Newsrooms Matter, The Bulldog Matters

Published 06/12/2023 · Updated 06/12/2023

It’s amazing how many people had a connection to the old, closed Citizen newsroom in some way or other.

Our frequent commenter Bruce helped install the phone system at the newsroom. Used it millions of times. Thanks Bruce.

One of the great talents that journalists take for granted is the ability to hold a phone between their head and their shoulder and take stories being read over the phone. That was the job of rerite which was how I got my start at the London Free Press. I could turn the copy from Tiger at the St. Thomas bureau into English.

When I was at the Montreal Gazette, somebody yelled can someone take a rerite. That wasn’t my job but only a few people were in the newsroom, so I shouted that I could. Who was on the line but the great sports writer Mike Farber (who taught me where to watch tennis at the outside and centre courts at the Canadian Open and had one of the great lines in sports when the Expos base-stealer Tim Raines was having troubles. “The only thing that Raines is stealing is the fans’ money.” Man, I wish I wrote that one.).

Ottawa Citizen Closes Its Newsroom

Farber was all business because this was the fourth story he’d filed that day from the Seoul Olympics. You took the greatest of care because it was Farber. He called back in five minutes to see if there were any holes in the story. Of course, there were none.

I got home that evening and my wife had the Olympics on the TV. On the live broadcast was the announcement that Ben Johnson had tested positive for a banned substance.

Excellent journalists from all over the whole world were there, ready to ask questions. Who captured the microphone first? “Mike Farber, Montreal Gazette.” Very talented and a very hard worker. After that, his fifth story of the day. What a guy.

With the passing of the Citizen newsroom, none of that stuff happens anymore. It was a very interesting culture though the Citizen newsroom was a bit on the dull side. Of course, so was I. The newsroom at the Gazette was painfully boring (bopping by non-journalist standards, however) but the Winnipeg Free Press was controlled chaos which bred very creative journalism. The London Free Press newsroom was just drunk.

The Regina Leader-Post newsroom was … really I don’t know because I was there for two weeks and gave them two weeks notice. The paper was fine but Regina was horrible. Not my cup of tea, not that I drank much tea. That said, the folks at the LP were very nice about it. Good people.

Those rooms were where I spent my life. I often wonder what effect they had on me. They sure taught me how to swear.

Accordingly, I often wonder what effect that ethical wasteland of the House of Commons had on Tory leader Pierre Poilievre. I spent a day with him on his first campaign in 2004 and Poilievre has been on Parliament Hill ever since. Is two decades in the House what begats the Tory leader?

Much of what we are is the product of our environment.

Here’s Bruce:

Ken:

I too have some fond memories of the whole of the site.

My staff changed over the phone system in 1980? from the first system the paper had on Baxter Road (a 900) to the newest SL1LE Bell Canada. We worked with a great contact from the paper, Bob Wentzloff and my main man, the PBX specialist (Leo Cull), had a wonderful relationship with all the folks he dealt with. His lead assistant, Earle Brydges, was the man most of the Citizen employees saw as he worked throughout the building installing new wiring and phones, and supervising other help.

I and these men were under some pressure to complete the job “on-time and on-budget” with NO glitches as we did not want to be “in the news”.

I believe Bob passed away some time ago but my connection lasted for quite some time until I moved, as Lynne Owen was my neighbour and I actually chauffeured her to a drinks party I think when she officially retired … Might have been at the retired Sens players location near Baxter Road (Chris Phillips and The Big Rig)?

Bruce

I’m glad you mentioned Lynne Owen. She was the slot person on the night desk at the Citizen. A stern taskmaster, Owen was the last line of defence as she oversaw all the pages before they went to the presses. She edited copy and re-wrote headlines. She did everything as did her staff on the night desk. You see the bylines and the columnists but the real heroes living from four in the afternoon to the wee hours of the morning putting the west coast Sens story to bed were the people on the night desk. Expert journalists working at night and in the shadows.

People Really Do Care About The Ottawa Citizen

I once had a discussion with Owen about the correct style on Ottawa City Hall. I thought it should be capitalized because it was a formal name. Owen said Citizen style was lower case. She won. It’s interesting the minutiae that you get into in journalism that no one else in the world would care about.

The style we use here at Bulldog World Headquarters is upper case. Funny, that.

People cared … at least the motivated ones. Others collected a paycheque and went home to their gardening. How much? I saw two fist-fights in newsrooms over issues in stories. Sometimes people cared too much. Take this case from the interesting movie Spotlight:

Spotlight : Best Scene

Watch this video on YouTube

Those ethical discussions occurred often in newsrooms. Decisions had to be made fast and correctly for deadline approached. You don’t hold focus groups when things matter and you had to be right. Now newsrooms don’t exist anymore.

Then there is this:

SPOTLIGHT - Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) scenes & quotes

Watch this video on YouTube

You don’t have these discussions with a potted plant beside your desk and a kitten sleeping on you lap in a converted bedroom. You have them in newsrooms. And they matter … to the community. People never see how seriously journalists take the news and the morals and ethics involved in coming up with the right decision. It hurts when you’re wrong.

People sometimes ask me why I publish The Bulldog with the help of some vital contributors and commenters. It’s not to get rich.

It’s somewhere in the above material, self-centred as it might be.

I do it because I can and I believe it is important and I’m the person who can do it. I have a unique set of skills … local knowledge, writing, reporting, editing, editorializing, technology, a very few human smarts … maybe.

If I don’t do it, nobody else can or will do it.

I do it because I love journalism and I had the privilege and luck to find what I really like to do in this life. I spent a lifetime doing it in newsrooms across the country. Pathetically, I spent so much time doing it that I can’t do much else.

I only wish I were better at it.

Ken Gray

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