Meet a Journalist

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

Updated March 2004
Originally Posted July 1, 2001
Sean Fine
Education Reporter, The Globe and Mail
SFine@globeandmail.ca

I always thought of myself as a writer. I wanted to write fiction. At the same time, I had the idea that I needed to make a living. I grew up without money. Starving in a garret was not appealing to me. So I went to journalism school, which seemed a route into newspapers. Now I see that one of the great joys of journalism is the freedom to chase down the truth, a little bit at a time, within all the limitations of time and space we know so well ... but still the truth. Lesson to young journalists: if your bosses don't let you tell the truth, get out, move on.

I don't recall a second choice. I'm 40 now, and my memory is not what it was. I was interested in human rights; I have a faint recollection of that. But I was a writer, plain and simple. A writer with a second choice is probably not a writer.

I went to Carleton University and received a four-year b.j.: bachelor of journalism.

I'm not sure what it is that prepares you for the job. You need a vocation. You need commitment. In a practical sense, of course, you need training, but training only keeps you going so long. The people who last -- the people who are happy -- are people who love the craft and believe what they're doing is important. The best journalists have phenomenal commitment to finding and telling stories. The single experience that best prepared me for my job, I suppose, was being a summer student at The Globe and Mail. Working with people of integrity and high standards is the best form of nurturing young talent.

Career highlights: TWO LIVES ON THE EDGE, published May 13, 2000. Chased down the life story of a squeegee worker charged with setting a man aflame in downtown Toronto, and the story of the man with schizophrenia who survived the attack. I was able to trace the squeegee worker's broken life back two generations, by finding relatives he didn't know he had.

July 9, 1998, ADELMAN'S ODYSSEY: Accompanied a Canadian brain cancer patient and his wife on a trip to Phoenix and San Francisco as they tried to find the medical treatment that might save him. Was in the examining room at the University of California, San Francisco, as the doctor -- a Canadian -- put a scan of the man's brain on the wall as he discussed whether he could safely cut out the tumour. In a separate but related story, getting to know a terrific Halifax family and their young boy who had cancer. Both Dr. Adelman and the little boy later died within a short time of each other, and I wrote their obituaries.

January 23, 1993. Arranged my own "nomination hearing" for newly appointed judge John Major. Also August 21, 1998: the same Judge Major explained to me the internal dynamics of the Supreme Court as it went about deciding the Quebec secession case -- on the very day that the court released its ruling.

October 31, 1987. Reporting on a Canadian man labeled mentally retarded who addressed an audience of 300 in Chicago on the damage caused by labeling people.

Recommendation to young journalists: Have fun.