The media doesn’t have a lot of power except that it controls the message with social media and conventional printing and broadcasting. The media, using journalism ethics, decides what’s right to record and what to publish. Legitimate media takes that responsibility very seriously. Don’t let the people who would like to impinge on that power take it away.
Better to have it in good hands rather than bad hands and journalists, for the most part, are good people who have a calling and want to make the world a very little bit better.
High praise indeed from The Voter. Here is what I wrote her back.
I’m glad you liked it though I didn’t mean it as funny but perhaps it was.
My favourite one (I mean you’ve got to enjoy these things and I’m a bit of a brat) was sitting outside former city manager Bruce Thom’s office.
He had decided the city manager didn’t have to talk to the press so I decided to end this.
Both the city editor and myself came to this solution at the same time. I asked him to send down a photog to get a picture of me being carried out of city hall.
So I sat down in a chair beside Thom’s office door and asked the receptionist to say that I’d like to talk to Thom.
“We would prefer you left.” Well I pointed out it was a public space and that I wasn’t infringing on anyone’s rights.
“And it’s nice here. There’s all these good magazines and the New York Times and I bet I could weedle a coffee off you.”
“I’m just happy to wait for Mr. Thom.”
“We’d prefer you left.”
“Well, I’d prefer to stay.”
And I read the New York Times.
I thought about sending a six-pack of beer into Thom so he’d have to pee and the washroom was outside his office.
I knew sooner or later nature would call.
And this persistent reporter presented a particular problem for the city. We rented space in the building for the Citizen bureau so we were a tenant. If they threw me out, did I have the rights of a tenant? Would they have to give me notice? I pointed this out to the assistant who didn’t seem convinced though slightly puzzled. And I was very nice.
Anything to stay there.
Finally they gave me someone who could address the issue so I didn’t have a good excuse to stay other than being a brat.
So as I walked down the hallway of the heritage wing of Ottawa City Hall back to the bureau, three big security guards with the head of public relations came down the hallway.
“How are you today, Mike?” I said to the PR type. And I just kept going. It was shortly after that they closed off that area to the public.
I got my story and made my point without doing anything untoward.
Anyway that was great fun. If Thom could be a bad guy, I could too and I was armed with the knowledge of what I could and could not do.
Thom was caught by surprise.
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Knowledge of the law and your rights is vital in journalism. So is persistence. You use any method you can within the law and good sense to get the story.
Here are two videos that show you how much real journalists care about making things right and how to get them right.
They remind you why you became a journalist and how seriously good people take the craft. They make you proud.
It’s too bad so few newsrooms are left where these discussion take place:
Any journalist worth their salt has been in discussions like this in a newsroom. It’s because everybody cares.
Real journalists doing great work.
Ken Gray
For You:
Publish Or Be Damned At City Hall
Stop Recording A Meeting? Don’t Let Them
City Layoffs: Sad But Necessary
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Now it looks like the city is taking it just a bit further . From CTV. City spending $660K on new security bollards. First the council chamber and now the grounds.
Is Sutcliffe and city staff preparing for an insurrection?
Been There:
Do they perceive a threat?
cheers
k