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A journalist's profile, stories and careers in the field of journalism. Know a journalist who should be profiled here? Send an e-mail to Janet E. Bardon

Updated March 2004
August 10, 2000
Judy Waytiuk
Freelance Writer
Winnipeg, MB
waytiuk@wordsink.ca
http://www.wordsink.ca

Very few people are lucky enough to be able to make their livings doing what they love most. I'm lucky. I love writing -- the process of assembling words to express a precise, clear thought. I love the research -- sifting through irrelevance for fact nuggets. And I love the interviewing -- using skill and empathy to draw from people what they think and how they feel, in addition to what they know.

I didn't choose journalism; I knew it was the only thing I wanted to do with my life. There were no other choices. So I built my general Arts degree at the University of Manitoba with journalism as the goal: double majoring in English and Political Studies, with a minor in Theatre (handy for TV work someday), then getting the post-graduate degree at Carleton University, which was, at the time, the pre-eminent place to learn journalism in Canada.

I spent the first few years in print, at the Winnipeg Free Press as an agriculture reporter, general assignment reporter, and business writer, then was asked to join CBC Television in Winnipeg. At that time, television was growing fast and desperate for talent. Based on my record as a reporter, they'd asked me to do a 'guest editorial' for a regional weekly current affairs program. Not realizing re-takes were the rule in the business, I memorized and practised the two-minute piece endlessly the night before to make sure I had it right and wouldn't stumble, and it was a piece of cake to
deliver it flawlessly to the field camera the next day.

The producer, cameraman and lighting and audio techs all blinked for a minute. The producer asked me if I could do it again. So I did. Flawlessly. On the way back to the station, the guy hired me on as co-host for a new regional CBC version of "Canada AM". That show lasted a season; I stayed with CBC TV news and current affairs, nationally, regionally, and locally for 15 years, until Global TV asked me to take over as news director and executive producer for its Winnipeg station's current affairs programming.

Bad move.

I had few chances to write; interoffice memos, budget spreadsheets and employee performance appraisals don't count in my book. Senior management was not my thing; I tend to expect of everyone the high standards I demand of myself, and I have little patience with people who require coddling and encouragement before they are inclined to do their best work. I loved working with bright young people who wanted to learn fast and move on, but while it was wildly satisfying to see my "picks of the litter" get their grounding in my newsroom and soar on and up fast to the bigger leagues, it also became disheartening to watch them go and know I'd have to go through yet another hiring cycle.

I had slowly drifted away from writing into news management at CBC, and was becoming progressively unhappier, but I didn't realize why. Nor did I realize initially why, after seven years with Global, I became so angry, exhausted and frustrated that I quit.

I went home, bought a computer, and started writing again. Having enough savings built up as a very comfortable pad after the lucrative, if unfulfilling, later years in TV news made it easy to jump into freelancing and accept the initially spotty nature of the work. In the beginning, there were pauses of two to three weeks with no work and a lot of queries being crafted. Now there's almost no time to write queries; I squeeze them in as "brain breaks" from the steady flow of magazine features I handle for half-a-dozen regulars and as many more occasional clients.

After a few years, it began to sink in that writing is what I have to do to be happy.

So that is what I do. I write: constantly, daily, week in, week out. I've collected a small handful of awards: the 2003 Tourism Industry Association of Canada's inaugural Travel Media Award, the 2002 Mexican Pluma de Plata for best writing on a Mexican destination, the 2002 Travel Media Association of Canada Award for Best Canadian Destination Piece, and others. They're honours in and of themselves, but to me they also represent vindication of my life choice: they confirm that writing is what I should be doing with my life.

The business has changed markedly since I began thirty years ago; it's a tougher haul, far more competitive, and online and electronic versions of media require of journalists an even faster pace. I worry that reflective observation is sacrificed in order to feed the increasingly demanding Beast.

And journalists starting out now have little time to learn from more experienced people around them. That knowledge, which you don't pick up in editing class, is critical to a balanced approach-- not just to your job, but to your life. Journalism tends to become an all-consuming avocation, and I'm just one more example of that obsession.

"Long-form" work is disappearing in favour of squirts and driblets of information, even in print; you can't effectively examine ramifications in 300 words. Electronic rights issues need to be wrestled down to some form of just and fair return to the writers; I'm not sanguine about the likelihood of success in that area, given major media consolidation on one side, against a vast supply of cranky, independent writers who don't band together well to protect their incomes from all-rights contracts.

I'm one of the vast supply-- maybe a little crankier and a lot more insistent about working only for clients whose contracts I don't consider a financial insult. Now I'm writing more than full-time, for slick mainstream consumer and travel magazines. Friends clear their throats diplomatically, and gently ask what happened to my plan to take it easy. The friends who know me well realize this is how I take it easy.

I write.

It's not just what I do. It's what I am. It's all I am. And it makes me happy.