MAJ Archives

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

 

January, 2004
Phyllis Barnatt
Vice-president, Ontario Journalism Educators Association,
Former Editor, The Times-Review
Welland, Ontario

I can't believe I'm paid to have such fun.

That sums up how I feel about my career as a reporter/photographer then managing editor of The Times-Review, the community newspaper in Fort Erie, Ont., and now as co-ordinator of a print journalism program at an Ontario college.

Born and raised in Fort Erie, on the Canada/US border at Buffalo, N.Y., it was the last place I wanted to return to after earning an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in political science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., and a diploma in Journalism-Print from Niagara College.

"Three months and I'm out of here," turned into 11 adventure-filled years at a newspaper our editorial and advertising team took to publishing twice a week with one special supplement publication a month.

We were a busy crew, five in the newsroom, five in advertising, and two guardians of the gate at the front desk. And we loved it!

Since Grade 8 I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I credit my mother, the proofreader, for my news career path, and my father, whose belief in me, carried me beyond my dreams.

From the time I was five years old, my younger brother and I would meet Mom after school at the The Times-Review office. Back then, the printing press was churning out the newspaper in the backshop and pungent printer's ink welcomed us to a world of noise, proofreader's galleys and type set backwards by hand before being locked in for the move to the pressroom.
I love to write. I'm curious. I want to know why, how, when, where and most often, who. I love to learn and then teach others. My reporting career was, and continues to be, the best training ground as a teacher. Today, I teach in a formal classroom setting. Then, my classroom was 64 square miles bordering Lake Erie and the Niagara River.

I want to give people the information they need to make the decisions that impact their lives. I want to explain how their local government works so together we can help our community grow and prosper. I want to introduce them to amazing people in our community who have triumphed over illness or bad luck, who have quietly saved their corner of the town, who have need of a helping, neighbourly hand, who are entrepreneurs and business leaders generating jobs and investments.

I want to thank them for answering my questions. I'm always amazed people do because, were I in their shoes, I doubt I would.

I really don't have a second career choice, unless one counts what I'm doing now. Once I made the decision to be a reporter everything I studied in high school, my choice of politics as a major in university and the law, history, English and economics courses I chose there were intended to prepare me with a broad knowledge of how the world functioned.

A journalist has to report on a broad range of subjects, so a broad education is mandatory. I've never regretted that decision.

Looking back on my 11 years at The Times-Review and 13 years at the college, there are highlights that are recounted annually to a new group of aspiring journalists. Like the time Canada Customs agents intercepted crated military jets from Vietnam being smuggled through the border. For a politics enthusiast, meeting U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and Canadian Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, and Ontario Premier Bob Rae were interesting exercises in watching the top elected representatives at work. So was reporting on the new slates of candidates for municipal elections.
At the local level, it was meeting people dealing with devastating diseases that didn't stay down for the count. It was taking the photograph of the championship hockey team elated with their victory while handing out Kleenex to the inconsolable second-place team members and trying to reassure them that winning wasn't that important in life.

Today, it's graduation day when the successful reporters/photographers-in-training step into the world of becoming my teachers. It's the pride and thrill when they get their first journalism job and when head office calls promoting them as editor of their publication.

When students ask about our journalism program, I always ask them, "Do you write? Or do you just talk about writing?" You must love words and the craft of putting them together to convey information and emotion.

A journalism career is not for the faint of heart. You must have stamina physically, mentally and emotionally. You must care a great deal about what happens to the person beside you and around the world away from you. You must want to make a difference. You must not accept answers at face value and above all, you must be curious. You must always be asking why? Then never resting till you get the answers.

As the industry changes, the demands to do the journalist's job faster, to cover the bases with fewer people, challenges the journalist's ability to keep his or her promise to the reader. To dig deeply, to confirm from three independent sources, to balance the report, to do it right rather than first becomes harder. The biggest challenge is to avoid taking the easy road.
It's a contract of trust between a reader and a journalist.