A discarded Voice newspaper. Photo by Kyla Jonas.
Although journalism school prepares most students for their first job, likely a small-town community newspaper where the big news is a new hockey arena or a bake sale, for the most part the stories are only interesting if you actually attend the school. Since September I’ve written stories about Langara’s new sports logo, proposed installation of security cameras and a water filtration system in the cafeteria. Not exactly your “hard news”.
And then, two weeks ago a student walked into the newsroom claiming that he and two other candidates had been disqualified from the Langara Students’ Union elections, but that the union couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell them why. The story developed over the course of the week and was published today in the student newspaper. Here is the web version of that story, including a five-minute podcast of the union media liaison, Eli Zbar, who can be heard telling disqualified student Damien Otis:
You offend me to my very core, you pathetic slime… I can see your eyes turning brown, you’re so full of shit.
Well, this morning the controversy went a step farther, when the journalism department got wind that a member of the union was going about stealing newspapers and throwing them in the garbage to hide the story from students. Over 30 enraged journalism students, who had worked hard putting that newspaper together the night before, began the task of hunting down the perpetrators.
Here is the result of that effort.
It’s not deepthroat, but it’s certainly a little bit of drama in our otherwise small-town newspaper.
Al Aghbar? Is the Al shortened? Isn’t this like naming your kid Seeg Hile?
I think that perhaps there should be a hyphen there.
It may be Arabic, but I’m not certain.
Adrian – good catch on that story. But small town newspapers are much more exciting than they seem. After all, you will generally know the participants, and be very aware of the effect of events on the community.
Many years ago, a cousin and her friend decided to do their teaching practicum in our small town (they were from Vancouver). Said practicum went well, but there was serious culture shock, beginning with finding themselves walking with their students to the local elementary school where the teachers not only knew cousin’s uncle (who was also a teacher), but had also taught my generation. ‘Manditory’ attendance at the local high school concert, awards, and graduation followed; not to mention the friendly interest of the local merchants (…and you are ….’s niece – how nice). They weren’t converted to small town living, but admitted it was an interesting change, almost a different culture.
Hey, I’m actually looking forward to the experience. First I have to actually land the job though.