The bottom of the food chain: Meet the newest radio roomers

By Molly Hayes

It’s at the bottom of the newsroom food chain, but the Toronto Star radio room is a coveted gig amongst young journalists. It’s a foot in the door for students and a way to hone crime reporting and breaking news skills.

This time around, 12 “boxers” staff the room; a mesh of post-secondary students studying journalism, professional writing and documentary media. Between us, we keep the newsroom staffed 24/7 listening to the scanners, scrolling through Twitter and tracking down sources.

We write about crime, traffic accidents, protests, cute animals, vicious animals, gas leaks, potholes — and of course the weather.

Some of us are learning the ropes as we go, and some have been here for months. By now, we’ve all at least figured out what a 10-16 is, and how to keep coffee hot on the graveyard shift.

We are:

 

 

MOLLY HAYES My stint in the radio room follows a summer spent at the Hamilton Spectator where I covered literacy, murder, and lingerie football. I love local news. With mere months until graduation and adulthood, I hope to use this "foot in the door" to pry that door open, lock it behind me and stay forever (please).

 

 

 

GUSTAVO VIEIRA grew up in Rio de Janeiro where he studied and practiced law. He’s now going through a career change, finishing his master's in journalism at Ryerson. Before the radio room he interned for CBC and Al Jazeera English.

 

VICTORIA PTASHNICK is a former makeup artist and a Carleton journalism grad. She’s now studying documentary media at Ryerson because she was “tired of telling news stories in the same conventional way.”

She runs marathons and is obsessed with true crime novels. The radio room has taught her how to survive on Red Bull.

TIM ALAMENCIAK is in his second year of his MJ at Ryerson. He’s reported for the Globe and Mail, OpenFile and the Eyeopener. He has a bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Waterloo, and aspires to cover international affairs. In his months at the Star so far, Tim has had two front-page stories and has covered everything from murders to language exchange meet ups.

KIRSTEN PARUCHA is a recent journalism grad from U of T-Centennial College. As a student, she was editor and sports editor of Toronto Scarborough Campus’s news magazine, The Underground. She has also written for the East Toronto Observer. After the radio room, she hopes to continue in the print journalism field and eventually land an editorial position at a magazine.

A few weeks into the job and after her first ever all-nighter, she is still coffee-free.

ZOE MCKNIGHT is a veteran of the radio room. She’s worked at the National Post and the Telegraph Journal. Back an extra semester to finish her MJ at Ryerson, she’s been in school for 22 years.

In her months at the Star so far, she’s covered shootings and sinkholes, car crashes and cute dogs. “If and when I ever graduate, I hope the Star will have be back and let me out of the box,” she said. If so, she says she’ll need a new camera.

SARAH RATCHFORD — another veteran — studied at the University of New Brunswick where she was the editor of the university’s campus paper (the oldest in the country). She was also the Atlantic bureau chief of Canadian University Press (CUP). She freelanced for NB publications before heading to Toronto where she’s working on her MJ at Ryerson.

“Getting a front page byline this summer was my proudest journalism moment yet, second only to getting hired at the Star in the first place,” she said.

MICHAEL GREGORY studied history and political science at the University of Waterloo. He is now in the post-grad journalism program at Humber. A former varsity swimmer, athletics are a big part of his life outside of the box.

His favourite part of the radio room is being in the newsroom environment: “Teamwork is such a crucial part of the job because you’re constantly passing, and being passed news tips from other colleagues.”

VIDYA KAURI is in her third-year of J-School at Ryerson. She freelances for the United Church Observer magazine and spent four months this summer as an intern reporter for the Hamilton Spectator. At the Star so far, Vidya’s reported on crime, traffic accidents and other breaking news stories. She has a basic understanding of Hindi, Arabic and Kannada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JESSICA VITULLO is a soon-to-be graduate of the professional writing program at York. She has been involved with two of York’s campus papers, The Pipe and Excalibur, as editor, copy editor and writer. She reported for several Toronto newspapers at Multicom Media last summer.

 

 

 

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI is another radio room veteran. She’s in her first year of Ryerson’s MJ program after earning an undergraduate degree in psychology. She spent the better part of a year covering Ontario news for The Canadian Press, and was the editor of York University’s Excalibur newspaper.

She had her 15 minutes of fame when her photo – leaning off the edge of the CN Tower during a media preview of EdgeWalk – went global.

 

 

 

 

DYLAN C. ROBERTSON is a first-time radio roomer, though he was first published in the Star at age 12 in the “for-tweens-by-tweens Brand New Planet” section. He’s been a journalist ever since, studying at U of T-Centennial, working at The Varsity and interning at the Gazette in Montreal. He hopes to become an investigative reporter or foreign correspondent.

 

— Molly Hayes is a radio roomer. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Occupy Toronto: We joined the world but now what?

 
                                                                                                                                     Photo by Michael Gregory

                 Activists make their way past the KPMG building in downtown Toronto on Saturday.

By Michael Gregory

A carnival of political activists converged on a downtown park Saturday, as Toronto joined the global sit-in movement against, well, everything.
Missing in action were the black hoods last seen at the G20 protests. Even police chose their bicycles over riot gear, perhaps sensing the  ‘occupiers’ were willing to go about their business peacefully.
The energized group, led by Occupy Toronto organizers wearing armbands made of floppy orange fabric, chanted catchy slogans and flexed their banners and signs
"We are the 99 per cent. . . . They set cutbacks we say fight back,” they shouted.
The eventual destination for the march was St. James Park, just east of Adelaide St. and Church St., and right next door to St. James Cathedral. Police would later say more than 2,000 people were at the event.
Theresa Boyle, Jayme Poisson, Josh Tapper and I -- The Star’s live blog team -- were part of the media swarm on scene to capture it all.
Snap a picture, Tweet it, repeat.
As activists paraded into the park, the hand-holding organizers who had led them there, disappeared. Leaderless, the crowds almost collectively sighed as if to say "now what ? "

 

                                                                                                                Photo by Michael Gregory 

                  This musical duo kept crowds entertained at St. James Park.

 Luckily, someone had ordered up the musical entertainment as an acoustic duo took over, playing for the masses who gathered around an old tree.

“Where did the money go? “ they belted out. Many encores ensued.
All the while, on the outskirts of the park the first remnants of a true tent city were beginning to pop up. A medical station, stocked with donated supplies and more than a dozen volunteers was ready for any minor emergencies.
“We’re expecting a lot of cases of hypothermia,” said a volunteer medic.
Nearby, people gathered around the Occupy Toronto legal committee as they ran through mock police-activist scenarios to better educate participants on their rights.
 Stopping to talk with people setting up their tents, I asked the obvious question: How long are you going to stay ?
"I would be ready to leave when the government came out and talked to us . . . I'm a student . . . I'm a minority . . . I'm part of that 99 per cent,” said one woman.
A girl named Sundus made her way through the crowd with her mother and sister carrying a sign that read “Look around . . . It is possible.”
“People all over the world have been fighting for their rights and this is finally our chance to come together,” she said.

 

  

                                                                                                                                              Photo by Michael Gregory

                    Several people turned out wearing a Guy Fawke mask.  

 Among those carrying banners touting their cause, no one group stood out among the rest. Everyone mingled with each other, listening and sharing views with one another.On the park’s south side, a large crowd formed a circle around a microphone, as individuals lined up in orderly fashion to expound their reasons for being there.

“Brookfield stole our pensions,” said one former employee over the loudspeaker. 

Other shared stories of lost jobs, the tough economic times,  and a need for political change.
The people were mobilized, out-spoken, and as donations began to pour in it was clear they could very well be semi-permanent.
 The food tent wasn’t showing any shortages, and a shaggy-haired young man named Dustin moved happily through the crowd offering free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
 Donated porto-poties and sanitation sinks sprang up later in the afternoon, at least solving the cleanliness issue for the time being. The Occupy Toronto media committee even happened to get their hands on a generator to provide a live 24-hour stream through their website.
 As dusk and wind rolled in, organizers re-appeared for a general assembly at 5 p.m. Several hundreds listened to instructions that the ensuing days would be “respectful...inclusive...and horizontal in thinking.” All this drew approving “twinkling” hands from listeners.
Now, many will watch to see how long, and to what end, Occupy Toronto activists will go.
Perhaps old man winter will have the answer for these urban campers.

. . .

Michael Gregory is a Toronto Star intern who works in the radio room. You can find him on twitter.

 

Toronto Star interns have covered the world

By Gustavo Vieira

Skim through the Toronto Star and you will find their bylines.

Browse the Star’s website and there they are too. Google their names, follow them on twitter and you’ll see they are much more than 'regular' interns.

In mid-September they wandered around the newsroom, trying to find the way to the nearest bathroom and shortcuts to the cafeteria.

But by early October they were covering Ontario’s election, chasing rare violins and tracking messages in bottles, using just to some of their skills.

But smarts and talent are not enough to land a spot in the Star’s one-year internship, they have plenty of experience, including a lot of mileage in Canada and abroad.

Beijing, Kigali and Kiev are just some of the places some have worked. Others  covered the G20 in Toronto, Parliament Hill in Ottawa or reported on Canadian women’s prisons.

In the age of multimedia they have written for newspapers and magazines, and produced for television and the web.

Eight are new faces to the Star. The other four worked so hard they got to stay.

This is the 2011-2012 crop of one-year interns at the Toronto Star:

 

CHANTAIE ALLICK is a political science graduate from the University of British Columbia. This spring she earned a masters in journalism degree from Carleton. She has worked as a reporter for The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Blink Magazine in Kigali, Rwanda and the Barents Observer in northern Norway. She has been a volunteer and English teacher in Lima, Peru. While studying at Carleton, she was one of two students to win the Carleton Norway Journalism Travel Award. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

STEPHANIE FINDLAY is a 22-year-old university drop-out from Kanata. She was news editor at the Ubyssey, UBC’s student newspaper, when she was hired as a summer intern at Maclean's. The following June, Maclean's hired her as a year-long intern. She wrote weekly feature stories and toured universities across Canada, contributing to the universities guide. She also covered the Toronto G20 and TIFF. This summer she was hired as a staff reporter at Maclean’s, but left to join the Star’s internship program. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

ALYSHAH HASHAM comes out of a whirlwind education this summer in Toronto, interning as a summer reporter at the Star and making the city her new home. Before that she graduated with a bachelor of journalism and English literature from Carleton University and was a student reporter at CTV Ottawa. In 2009, she also did a radio internship in Nairobi, where she grew up. Follow her on twitter here.

 

LIAM CASEY is a graduate of the MJ program at Ryerson. He has twice worked in the Star's summer reporting program as well as an eight-month stint in the box in between. He was the editor of the award-winning winter 2011 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. Prior to that he interned at the Ottawa Citizen and Toronto Life. Before that he unsuccessfully tried to cure diabetes through monotonous work with transgenic mice and cloned cells. He is fluent in French and really funny. You can follow him on twitter here.

 

WENDY GILLIS enters the one-year program with two Star summer internships and one eight-month gig in the radio room under her belt. She is a graduate of Ryerson's master of journalism program, where she produced a radio documentary, studied long-form journalism, and wrote a thesis on publicly funded in-vitro fertilization. Previously, she studied English and history at the University of Saskatchewan. Wendy got her start in journalism as the editor-in-chief of the Sheaf, the U of S undergrad paper. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

EMILY JACKSON is a Toronto-based journalist from Calgary. After completing her bachelor of commerce at Queen's University, she moved to the west coast to get her master of journalism at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. She just finished at The Globe's Report on Business and her work has been published in the Vancouver Sun, BC Business, and various other Postmedia newspapers. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

ANITA LI has a diverse background in journalism that spans print, broadcast and online media. Anita has previously worked as a research assistant for The New Yorker'sBeijing bureau, an on-air reporter for CTV Ottawa, an associate producer for CBC News and a blogger for thestar.com. Most recently, she was a reporter/editor for The Globe and Mail. Anita holds a master of journalism from Carleton and an honours bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

 
NIAMH SCALLAN is a print and multimedia journalist who has written for The Globe and Mail, The Province, The Tyee, and others. A UBC master of journalism graduate, she also holds a bachelor's degree in international development from the University of Guelph. In 2010, Niamh (pronounced “Neeve”) travelled to Ukraine with a team of students to produce a documentary on global pain management that aired on Al Jazeera in July. Her interests range from municipal politics and urban affairs to global development issues. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

JOSH TAPPER is a 2010 graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York. As a student and freelancer, he has reported from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, NYTimes.com, the New York Daily News, the Jewish Daily Forward, Tablet magazine and Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab. An Ottawa native, Josh also holds a B.A. (Hons) in history and English from Dalhousie. You can follow him on twitter here.

 

JENNIFER PAGLIARO has regained her love of Toronto after moving to Ottawa for Carleton University's bachelor of journalism program. She's been an intern at The Ottawa Citizen, The Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail. At school, she was a news editor of The Charlatan and once survived an angry Ann Coulter mob for her Maclean's OnCampus blog. Jennifer will join the Star after working at a local radio station in Gulu, Uganda as part of The Rwanda Initiative. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

LAURA STONE comes to the Star from the Calgary Herald, where she was working on a series about women's prisons as part of the inaugural Michelle Lang fellowship. She covered breaking news and federal politics for a year and a half at Postmedia News in her hometown Ottawa. She got her first gig three years ago in the radio room. You can follow her on twitter here.

 

MICHAEL WOODS is excited to return to the Star as a year-long intern after completing the summer reporting program. He just graduated from Queen's University with a degree in history and political science. He was editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, The Journal, and spent a summer reporting for the Kingston Whig-Standard. Born and raised in Ottawa, he enjoys a good plate of nachos and playing music on various instruments. You can follow him on twitter here.

Gustavo Vieira is a journalism intern in the Toronto Star's radio room.

Mexican journalist wins Massey Fellowship

"I’m very, very excited with a lot of hope in a better future"

 

                Luis Horacio Nájera winner of CJFE Journalism Fellowship at Massey College.

 

By Cynthia Vukets

It’s a step in the right direction for Luis Horacio Nájera.

The Mexican journalist who fled to Canada with his wife and children after receiving death threats from drug cartels has won this year’s Scotiabank/CJFE Journalism Fellowship at Massey College in Toronto. The bursary is given each year to a mid-career journalist from Latin America and the Caribbean. Luis said he is the first Mexican to receive it.

“I’m very, very excited with a lot of hope in a better future,” he tells me from Vancouver, where he is currently living with his wife and three kids. They have applied for permanent residency status.

I was disappointed in December when Luis won the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression International Journalism Award and in his acceptance speech mentioned how he has to work as a janitor to support his family because he can’t find a job in the media.

It felt wrong that after being honoured at a swanky dinner at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel in front of hundreds of major players in the Canadian journalism world, Luis would fly home to Vancouver and pick up a broom as if nothing had changed. Couldn’t someone in that vast and well-connected crowd have known of an entry-level opportunity? Or created one?

Hopefully the Massey program will help him hone his written English and get used to Canadian work culture, which seem to be the major barriers to him finding work as a journalist.
“It will be hard because there’s a bunch of Canadian citizens with perfect English,” looking for jobs in journalism, he said. “I hope I can build a strong network of contacts and friends.”

Before running for his life and ending up in Canada, Luis worked for Reforma, a Mexican daily. He covered corruption and the drug trade in and around Ciudad Juarez – one of the most notorious regions for drug violence in Mexico. He began practicing journalism in 1989, working for a few years in the sports department before beginning his coverage of the drug wars. About 20 years later he fled the country, but still has a wealth of knowledge of the region and the ongoing conflict over drugs bound for the States and Canada.

“I have experience, so I hope I can use that experience in Canada,” he said.
I hope so too, and look forward to seeing his byline in a Canadian paper or magazine.

Cynthia Vukets is a journalist in the Star's one-year intern program.

How to get (and keep) a job at the Toronto Star

   

 Porter                       Oleniuk                   Filson                        Loureiro  

By Amanda Kwan

Nine years after completing the Toronto Star one-year internship program, Catherine Porter still remembers now-retired columnist Joey Slinger’s five tips on good writing.

“I still go back to them,” says Porter, who is now a columnist at the Star. “You can be in this business for a long time and never have anyone talk to you about the craft of writing and tricks of the
trade an learning how to better yourself.”

It is this combination of training and development that makes the internship an invaluable experience, say graduates of the program.

The Star one-year intern program is arguably Canada's best training ground for entry level journalists. It's about as hands-on as they come and has 'graduated' some of the best young journalists in the country.

Every year the program introduces a group of talented and accomplished young journalists to the newsroom for 365 days of trench warfare.

As a copy editing intern in 2008, Christine Loureiro learned that mastering the basics — spelling, grammar, meeting deadlines — is at core of good journalism.

And it was this focus on the foundations of good writing that gave her a sense of composure when her dad was battling colon cancer.

“I couldn’t fix my dad but I could correct passive construction and fact-check the hell out of a column, and go home feeling collected,” she Loureiro, now Deputy Living Editor at the Star.

Photographer Lucas Oleniuk describes his internship as a “very challenging and stressful time.” On his second day, he traveled in the wrong direction on an assignment and arrived two hours late.

“"I [was]… somewhat concerned for my future at the paper. Luckily I was given many opportunities to bounce back” said Oleniuk, who has been with the Star since finishing the program seven years ago. He recently won his third National Newspaper Award in photography.

Similarily Sports Editor Jon Filson had tough moments during his copy editing internship in 2000.

Six weeks into the job Filson was moved off the foreign/national desk.

“I thought I was done right there. It wasn’t a good fit for me, I knew that. But it was hard to hear that I wasn’t doing well.”

But Filson survived and has gone on to play a key role as Sports editor and sums his advice this way: “Don’t hesitate to think big.”

Three questions:

What is your job now?
Catherine Porter, columnist.
Christine Loureiro, Deputy Living editor.
Lucas Oleniuk, photographer.
Jon Filson, Sports editor.

When were you in the one year program? What was your job?
Porter: 2001/02 reporting intern.
Loureiro: 2007/08 copy editing intern.
Oleniuk: 2003/04 photography intern.
Filson: 2000 copy editing intern.

What was your best lesson in the program?

Porter: “Never be too embarrassed to ask what an assignment means.”

Loureiro: Master the basics. “People who are very good at journalism
are good at the basics.”

Oleniuk:  “Surround yourself with talented people. Creative folks who
are driven and have big ideas are inspirational.”

Filson:  “Make sure your core responsibilities are taken care of
first … Only after that can you branch out.”

Amanda Kwan is an intern at The Toronto Star. She works in the radio room.

Star intern wins student photographer of the year award

At her behest, Don Pettigrew shoots speed into a vein in Pat Jeffery's neck. After years of intravenous drug use, Jeffery's arms are scarred and it is too difficult to find her veins. (Galit Rodan)

A meth addict has a needle in her neck, and Galit Rodan is there to snap a picture of it.

It is the photojournalist’s favourite photo of the past year — and it helped land her the News Photographers Association of Canada’s award for student photographer of the year.

Rodan, a Toronto Star radio room intern, documented the life of a drug-addicted panhandler for a school assignment about social issues. She quickly found herself out on the street, in dark, smoky rooms, and in a hospital, all in the name of journalism.

Her photo of a woman, with wide eyes and clenched-tight lips as her partner jabs a needle in her neck, is part of the photo portfolio she sent to NPAC for award consideration.

Its intensity is part of why it is Rodan’s favourite.

“That was the most intense journalistic thing I’ve covered. It was very far removed from my world and experiences,” she said. “I was proud of having gotten that access.”

The award winners were announced at a gala in Winnipeg on May 28.

Rodan was unable to attend and only found out she won the certificate and $1,000 prize after a friend sent her a message on Facebook that night.

“I didn’t think I was going to win,” she said. “I was really excited, but I was just alone in my room on my bed.”

She credits the win with giving her even more credibility as a young photojournalist, even though she takes no photos at the Star.

“It’s hard to keep people interested (in your work) when it’s not even the main thing you’re doing,” she said. “(The win is) a nice boost.”

- Jenni Dunning is a web editor in the one-year intern program at the Star. Follow her on Twitter.

Peter Kerkatsch was one of the higher functioning patients on 3-South, the Complex Continuing Care wing at Providence Care's St. Mary's of the Lake Hospital site. (GALIT RODAN)


Several police wrestle a protester to the ground before handcuffing him outside the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre during the G20. (GALIT RODAN)

Didier Stowe and Olivier Lemieux take their show to the air above Market Square with the help of some trampolines at Kingston's Feb Fest Wednesday afternoon. (GALIT RODAN)

Mentorships matter, top editors agree

By Shauna Rempel

Mentor relationships are crucial in newsrooms, say top editors in three of Canada's major newspapers.

During a panel discussion at the recent CAJ conference, editors from the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and Postmedia were asked about the role that mentorship plays in the newsroom.

The mentor-mentee relationship, while important, can get overlooked in the hustle and bustle of a newsroom ever striving to do more with less.

But the panel, made up of Globe editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, Star executive editor Murdoch Davis and Postmedia senior Vice-President Scott Anderson, agreed that the mentorship of younger journalists is vital to the continued development of not only the mentee but the mentor as well.

Davis noted that mentoring can work both ways in the newsroom. "The mentoring becomes a two-way thing. Certainly there are more  people coming in to newsrooms in the last handful of years who have the multimedia skills, already have the social media skills and can really demonstrate how to use that -- how to use Twitter or information gathering for source location, all kinds of things like that," Davis said. "There's a lot of interesting cross-pollination that goes on. "

Stackhouse agreed, adding, "It's critical and generally well-received to create mentors relationshipsin whatever structure works best in your newsroom so that more experienced reporters and as well as editors are able to guide the younger ones."

The Toronto Star's internship programs include mentorship opportunities for journalists joining the newsroom. Interns are paired with one or more experienced journalists who can share their knowledge over a coffee, beer or even via email. Interestingly enough, many interns find that in addition to their official mentor(s), they might develop a similar unofficial relationship with other journalists in the newsroom. These relationships, official or otherwise, can endure long after the contract ends.

Read more about the Star's internship programs.

Watch a raw video of the panel discussion, courtesy of Ellin Bessner from Centennial College.   

 

Shauna Rempel is a former Toronto Star one-year intern and currently helps co-ordinate the Star's internship programs. Follow her on Twitter.

Toronto Star honours future newshounds

 

 

The students gathered after the awards ceremony to show off their plaques. Photo by Kate Allen/TorontoStar

 

The future of Canadian journalism is in good hands, if the students singled out on Thursday are any indication. More than 100 budding reporters, photographers, and editors assembled at the Star's printing facilities in Vaughan for the Toronto Star High School Newspaper Awards, which have recognized the best in high school journalism since 1995.

Click to read the rest of the article by yearlong intern (and former HSNA winner) Kate Allen.

 

See below for a full list of the winners:

2011 TORONTO STAR HIGH SCHOOL NEWSPAPER AWARDS 

RECOGNIZING AND ENCOURAGING EXCELLENCE IN HIGH SCHOOL JOURNALISM

 

Brad Henderson Award

Sasha Hillman-Olmsted          Jarvis Collegiate Institute

 

Best Electronic Newspaper

1^st Place:                 Lancer Lines Online Staff, Elmira District Secondary School

2^nd Place:                Hazel Llanes, Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School

 

Best Newspaper (Credit Course and Volunteer)

1^st Place:                 Samantha Kellerman, Yeogai Choy & Staff, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                The Staff, Thornhill Secondary School

Comics

1^st Place:                 Cindy Pu, Glenforest Secondary School – (not in attendance)

2^nd Place:                Cindy Pu, Glenforest Secondary School – (not in attendance)

 

Critical Writing 

1^st Place:                 Ilan Tzitrin, Thornhill Secondary School

2^nd Place:                Emily Pringle, Oakville Trafalgar High School

 

Editorial Writing

1^st Place:                 Caroline Mei, Thornhill Secondary School

2^nd Place:                Haileigh Wilson, Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute

 

Feature Photography

1^st Place:                 Kailee Mandel, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Kailee Mandel, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

 

Feature Writing – Long

1^st Place:                 Odesia Howlett, Holy Name of Mary Catholic Secondary School

2^nd Place:                George Wan, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

 

Feature Writing – Short

1^st Place:                 Chloe Li, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Jenny Ge, Victoria Park Collegiate Institute

 

Humour

1^st Place:                 Jinglan (BerBer) Xue, Martingrove Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Inbar Levona, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

 

Illustration

1^st Place:                 Kevin Mercado, Senator O’Connor College School

2^nd Place:                Isabel Ji, Victoria Park Collegiate Institute

 

Layout and Design, Page (Credit Course and Volunteer Newspapers) 

1^st Place:                 Susan Wang, Richmond Hill High School

2^nd Place:                Julia Schabas & Lily Ljubicic, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

 

News Photography

1^st Place:                 Trang Hoang, Riverdale Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Tomer Michailov, Thornhill Secondary School – (not in attendance)

 

Opinion Writing

1^st Place:                 Hana Carrozza, Martingrove Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Emilia Hunter, Riverdale Collegiate Institute

 

Reporting

1^st Place:                 Yasmin Ahmed, Jarvis Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Megan Stephens, Jarvis Collegiate Institute

 

Sports Photography

1^st Place:                 Emily Yip, Victoria Park Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Samantha Kellerman, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

 

Sports Writing, Column

1^st Place:                 Daniel Boltinsky, Academy for Gifted Children

2^nd Place:                Jason Luo, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

Sports Writing, Feature

1^st Place:                 Jon Reed, North Toronto Collegiate Institute

2^nd Place:                Catherine Gao, Martingrove Collegiate Institute

 

Sports Writing, Reporting

1^st Place:                 Alexis Allison, Trenton High School

2^nd Place:                Daniel Boltinsky, Academy for Gifted Children

 

From newbie to national award winner in one 'easy' step

 

I didn't have any experience in foreign reporting, I didn't know anything about Chile or South America or mining. I didn't speak Spanish.

 

National Newspaper Award winner Jennifer Yang.  

By Sarah Ratchford

It started out as just another September day in the Toronto Star newsroom for Jennifer Yang.
But then foreign editor Colin MacKenzie asked her to come see him.

Yang was told to pack her bags for Chile. She had never done any foreign reporting but had so impressed senior Star editors that she was being sent to report on the attempt to rescue 33 miners trapped 700 metres under a collapsed gold and copper mine in northern Chile. The Edmonton native had just completed a year in the Star's premier program for young journalists.

That meeting with MacKenzie also put the 27-year-old on the road to a National Newspaper Award.

But there were a few bumps on the road along the way and a bit of fear and trepidation.

"I didn't have any experience in foreign reporting, I didn't know anything about Chile or South America or mining. I didn't speak Spanish," she laughs.

"There were a lot of 'Why me?' feelings."

She quickly got over her fear, though, and spent a week brushing up on things she didn't know. She put her hard-won skills to work and did some mining of her own, combing through contacts to learn more about the scene she was about to face.

She may have done lots of homework but her arrival in Chile was completely overwhelming.

"It was just unlike anything I've ever experienced in reporting. There were hoards of media from around the world -- BBC, CNN, NBC -- media I'd never gone up against in competition for a story."

At the time of the rescue there were about 2,000 journalists clustered around the San Jose mine. Reporters descended on the families of the trapped miners, everyone trying to get the most poignant and emotional interviews, all of them driven to be the first and the best.

It was impossible to get through to the family of Florencio Avalos, the first miner to emerge after two months.

"I'd never seen anything that competitive. You really had to be strategic and creative, especially when you're going through a translator."

But Yang had befriended Avalos's sister prior to the rescue. The woman had always declined to talk to media and stayed out of the spotlight, but Yang found her on the day of her brother's rescue and she agreed to talk. The two woman stood side by side and watched as Avalos was brought to the surface.

Yang's NNA was for explanatory reporting, a category celebrating in-depth reporting on the complexities of a current event. Pieces submitted to this category are detail-centric, outlining terms, equipment, processes or theories.

The Star was nominated for 16 NNAs and took home three at the annual awards dinner in Ottawa May 13.

Photographer Lucas Oleniuk, a former intern in the Star one-year program, took home an award for news feature photography, his third NNA, and the Star also won a team award for its breaking news coverage of last summer's G20 protest.

The Star offers three different internships: the radio room, summer reporting, and a year-long reporting internship.

 

Sarah Ratchford is a Toronto Star intern who works in the radio room.

Meet five fearless woman who chase ambulances

They simultaneously conduct phone interviews, watch the news, scroll through tweets and try to decipher the heavily coded language that sometimes comes out of five scanners at once.

 

                                      Aleysha Haniff


                                      Galit Rodan
 
                                     Zoe McKnight

                                      Sarah Ratchford


                                     Amanda Kwan 


By Galit Rodan

Spot news.

As a student in Loyalist College’s photojournalism program eager to shoot – well, almost anything – the two four-letter words 'spot news' never failed to strike fear in my heart and elicit a chorus of grumbles and moans.

Had I fled law school only to become an ambulance chaser, that most reviled of all lawyers?

Spot news generally refers to hard-hitting news that is unplanned or unexpected. It is the death and destruction aspect of the news industry – from fires and killings to natural disasters.

Chasing spot news means talking to people who often don’t want to talk to you. It involves encounters with people who have just experienced some sort of loss, misfortune or heartbreak. And for an
industry newbie like me, it often involves feeling, at best, like a thorn in someone’s side and at worst, like a circling, swooping vulture.

We all have our idiosyncrasies. I’m a little sensitive and dislike being disliked. It actually makes me physically uncomfortable. I’m fairly certain that I turn red as a morning sunrise when somebody
yells at me. But I love photojournalism and so reluctantly completed my spot news assignments, mortified as I was.

Imagine, then, the irony of ending up a Toronto Star radio room intern. “The box,” as it is affectionately known, is all spot news and no photos. None of what I love and all of what I had previously approached with anxiety and consternation.

We “boxers” staff the radio room 24/7. There are five of us rotating this summer, all young and fresh-faced and female. We work alone, in eight-hour shifts, monitoring all the breaking news that’s fit to print and much that isn’t. We simultaneously conduct phone interviews, watch the news, scroll through tweets and try to decipher the heavily coded language that sometimes comes out of five scanners at once. We talk to editors, write stories, take dictation and field phone calls.
It’s a fitting job for us 20-somethings from the generation of A.D.D and multitasking.

For eight hours at a time, our whole lives are contained in one 10 x 15 foot room. We pack our meals and hasten our bathroom trips lest the city crumble to dust while we are not looking. Our greatest fear is
letting something slip by us and, in doing so, letting down the amazing team of editors and journalists we work with. We are quickly learning to adapt to those seemingly endless overnight shifts and do
whatever we have to do to stay alert. Resting our eyes is simply out of the question.

People say it is good to step out of your comfort zone. Sitting in the radio room at 5 a.m., with five scanners to my right, a phone and television to my left and an empty, sprawling newsroom before me, I
feel as though I have rocketed out of mine. My comfort zone, for the time being, is gone. I left it in Kingston, 260 kilometres east of here, when I moved two weeks ago.

But already, merely four shifts into my four-month contract, I can feel the fear and panic beginning to subside. More importantly, each shift has been a valuable learning experience and I am on my way to
becoming a better journalist. In time, perhaps a new comfort zone will be established.

In an hour, editors will begin trickling in. By the time I leave at 8 a.m., the newsroom will be steadily building to its busy, buzzing self, full of talented people who will help me grow and who I will look up to for as long as I am here.

And although standing outside in the sunlight after a whole night in the box makes me feel like I’m viewing the world while standing on my head, I realize that I am, in fact, gaining an entirely new perspective on the world.

Before I go, I would like to introduce my colleagues and myself. We are getting to know you intimately, Toronto, so it only seems fair.

I’m Galit Rodan and the other wonderful women I work with are Zoe McKnight, Sarah Ratchford, Aleysha Haniff and Amanda Kwan.

We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we experience your ups and downs with you.

 

Galit Rodan is a brand new Toronto Star reporting intern. Last month, she was named the Loyalist College photographer of the year.