s not a lot of good pop bands,”  Kieran says, “I’m shooting for pop in the sense of what the Beatles were called pop, where they could do what they want.”

Kieran’s band, Grey Leather Boots, have only been together since last October, but in a few short months they have attracted much attention from record labels. 

At one point they even had three management companies vying for them, including the fore-mentioned 604 Records, which is known for its co-creator Chad Kroeger of Nickleback.

Jonathon Simkin’s of Simkin’s Artist Management and  Kroeger’s partner at 604 Records, was attracted to Grey Leather Boots because of their strong sense of melodies, saying “it [the music] is melodic, but in an unusual kind of way.”

Simkin was impressed by the calibre of the demo tape passed onto him and believes that Grey Leather Boots and Kieran have a lot of potential.

“God knows what he is capable with a little guidance,” Simkin says.

Back in Kieran’s basement, which doubles as ground zero for band practice and instruments are sandwiched between a pool table, a couch and a treadmill.

The band consists of members Cameron Gray on guitar, Martin Leather on bass, Graham Boots on drums.

Hence the name Grey Leather Boots.

Though his name isn’t included in the bands title, Kieran plays an essential part in the band on lead vocals and guitar.

Kieran is tall and lean with short dark hair, a goatee and angular features.

He is young, but there is something steadfast and relaxed about him.

When talking about music he is emphatic, and his bright blue eyes crease when he smiles, giving away his excitement.

Kieran was born and raised in South Surrey, and although he is not native, he spent the first six years of his life in a small house on the Semiahmoo Native Reserve.

After the lease on the house was raised, the family moved to a more accommodating house off the Reserve and in the country.

Kieran is the second youngest of five siblings, including three sisters and on older brother, Blair.

In the Mercer family it’s clear that the girls got the science bug, and the boys got the music.

The sisters are involved in nursing, kinesiology and teaching, while both the boys are in bands.

Like many younger siblings, Kieran wanted to do everything that his brother did, so when Blair took up violin, Kieran did as well.

When Blair took up guitar, so did Kieran.

This resulted in him being able to play all the instruments in the band, which Kieran finds handy when writing music.

“It’s a lot easier for a song writer to be able to have a complete understanding of all the instruments,” he says.

Though, he does admit that there is a down side to the skill saying, “that’s also a bad thing for a band mate, because your drummer is doing one thing and you think ‘I want to do it like this,’ but that’s his niche over there so you don’t want to touch it.”

The band collaborates well together and Kieran is more then happy to have people to sound off ideas with.

“It’s better to have two heads working on it, and pass things through like is this cool or not? The assurance stuff is good,” he says.

Ultimately, Kieran credits his father, Bill, for influencing his love of music.

Records covers replace wallpaper in Bill’s office, and as far back as Kieran can remember his Dad has “cranked vinyl” all the time.

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson have also been major influences in Kieran’s music, but for two different reasons.

“Paul McCartney, mainly for song writing abilities. There is no way I could write a Michael Jackson song, but I just like the way he portrays himself on stage,” Kieran admits.

He also has a love for the songs of some of todays pop icons such as Britney Spears.

“I like Britney Spears, a lot of guys dismiss pop music, like Justin Timberlake and Britney, but there are a lot of guys that deep down inside want to dance to it. But it’s just considered ‘no you can’t do that.’ When you break it down to the core they are actually good songs.”

Though his Dad, Paul, Michael and Britney all have been influences, Kieran knew he wanted to be a musician after watching the movie That Thing You Do, with Tom Hanks.

The movie was about a 60s garage band called The Wonders who became an overnight sensation with one hit.

“It made it look pretty cool,” Kieran says.

Though The Wonders were one hit wonders, Kieran is determined to be more.

Local success is not enough for him and he already seperates himself from the rest.

He knows that at his young age, and with the attention his band already has, success will come.

“I just think ‘why would I be doing something I don’t want to do?’ When I want to do music,” he says.

Kieran is realistic about the music business and knows that just wanting to do music is not necessarily enough.

“That [only doing music] also is a dangerous thing to for people. Maybe their music isn’t any good and they’re wasting their time, they’ll be 27 one day or 30, and their chance has passed.”

One thing that may separate Kieran and Grey Leather Boots from the rest is Kieran’s ability to self- promote.

Facebook and Myspace has been Kieran’s main tools for promotion, but he also claims to have “bugged a record label guy” for a year until he came to a show.

Mom, Lisa, is supportive of her son’s determination to succeed and thinks he will.

Sitting at her kitchen table, sipping on a cup of green tea, Lisa is calm and laid back.

She has the same steadfastness that Kieran has and is realistic about her son’s efforts, even though she is certain good things lie ahead for him.

“He’s pursuing what he wants to do and is self-promoting, so you know he’s not just sitting back and waiting. I think it’s been paying off.”

 Lisa feels that her son’s determination and talent will lead him to success.

“He does write his own music and lyrics, which not everybody does, and he keeps working over and over on them again, he’s persistent about it.”

Although Lisa supportive of Kieran’s efforts, if things were a little different she may not be so enthusiastic about it.

“It’s his time in life to be doing this. If he had four little kids I wouldn’t be to thrilled,” she says with a laugh.

With a record contract in the works, Kieran is now more then ever wanting to polish his and the bands sound by working on harmony.

“It takes a band up a whole other step if they harmonize,” Kieran says.

At the moment,  Kieran is really pleased with what has happened this far in his career.

With only having a band for a short while and playing just a few local venues, Kieran and Grey Leather Boots have done something that bands work for years to achieve.  

“It doesn’t make any sense that we’re getting this amount of attention from a record label and management when we’ve only been a band for six months,” Kieran says.

“So far things are going pretty good.”

Click the link to check out Kieran’s music Kieran’s music