Turkey diary: Looking beyond the stereotypes

Photo: Turkey's founding father Atatürk's face is prominently displayed all over Turkey.

By Jasmeet Sidhu

On the third or fourth day of our journey here in Turkey, four of us met with reporters and the editors of Hürriyet newspaper, one of Turkey's largest circulating English-language papers. 

Having worked at the Toronto Star, I was very interested to learn about the inner-workings of a newspaper in Turkey. The offices are fairly modest, located in a several-story building outside downtown Istanbul, with a few tables and computers lined up in a ceiling-to-floor tiled room. Much to my surprise, the editor-in-chief of one of the Hürriyet's sub-papers, the Daily News & Economic Review, was actually an American ex-pat by the name of David Judson, who, having now lived in Turkey for several years, was fluent in Turkish.

In a conversation over Turkish tea and coffee (which is constantly offered to us everywhere we go, in line with the famous hospitality that the Turkish are known for), Judson greeted our questions with the knowledge of someone who has been both an outsider and arguably an insider, identifying the way that we, and many other outsiders, tend to look at Turkey. 

He described Turkey, particularly in the international news media, being trapped into "five narratives" - Honour killings, the Armenian genocide, the Kurdish issue, Secular Islam, and EU membership. It was certainly enlightening to hear this framing and pigeonholing of the country into these five issues, because they were indeed, the five issues that my classmates and I in the Peace and Conflict studies program had approached and around which designed our research trip here in Turkey.

It made me think about how we in the media may tend to pigeonhole or frame certain issues, a city, an event in Toronto along the same narratives that don't necessarily provide originality, creativity and a fresh angle to a story. Existing narratives are easy to fall back on, are easy for audiences to absorb and make sense in everyone's current framing of the world - yet we all do ourselves a disservice by not pushing the button to see the hundreds of other stories that could be told. 

   Photo: Meeting with a LGBTQ organization in Istanbul.

For example, in our meetings, both with the LGBTQ organization that we met in Istanbul, and with the Canadian embassy in Ankara, gay and lesbian rights issues were brought up, and the seriousness of abuse cases that may be occurring amongst Turkish citizens, especially with regards to the mandatory service in Turkey's military. There is also the story of Turkey's rising economic force, and from what we heard from academics and others, of Turkey's strong desire to be included in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as a rising economic power, rather than simply a strategic regional power that dominates many American news stories about the country. As well, often overlooked in discussions but that permeated every discussion we had in Turkey, was the idea that everyone is a minority - there is a deep sense amongst many in the country that they are not necessarily represented, tied to certain long historical memories of who has power and ownership over this storied land.

There were many, many other stories that emanated during our meetings and during our interactions with the Turkish people that I hope to be able to communicate to my fellow Canadians one way or the other, through this blog or through other means. But perhaps one of the biggest lessons that I will take away from this trip: to be consciously aware of how a certain country, person, event, issue is framed, and to be always aware that there is always another story to be told.

Jasmeet Sidhu is a graduate of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. She worked for the Star in the radio room last summer, and writes a blog for the Star on climate change, where she covered the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. In mid-June she will join the Star's summer intern program. Follow Jasmeet on Twitter.

Should reporters be allowed to protect whistleblowers?

By Fabiola Carletti

The Supreme Court has ruled that the media cannot guarantee unconditional anonymity to sources.

The decision was nine years in the making and at its heart were the contents of a brown envelope and a tenacious journalist who refused to hand it over.

In 2001, Andrew McIntosh of the National Post received a package. It contained information about prime minister Jean Chrétien and his alleged involvement a controversy that came to be known as “shawinigate.” 

Police suspected forgery and wanted to include the reporter’s documents in their investigation. McIntosh refused, choosing to protect his source. 

In the court battle that ensued, both his newspaper and the police claimed that the public interest was in their corner. 

The situation raised the question: who speaks for the good of the people?

Friday’s near unanimous Supreme Court ruling means that journalists cannot, unconditionally, say that they do.

"The public has an interest in effective law enforcement," wrote Justice Ian Binnie. "The public also has an interest in being informed about matters of public importance that may only see the light of day through the co-operation of sources who will not speak except on condition of confidentiality."

Importantly, the judges acknowledged some of the great work investigative reporters have done. Still, instead of assigning immunity to the media -- which they noted now includes a much broader range of bloggers, tweeters, etc. -- the judges ruled that journalistic privilege should be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Some reporters say the decision is a de facto loss, others see it as a potential gain. Personally, I think the ruling is nuanced. 

Yes, the Supreme Court decided not to grant the media blanket immunity.

Yes, the onus is on individual journalists and media organizations to demonstrate that protecting
confidentiality is, in their situation, more beneficial to society than police access to their secret sources.

Yes, this opposes the view that the onus should be on the police to prove that they really need the information, especially since whistleblowers often have so much to lose.

… however, the Supreme Court judges did not assert that police investigations should always trump the
 protection of sources. They also formally acknowledged the importance of the reporter-informant relationship in matters that affect citizens.

Wrote Binnie: “The law should and does accept that in some situations the public interest in protecting the secret source from disclosure outweighs other competing public interests — including criminal investigations.”

Maybe it’s because I’m not a fan of absolutes -- though I don’t say this absolutely -- but I think judicial discretion based on the situation isn’t necessarily bad or good. It is, however, a new challenge.

The challenge is for journalists to explain why specific instances of confidentiality are in the public interest, and this means we have to be introspective, genuine, and convincing. We can't offer anonymity to reluctant sources as a first resort. 

Don't get me wrong: we must do everything we can to adamantly protect our informants, but since we cannot make them iron-clad promises, we have to make good notes, thoughtful arguments and closely watch our own decisions as watchdogs. 

In short: we must be ready to make our case.  

Fabiola Carletti is a Toronto Star radio room reporter and graduate student at the UBC School of Journalism. She recently graduated summa cum laude from York University, having earned an honours double major in Professional Writing and Communication Studies. Her digital footprints are all over the internet, but you can learn more about her by reading her blog, or chasing her around on twitter.

Photo: The statue representing truth ("veritas") in front of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. 

Turkey diary: Starbucks, spice vendors and ancient mosques

By Jasmeet Sidhu

It's been about two weeks since I left Toronto for my month-long Turkey adventure, and believe it or not, I've only now been able to sit myself down at an internet cafe.

I've spent the first two weeks here in Turkey with my classmates and professor from the Peace and Conflict Studies program at the University of Toronto, traveling to Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir in the east, meeting with members of NGOs, the Turkish government and other interesting personalities and figures that make up the very complex and intriguing landscape of this fascinating country. (See previous post here)

Before coming to Turkey, I didn't know what to expect. I had heard the cliches of the country, of it being both "modern" and "oriental", of the East blending with the West, but I had no idea how this would actually come to play in the day-to-day lives of the Turkish and in major metropolitan cities such as Istanbul and Ankara. And indeed, Turkey is a country nothing quite like I've ever experienced before.

Jam-packed streetcars hurry past thousand-year-old mosques, fruit and spice vendors sell their products along side a Starbucks, and the call to prayer blasts frequently from the many mosques in the city while residents enjoy a beer, Turkish tea or cigarettes in its wake after a hard day's work. Indeed, as one representative from a gay and lesbian rights activist group whom we met with commented, it's even hard for him to characterize what exactly Turkey is, even after living in the country for 20 years.

But perhaps, that is the beauty of the country itself. Having existed geographically on the traditional divide between the so-called Eastern and Western worlds, the country seems to be navigating itself to move beyond such dichotomous characterizations of its culture, its people, its way of life. Perhaps one can be "modern" and "traditional". Perhaps such labels are archaic and ethnocentric, and Turkey is leading a new path that transcends any one or thing that tries to label it.

One thing is for sure. This country has drawn me in, as I'm sure it has done before with the millions who have trekked through this land before. And I can't wait to find out more.

Jasmeet Sidhu is a graduate of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. She previously worked for the Star in the radio room last summer, and writes a blog for the Star on climate change, where she covered the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. In mid-June she will join the Star's summer intern program. Follow Jasmeet on Twitter.

Photo: Jasmeet Sidhu in front of the Aya Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

And Ceiling Cat said … Let there be LOLz!

ROFLcon 2010 brings international web celebs to M.I.T. - Toronto blogger Lauren O'Neil was there.

• Guest post

By Lauren O'Neil

On Saturday night, I partied with the Internet in Boston. And then I ate it.

Much like the rest of my weekend, it was incredibly delicious and incredibly nerdy. Literally. It was vanilla ice cream with Nerds candy mixed in.

Nomming, an “Internet” flavoured ice cream cone, was amongst Internet superstars at the Massachusetts Internet of Technology. Er… Institute. I mean Institute. It was the perfect end to one heck of a road trip to Boston for ROFLcon 2010 - the second installment of the most epic internet culture conference ever assembled.

As the inclusion of the word “epic” in that sentence suggests, this was not just any internet culture conference. ROFLcon is THE internet culture conference.

Taking place for the first time in April 2008, the original ROFLcon brought more than 500 people (including 48 of the most notorious internet celebrities ever) together IRL for the purpose of discussing internet memes and the state of our beloved world wide webiverse.

The event was a major win all the way around, which is likely why organizers Tim Hwang and Christina Xu decided to do it all over again this year, hosting ROFLcon II at M.I.T. in Cambridge, MA on April 30 and May 1. The entire conference was straight up awesome in this humble blogger’s opinion.

I’m talking 950 of the world’s most dedicated producers and consumers of web hilarity hanging out together in meatspace for a whole weekend at one of the nation’s leading academic institutions. How could it be anything but?

An audience member at the keynote address put it well by posting a message to the real-time comment projection system on display at the front of the room that read “oh s..., the whole internet’s here.” With a few notable exceptions (I can haz Old Gregg ? Epic Beard man? LITTLE SUPERSTAR?!?) said
commentator was pretty much right.

Looking around the room, I realized that I was facing a veritable who’s who of the meme-o-verse.

 Uber-geeky internet kids like me were rubbing elbows with the creators of viral sensations like keyboard cat and texts from last night, big time academics, successful authors and bona fide digital super stars.

As is stated on the conference website, it was pretty much the most important gathering of humanity since the fall of the tower of Babel.

With people like icanhazcheezburger’s Ben Huh, I kiss you's Mahir Cagri, Picnicface’s Mark Little, and more than 50 other internet celebs in attendance, it can go without saying that mad LOLz were had in Cambridge.

But ROFLcon was more than just a “giant dorkfest” (as one of my “friends” so irritatingly put it.)

While there were plenty of shenanigans and random acts of awesomeness free waffles, ftw!) the amount of intelligent discourse surrounding digital community, memetic creativity, internet celebrity and the burgeoning attention economy surpassed even my greatest of nerdy expectations. Maybe the internet = serious business after all?

The conference kicked off at 1 p.m. on Friday with a keynote on “The Future of the World Weird Web” by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society’s Ethan Zuckerman and Microsoft Researcher (and Berkman fellow) danah boyd.

Zuckerman spoke about digital divides, the concept of multiple internets and the potential for internet memes to bring separate cultures together from across the globe.

“It is of enormous geopolitical significance and importance that we build memes that Chinese people laugh at and vice versa,” he said. “It’s absolutely critical that we look for ways we’re all laughing at the same things. That’s where culture comes from. Shared reference and shared beliefs.”

Boyd’s talk touched on everything from marketers commercializing internet subcultures to a shift from the age of system hacking to an age of attention hacking.

“For most teens that I interview, things are so mainstream. They consume memes but they don’t think much of it. There are no hackers anymore, basically,” she said. “But there’s a similar mindset in social hacking. It’s no longer about hacking computers; it’s about hacking the attention economy.”

An established and highly regarded social media researcher, boyd also spoke about the implications of an internet originally dominated by “geeks, freaks and queers” becoming mainstream – a theme that was pervasive throughout almost all of the conference’s panels and sessions.

"What we have to ask is, what do we lose in this process? What are the economic possibilities of this? How much of the decisions we make are about becoming part of the mainstream and getting validated?”

Boyd’s questions weren’t the only ones raised. As enlightening and inspiring as ROFLcon was, I left Boston with more new questions than answers.

Is the web really going “mainstream”? And if so, is this a good thing or bad thing? If our parents, bosses, and the cool kids from high school invade our online subcultures, where will we - the freaks, geeks and weirdos - hang out?

What are the implications of a more commercialized web? What is selling out? What does all of this mean for future generations, politically and socially? What kind of cultural hacker am I?

Most importantly - how can I turn my blog into a book deal? (Step number one: Be very funny.)

With panels addressing everything from race on the internet (I can haz dream?) to extreme content (CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME) and the relationships between new and old media (BIG SRS BSNS: Internet Culture, Books, and TV; ROFLing the News), there was far too much said over the course of this conference for me to provide a comprehensive account of everything I learned in one blog post.

Fortunately, every session was live blogged by gracious volunteers. I highly recommend checking out the transcripts – they make for a most lolzy and informative read!

If you’ve only got the time to check out one of the panels, I suggest making it the Closing panel: “Mainstreaming the Web”. Moderated by Hwang and Xu, this panel featured Jamie Wilkinson & Kenyatta Cheese of Know Your Meme, Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger, Greg Rutter of You Should Have Seen This, and the infamous moot from 4chan.

This panel wrapped the entire conference up nicely with some great discussion about the past, present and future of internet culture as we know it. It even got a little bit spicy! I found myself blurting out “OH SNAP!” more than a few times when moot was calling out Ben for making mega profits from user generated content. All in good humour of course – the boys kept it friendly.

 
(Jamie Wilkinson, Kenyatta Cheese, Ben Huh and Greg Rutter share some LOLz at the closing panel)

The single most re-Tweeted line (and you’d better believe we were tweeting up a storm all weekend long) from the entire conference also came out of the closing panel:

“Facebook has become like AOL, it’s like training wheels for the internet. It’s a safe place, except for your privacy.” - Ben Huh

I don’t think there was a soul in the building who didn’t at least crack a smile at that moment. I myself let out a quiet “tell it, brother!” amidst the chorus of whoops and clappage.

There was a lot of buzz by the end of the conference about ROFLCon becoming the next Comic Con in the sense that it could grow from humble beginnings to achieve international acclaim and recognition.

I can see it happening.

Something about the energy in that room during the closing panel made me feel like I was witnessing something pretty important – and I wasn’t just buzzing from a pistachio muffin overload.

Like boyd said, it’s not just the freaks and geeks inhabiting web 2.0. These days, more and more aspects of the average person’s life have gone digital. The internet is no longer merely a tool for quick communication and finding information – it’s become a social and cultural domain of its own.

As more people begin to navigate and understand the many online cultures that exist outside the confines of Facebook and Twitter, one would hope that more people will want to come together and celebrate them IRL.

I’m going to end this post the same way that moot ended the closing panel. With one seriously dope ROFLcopter.

Supersweet, non?

*All images used licensed under a Creative Commons license, courtesy of the ROFLcon 2010 flickr photo pool.

Lauren O’Neil is a very recent grad in the Master of Arts - Journalism program at the University of Western Ontario. She currently produces digital media content for outlets like MuchMusic.com, CanadianLiving.com, Rabble.ca, TheTyee.ca, and Western News. She is rarely, if ever, spotted without a pink Blackberry in her hand and is fluent in both HTML and English. Please follow her on Twitter so that she can continue to build up her mad social media cred @laurenonizzle.

Mugabe and Ahmadinejad: Power couple step out

By Thandiwe Vela

The first couple of democracy will be making an appearance together later this month.

On April 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to officially open the annual Zimbabwe International Trade Fair.  

"Zimbabwe and Iran enjoy strategic co-operation partnerships," Ambassador Pour Najaf said after the appearance was announced.

Partnerships between the two nations are no mystery - after all, the likeness of Ahmadinejad and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is uncanny. One need not look beyond the latest embattled elections in Zimbabwe and Iran to see the identical modus operandi of the two leaders.
 
Fair count? Who needs it. Opposition? Violently silence it. Still in power? High five.

No doubt, the parallels between the two elections were stark - except in the degree of protest, it seems. While international protest of the controversial Iranian election results was loud, viral, and fierce, concern about the blatant miscarriage of political justice in Zimbabwe was largely kept to private and personal gatherings.

It's a shame too because as one blogger noted, Tsvangirai really coulda used it.

Despite the disproportionate reaction to the duplicate actions of Mugabe and Ahmadinejad, I think it's fair to say their popularity ratings are equally dismal.
  
With so many against this power-crazed pair, at least they have each other to lean on.

The question is, do they talk and exchange ideas a lot, or just possess some kind of despot telepathy?

Thandiwe Vela is a Star radio room reporter, Silver-T varsity athlete, and secretary of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists. Her goals are to become president of Zimbabwe and to beat Usain Bolt in a 60-metre race. 

The camera as a weapon in war

By Lauren Crothers

The video will chill your blood.

In it, a group of men wander about the dusty streets below. Two of them are Reuters staff: a photographer and driver, both carrying cameras. In a few minutes, the blood of both men will be seeping out into the rubble under them, their bodies riddled with bullets.

You see, they are about to be murdered by U.S. forces circling above in an Apache, making the aggressors essentially removed from the situation. There is no intimacy in killing from afar, no having to look your victim in the eye as you slay him. Maybe that's why so many of the airmen are able to laugh and joke.

War has become nothing more than a video game.

The soldiers' audio is clear. The video hones in on 40-year-old driver Saeed Chmagh. Remember, he is carrying a camera.

"That's a weapon," a voice says.

A few seconds later, having honed in on 22-year-old Namir Noor-Eldeen, also holding a camera, the voice says: "Have individuals with weapons."

In a matter of minutes, having reportedly spotted men they believe to hold AK47s (actual weapons, intended to kill), the forces have secured the go-ahead to shoot, and shoot they do, indiscriminately.

"Keep shootin,'" a voice says.

Cameras have been an essential component of war since they were first used in Crimea, but it was Vietnam - the first colour war, the lack of censorship, the effect that the photos had on the U.S. effort, - that changed everything. It was, in many ways, the photographers' war, despite the risk that evolved as the conflict did.

That risk is in no way fleeting. But neither are pictures, which is why it is so incredibly important to have photojournalists in combat. This video disgusts me, but it underscores the point that if a camera is a weapon, it is a weapon only in its ability to devastate those who can be damaged by the truths it conveys. That goes for the Apache camera (the footage of which was sought for the last three years by Reuters and finally released by Wikileaks), not just those held by journalists.

So, to the photographers behind these cameras putting their lives on the line every day: keep shooting. Hopefully one day there will be more actuations than bullets.

Lauren Crothers is a Star copy editor with one eye behind the lens. lcrothers@thestar.ca

*Video can be seen here but be warned, its contents are graphic and upsetting.

In stadiums where fans do the samba

By John Rieti

Havana's Industriales were crowned champions of Cuban baseball this week, no doubt touching off a big party for its fans — or Industrialistas, as they call themselves. It was a comeback victory for the team in blue, one I wouldn't have predicted after watching them get drummed in the first two games of the series last week. But that's baseball.

For a week in March I traveled to Cuba with a classmate to document the country's baseball culture. The material I gathered will be crafted into a major multimedia project, my journalism school’s version of a thesis.

A boy connects with a pitch outside of Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba.

Baseball fans know the story well. Cuba produces some of the world’s best baseball players, evident in its triumphant wins at the Olympics and other international competitions. But the black mark on the Cuban game is the players who have left to compete in North America’s professional leagues.

Leaving the country is illegal for baseball players, and those who have left are unlikely to ever return, at least while the current government regime stays in power.

Some Cuban players have gone on to become major league stars, like brothers Livan and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, who both pitched their teams to World Series glory, or Angel slugger Kendry Morales.

And in the last year or two there’s been a surge in Cuban players leaving. Here in Toronto, the Jays are courting Adeinis Hechavarria, a 21-year-old shortstop from Santiago de Cuba.

Havana, from the window of a friend's apartment.

My hope for the project is that it will appeal to more than just baseball fanaticos. While these players may have hero status in their country, they live the same way as other Cubans.

We stayed in Havana, not the booze-soaked beaches of tourist hotspot Varadero, and spent several days roaming the city with friends and sources. In a country as complex as Cuba, almost every conversation we had could have produced a story.

Riding the bus with an Industriales fan, we told him we were still confused about a lot of what we learned. He laughed, and told us we were trying to figure out in a week what he hasn’t been able to figure out during his entire life on the island.

A Cuban man collects empty cans ad bottles in a cart adorned with gun-toting, cigarette-smoking dolls.

It’s been more than 50 years since the Cuban revolution, and while this history is still tangible on the streets there‘s less fresh propaganda. The government is officially socialist now, led by Fidel Castro’s brother Raul. Army and police officers are a common sight, but they hassle Cubans less, our sources tell us.

Cuba still provides its citizens with food – chicken or fish, rice, coffee and milk – but many told us they want more, which they have to buy themselves. In Cuba, everyone is required to work, but seemingly everyone does something on the side to get by.

For players, baseball could be a way to get by or it could be a way out. But the decision to leave is not an easy one. That decision is what I’m interested in.

My final project isn’t scheduled to be published until August, but if you’d like to get in touch, or have any tips for me, please get in touch at jrieti@gmail.com or on Twitter @johnrieti.

Until then, Star readers, keep reading Morgan Campbell's (@MorganPCampbell) outstanding coverage of these players and baseball in general.

Some classic Cuban propaganda spotted from one of Havana's buses.

John Rieti is a Toronto Star radio room reporter and studies in the Master of Journalism program at Ryerson University.

Former Star intern Daniel Dale best young journalist in Canada

 
By Roger Gillespie

Former Toronto Star intern reporter Daniel Dale has been named the best young journalist in Canada at a large circulation newspaper.

Dale, 25, won the 25,000-and-over circulation category in the Edward Goff Penny awards run by the Canadian Newspaper Association.

Nicole O’Reilly, a reporter at The Hamilton Spectator, won in the under-25,000 category for work she did at the Guelph Mercury.

The awards are open to Canadian journalists between 20 and 25.

A 2008 graduate of York University’s Schulich School of Business, Dale joined the Star as a summer intern in 2007 and returned as an intern for the summer of 2008. He was hired full time that September.

"I'm tremendously flattered and honoured, especially because I'm an admirer of many of the previous winners, a few of whom have gone on to do great things. Being on a list with them will motivate me to attempt to meet their high standards."

Dale won for a package of four stories: Mustafa Ahmed, the 12-year-old spoken word poet from Regent Park; CNIB’s selection of  its first sighted chief executive, John Rafferty; a profile of Darcy Allan Sheppard, the cycle courier killed in a collision with a car driven by former Ontario attorney-general Michael Bryant; and a sneaky tour of Maple Leaf Gardens.

"I couldn't overstate how important internships were to my professional development - before I did my first Star internship, I'd never covered a crime or a court case or pitched a human interest feature or talked to a municipal politician; I didn't go to journalism school, and my experience prior to the internships was light on actual news coverage. If I hadn't been thrown to the wolves as an intern, I simply would not have been qualified for a full-time job at a big paper."

The Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prize for Young Canadian Journalists, is open to reporters age 25 or under. There are two categories: reporters at large papers and reporters at small papers.

The Goff Penny award is named for a distinguished editor and publisher of the late 1800s. The award was established in 1991 by the estate of his grandson, Arthur, also a former newspaperman. The entries were judged by three editorial executives selected by the CNA.

Roger Gillespie is the Star's senior editor, training and development. You can find him on Twitter or reach him at rgillespie@thestar.ca

Mark Black Marriage Day in Canada too

By Thandiwe Vela 

 

Many young women dream of getting married as they grow up - picture their wedding dress, their bridesmaids' much uglier dresses and sometimes even the person that will be standing at that alter.

 

Not me.

 

No siree! I'd rather concentrate on graduating and launching my career instead of focusing on something that's not likely to happen. Any more school and too much success will just be another nail in the coffin because apparently, it's hard to get married when you're female, talented and black.

 

Dating? Easy. Common law, maybe. Baby father? At my service. But finding a husband? Genius level Sudoku hard!

 

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Black Marriage Day, marked in the U.S. on the fourth Sunday in March. Imagine, hundreds of events including workshops and black-tie dinners, all in an effort to improve lagging black marriage rates. 

I'm all for it but must admit - all this talk of the unlikelihood of blacks getting married has left me with a slight unwanted feeling. And it raises a stark difference between North American culture and that of my native Zimbabwe where men pay to marry black women!

 

I just might venture back, grab a husband, score a couple dozen cows and groceries for family back home and fatten up my parents' bank accounts with that lobola money.

Or, we could mark Black Marriage Day in Canada too, possibly improving my chances of getting married here.  

 

 

 

Thandiwe Vela is a Star radio room reporter, student-athlete and secretary of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists.

tvela24@hotmail.com
 

 

York University student journalists kick some U.S. butt

By Alexandra Posadzki

A couple of days I got that warm, glowy feeling as I tore open a large yellow envelope addressed to my office, room 420 Student Centre, York University Keele Campus.

The letter contained the only piece of tangible proof - asides from a couple words out in cyberspace - that my campus newspaper, Excalibur, had won fifth place in the Associated Collegiate Press's Best of Show competition at the Phoenix, Arizona convention.

I know that fifth place hardly sounds lofty, but the category has become a lot more competitive over the last year when all of the newspaper formats (ex. tabloid, broadsheet) were combined into one category, meaning that my schools tabloid-sized, four-year weekly newspaper is now up against broadsheets like Chico State's The Orion (a very high-quality student paper, I must admit).

This means that our category contained 50 competitors, with the top 10 receiving awards. Considering that, fifth place is hardly something to scoff at.

Our prize-winning issue fills me with more than just York pride, however; it fills me with Canadian pride as well. For those of you who may not be aware, the Associated Collegiate Press is like an American version of the Canadian University Press, only minus the news wire and located out of the U.S. Often a lot of Canadian papers don't have the travel funds to send their editors out over the border (one great incentive to come and work for Excalibur!).

Of the select few Canadian student papers at the conference, Excalibur was the only one that placed in any of the categories, meaning that we represented Canadian talent and kicked some serious U.S. booty; a win for student journalists all across the country.

Alexandra Posadzki (alexposadzki@gmail.com) is a radio room intern at the Toronto Star and the Editor-in-Chief of Excalibur, York University's community newspaper.