Star reporter wins Emmy for investigative journalism

By Tamara Baluja

Ten University of British Columbia journalism students, including Toronto Star's Allison Cross, have won an Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism for their documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.

Students from UBC's Masters in Journalism program produced the film on dumping electronic waste in developing countries including Ghana, India and China. The film aired on the PBS documentary show Frontline in 2009.

Cross, one of the students who worked on the film, was at the awards ceremony in New York on Monday, taking a short break from her work at the Toronto Star. Two weeks ago she  joined the Star as one of the incoming one-year reporting interns.

Cross spent the past year chasing breaking news and reporting from Parliament Hill at Canwest News Service in Ottawa. Before that she was an intern at the Vancouver Sun and a community news reporter and photographer at the Nanaimo Daily News.

Cross and her colleagues were also nominated in the category of outstanding research.

On hearing about the group's nomination, Cross said she was just shocked.

"Most journalists work their entire careers for this kind of honour," she wrote on her blog. "The nominations have received quite a bit of attention, seeing as it's the first time Canadian journalism students have ever been nominated for an Emmy."

Tamara Baluja is doing her second stint in the Radio Room and has previously worked at The Province in Vancouver and CFRB 1010.

A letter to this year's Oscar red carpet coverage

By Ann Hui

To the entertainment reporters covering last night's red carpet:

Look, maybe it's me. Maybe I've changed, grown up - my tastes are not the same. But you've changed too.

The Academy Awards. The Red Carpet. It all used to be so glamorous. It used to be classy affair.

But last night, watching your correspondents all done up and trying so hard to impress, it was, well, frankly a little embarrassing.

It wasn't just your predictable, insipid questions ("Who are you wearing?", "How does it feel to be nominated?"). After all, correspondents only have about a minute with each interviewee, and hundreds of potential celebrities that they have to prepare for.

But the sucking up. Was that really necessary? Did you really have to literally beg - in front of the cameras - for those interviews? Just to suck up some more once the celebrity agreed to stop for those 10 seconds?

Judging by people's tweets through the night, others weren't too impressed either.

But what else can be done? The way the show is set up - with hundreds of celebrities flooding the carpet all at once - is there any way to get to them all and have conversations of any kind of significance? Probably not.

So maybe you just get to a few - the biggest celebrities - or the less in-demand ones. You have an actual conversation.

Or there's always the Barbara Walters route. Ask them what kind of vegetable they'd like to be. Or their favourite cereal as a child.

Anything to break up the monotony.

Please, Oscars. Most of us are already just watching for the fashion - flipping channels once the main event starts. Don't make us have to watch the show on mute next year.

Sincerely,

Ann

Ann Hui is a Radio Room reporter at the Star. She's also completing her final year of the master of journalism program at Ryerson University. ahui@thestar.ca

The Olympics and another, much less important sporting event that happened

By Thandiwe Vela

As if Canadian varsity athletics didn't already get the least bit of attention, this year the provincial track and field championships happened to coincide with the final days of the Olympics. The Olympics, on home soil to boot.

Even my favourite coach Dave Hunt went to Vancouver to cheer on our athletes there.

I too, slept quite late the night before watching Joannie Rochette compete to win bronze.

And there's no doubt many of my teammates stayed up watching the Olympics as well. After all, Olympians are what we aspire to be, no matter how far-fetched that dream may be for some of us.

No worries sports editors, we understand that your departments were stretched with Olympic coverage, so there were no breaking news alerts when Varsity Blue Michael Del Monte [pictured] broke an OUA record. And - please excuse the shameless plug - there were no post-run interviews after my women's 4x200-metre relay team took the silver medal (shout out to my teammates Athena, Alicia and Jessica).

But then again, I don't recall ever seeing reporters and TV cameras clamouring to get a few words from the varsity champions in years before.

And no Canadian sports legend ever felt snubbed by lack of formal invite to the provincial championships.

I did get a little excited when I bumped into CTV's Andria Case at a championship meet last year. Just as I was prepping for my on-air interview, she introduced me to her husband, a track coach. She was off duty that day.

Now that I think about it, inter-university sports never really needed the Olympics to be ignored.

Well, if anyone cares, nationals are next week.

Thandiwe Vela is a student, a track athlete and secretary of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists. Her goals are to graduate, to be president of her native Zimbabwe (if the position ever frees up), and to beat Usain Bolt in a 60-metre match race. tvela24@hotmail.com

Olympics a chance for immigrants to feel included

By Tamara Baluja

The Olympics have been over for just a few days and already Canadians are asking themselves if the euphoria will last?

Oy, my fellow Canadians - it's alright to be proud of your country. 

I feel a little odd telling this to citizens of my adoptive country, but sometimes I think that immigrants appreciate Canada more than folks who lived here all their lives. 

I was taught some basic etiquette rules regarding patriotism. When your anthem plays, you either join the singing or stand respectfully. You don't slouch or talk. And I don't think anything angers me quite so much as a tattered Canadian flag or another nation's flag (usually American) flying higher than the Canadian flag on our soil.

I would say a significant number of Canadian immigrants want to show some patriotic pride for their new country. After all, they come from countries with a well established national identity, but it's difficult to do so in a country as self-deprecating as Canada. 

But the Olympics are truly neutral - after all, it's all about sportsmanship and harmonious international relations.

As an expat who has lived in three continents before finally settling in Toronto, I have somewhat of an identity crisis. These Vancouver Games mark an important personal anniversary for me. It's been exactly a decade since I immigrated to Canada, and somehow they really cemented that sense of Canadian pride in me.

I cried when I heard "I Believe" sung in the opening ceremonies. I stood in the cold to see the Olympic torch in Toronto. My loud screaming nearly gave the cat a heart attack when Alexander Bilodeau won the first gold on Canadian soil and the men's hockey game was the most agonizing game I've ever had to watch. For the first time, I felt truly Canadian.

Could the opening and closing ceremonies have acknowledged the role of immigrants in shaping a Canadian national identity,sure! But putting that aside, the Olympics were for me, as I'm sure for many immigrants, a moment to stand as a proud Canadian - not an outsider looking in wistfully.

Be proud, eh!

Tamara Baluja is a radio room reporter, a journalism student and a former GA for CFRB 1010. tbaluja@thestar.ca

Why I'm not a TV reporter, not that there's anything wrong with that

By Tamara Baluja

It was roughly a year ago that I first tried my hand at TV reporting, but the trauma of it is still as fresh as ever.

I was volunteering as a reporter for Rogers TV Mississauga and was sent out to cover some community event or the other. The details are rather unimportant, but the memory of seeing myself on TV doing a stand-up is one that I would like to definitely delete forever.

The camera adds 10 pounds - oh yeah! That one is not a myth, except it's more like adding 15 pounds. Note to self - always wear dark, preferably black clothing to avoid looking lumpy. 

Curly hair is a big no-no. My hair looked like a giant nest! And for some reason, I looked completely haggard with gigantic black circles under my eyes. Apparently, one cannot appear on TV without a generous application of foundation.

For some people, this knowledge is probably intuitive. But for a person who is more into radio or print journalism, such as moi, the idea of priming myself before every TV segment was a horror I just wasn't prepared to face.

For the next six months of volunteering, I think I bought more make-up than I ever had before. Foundation, powder, blush, lipstick, mascara, eye liner, lip liner ... the list went on and on. I also invested in a straightening iron and three black shirts.

I very quickly learned that I was not suited for TV. The idea of waking up an hour early just to do my hair and make-up was not one I ever warmed towards. Let's just say I'm very happy to be working at the Star where no one actually gives a damn how you dress or look.

But in all honesty, my main reason for not wanting to work in TV journalism is rather superficial. However, I also had a problem with the heavily staged aspect of TV news.

Rather than explain that to you, I'll let Charlie Brooker take it away. Newswipe, presented by Brooker on BBC 4, exposes the inner workings of news media - in this case, how scripted TV news can be.

That's not to say TV reporting doesn't have its place in the journalism industry! Of course, it does. Just, er, as long as I'm not the one in front of the camera.

Tamara Baluja is radio room reporter, a journalism student and former GA at CFRB News. tbaluja@thestar.ca