The Employment Diaries

Canada’s Narrative Nonfiction Babe Ruth (19.01.10)

Listen as the unemployment diaries celebrates a bunch of firsts: a  famous, willing, and multimedia participant on the blog…and a game-show

Let’s play jeopardy! (A favourite pastime of any unemployed person).

Category: Famous Canadians.

Clue: Globe and Mail columnist and feature writer, author of three books (most recently and most   famously Boy in the Moon, about his handicapped son), host of two documentaries and a CBC Radio show.

Answer: Who is Ian Brown.

Trebek: Correct.

Category: Explaining strange events

Clue: Ian Brown sits with unemployed journalist, Angelina Chapin, after she e-mails him to say she loves his writing and is coming to Toronto.

Answer: He’s just a nice guy?

Trebek: Correct.

Well, it’s the best explanation I can come up with. That, and the fact people love talking about themselves.

I e-mailed Brown two weeks back to say I’d be in Toronto and would love to meet. I’m a big fan of his writing, which is mostly in the narrative nonfiction style (the genre I’ll be doing my Masters in) and, he manages to do it in that ready-to-choke publication, the newspaper.

The first time I read Brown was in a university narrative nonfiction course. His article was about Toronto’s Mount Sinai hospital during the SARS epidemic and the general struggles of a health care system under pressure. Canadian health care? Pass the Perez Hilton…

But Brown did something different. He created characters, scenes, and evoked feeling. I learned intimate details about people that brought the story to life: Dr. Wunder (actual name!), one of the hospital’s surgeons, is a handsome boyish man, “renowned for sending e-mail messages at 3 a.m. and working all the next day.”

I came away from the story with more than facts. I had questions about myself, about what I would do in the moral dilemma doctors (whom I now felt I knew) are faced with. This is the point of narrative nonfiction. It’s journalism, in terms of its factuality, but is storytelling, in terms of its affect on the reader.

As we sit in the Globe and Mail cafeteria sipping tea, I ask Brown if he’ll share some of his insights on whether newspapers can still traffic in good storytelling in the tweet-it, you-tubey, blog-your-face-off media landscape.

His answers are surprisingly optimistic (and my questions, not surprisingly, awkward).

Enjoy, and remember to pass on to any friends in high places.

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More Coaching…(21.02.10)

I meet with former schoolmate Lyndsie Bourgon to hear how she got to be more successful than me…

“My standards have dropped to anything involving words,” says Lyndsie, sitting across from me at a Toronto diner.

Lynds is a King’s College journalism grad. We met in our third year working on the school paper, The Watch. She, as one of the editors-in-chief, and me, as an arts editor.

Lyndsie’s cute as a button, with matted-down blonde chin-length hair and a shy school-girl smile. The best part about her? Despite being successful, she’s completely non-threatening. For a journalism grad, she has an odd sense of altruism towards fellow struggling journalists.

We met last week, along with our friend Ruth, the other editor-in-chief for the Watch. It was like an unemployment sandwich. Yup, I was in the middle.

Though I think we all wished the state of journalism had been frozen in time like the plastic booths and retro bar stools around us, Lyndsie has been pretty successful (so has Ruth, but will save that story for another rainy day).

In November, Lyndsie landed a gig as assistant editor at Yahoo!. Pretty good in the midst of lay-offs and newspaper slashings.

It wasn’t an easy haul.

She moved to Toronto in July, and did “four months of solid application writing, every single day.” Lynds landed some interviews and soon became used to hearing “You were in our top two, but…”

Her interviews for summer internships with the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star sounded downright scary (A general knowledge test with too many blank spaces, and an answer to the question “What do you want to do here?” that totally bombed), so she stayed afloat with corporate copy-editing and freelancing until she heard about the Yahoo! gig.

Should I get glasses?

If Lyndsie stumbled to find her footing, I’ll probably fall on my face.

At university, while I spent two months of my life writing an average five-page article about graffiti for the Watch, Lyndsie wrote a feature about new security measures for LSAT testing that won her an award for CUP (Canadian University Press).

She did a summer internship at Canadian Living after her third year of school and the next summer, interned at the newswire Canadian Press in Halifax. Then (my favourite part!) she traveled for ten months in Europe, working, WWOOFing and taking a break (although she did express slight regret over not doing ANOTHER internship in that time. Oh journalists…).

Over beer and grub, we catch up on the goings-on of our other contemporaries. One’s at CBC, another in New York and a handful up North doing the make-more do-more journalism thing.

As for Lyndsie, she updates certain pages of the Yahoo! website (“Tech, and most unfortunately Pets”) as well as running a twitter account, assigning stories to bloggers and editing. It’s a job, with words, so she can’t complain.

And, as she puts it, “We probably graduated at the worst possible year for getting jobs.”

I believe her.

Speaking with Lyndsie makes me nervous. Hearing about her qualifications, and failed experiences getting work at the big papers, makes me think my journalism prof was right when he told me, nicely, I didn’t have a chance in hell getting an internship at the Star.

Lyndsie even orders better than me: her sweet-potato fries look way more appetizing than my beet-tomato soup.

“Oh, Lynds,” I say with a sigh, probably looking extremely desperate.

“You’ll be fine,” she says. “The best advice is don’t take anyone’s advice.”

Even on ordering food?

(Are you doing something else than living at home looking for jobs? E-mail me! I’ll probably write about you…)

The Batting Cage

A fellow King’s College grad and now (sometimes) working journalist, was kind enough to share his thoughts on the job prospects in Nova Scotia.

I sent him a message shortly after returning from travelling on the most credible of communication avenues, facebook. I wanted to suss out the enemy before heading into battle.

He got back to me with the following report:

Angelina,

Fort McMurray (He worked at a small-town Alberta paper last summer) was a joke, but good experience. Terrible experience, but good experience, dig? I worked the Crime and Entertainment beats. Ha.

Now Italy – politically screwed up, or irrevocably politically screwed up?
But seriously, I’d prefer to hear about your life right now. What has it been, a year?

Well, I hope he’s been reading this blog. I’m sure his misery would love my company.

Coaching…(15.01.10)

Last time I saw Ian Gormely, I was recording my answering machine message.

“Does that sound okay?” I asked nervously from the other side of his cubicle divider.

“Ya, sounds good,” he said casually, leaning back so I could see his face.

Ian and I both interned at Progress magazine in Halifax. We walked through the same rotating door: me sweaty-palmed and on my way in, him, wiping his hands clean and on his way out. He was off to Toronto where he planned to hone his writing skills (read: his girlfriend got a job at Maclean’s and he followed her).

Ian sits infront of me a year and a half later at a Toronto coffee shop with the same goofy grin and tousled hair. I’m in the city meeting with anybody I know doing the journalism thing, after realizing the job prospects in Ottawa are as likely as a warm winter (ironically, it’s pretty warm in Toronto. Good sign?).

In an attempt to get all multimedia on y’all, I brought my recorder to conduct a little interview. Apparently, I’m a tad rusty after seven months of reporting abstinence, and pressed the play button instead of record.

So while there were two conversations going on at our table, I didn’t get any of Ian’s artfully worded answers.

Sorry Ian. I am an idiot. I’ll attempt to sum up our conversation with none of your charm or humour. (Any editor who is reading this and thinking about hiring me: it won’t happen again). Me getting “Italian mad” at my recorder

Ian- a late-twenties King’s College journalism grad- is a music lover and a writer (check out his blog).

When he first arrived in Toronto, he got in touch with music website CHARTattack.com, and six months later was asked to do some reviews.He also e-mailed Toronto-based music publication Exclaim!, and after writing sporadically for them, landed a position as an assistant editor.

Ian did a three-week unpaid internship for EYE weekly, an alternative Toronto paper, freelances for Metro, and is the music coordinator for community radio station CHRY. Wowza.

As he said in his facebook message in response to me calling him a journalism vet:

“Journalism vet? No. Hardened by the lifestyle? Yep.
But yeah, stuff seems to be going my way down here.”

He admits it’s been a hard road and a definite slow-start. On the upside, he managed to avoid slinging brunch (however he did offer to give me the contacts of a temp agency he used) and now supports himself doing what he loves.

His advice? Casually schmooze with people. He got his assistant editor job at Exclaim! after running into a staff member at the bar who said there was an opening. “‘I can do that’,” he said, probably between sips of beer. “Drinking definitely helps.”

To sum up his lifestyle, Ian says with a smile: “I work really hard, for little pay, on things few people read.” Or something like that. I don’t really know. I forgot to record it. Something about Ian and machines always makes me nervous…

Strike #1 (24.12.09)

Don’t trust the friends of your parents’ friends. Or unions…

Forgive me reader, I have lied to you. Since honesty is the foundation of good journalism, I will turn this blog into a virtual confessional and atone for my sin: I’m not starting my job-hunt from scratch.

A friend of my mom’s e-mailed me months ago when I was spending my days staring at the cute lifeguard on a beach in Calabria. Different times…

She knew of a communications position opening at ACTRA in Montreal, an organization that helps find work for an negotiate contracts of Canadian performers. She told me if I was looking for a job, I should get in touch with her friend, Raymond. “Either way,” she wrote, “he’s a good person to know.”

At the moment I was only looking for the perfect tan, but not wanting to give up a golden opportunity (!), I e-mailed Raymond between sips of Grappa. After a series of messages I came clean I was an ocean away, and we agreed to touch base when I came back.

I check my e-mail six months later in London, just days before heading back to Canada. There’s a note from ol’Ray. He’s saying they haven’t hired, and that if I’m still interested in meeting, he’ll be in Ottawa over the holidays.

Ha! Who said I’d be slinging brunch for the next five years? I practically had a job without stepping foot in Canada.

I give Raymond a call the day after I arrive.

“Oh yes, Angeellllina,” he says enthusiastically, probably his way of welcoming me to the team, right?

We small talk for a bit before turning to business.

“Listen,” says Raymond, tentatively. “We’ve been thrown a bit of a curveball in the last few days.”

Curveball? Curveball sounds okay. I never played baseball, but I’m young, savvy and adaptable. Throw all the curveballs you like Ray-dawg…

“The guy who left the position came to the office the other day to say he wants his job back,” he says. “His wife’s pregnant so he wants to start working again. Because we’re a union, we have to give it to him.” Strike out.

He apologizes and says he was excited at the prospect of new blood.

I’m let down. Would’ve been great to move to Montreal. On the other hand,   communications is the enemy of daily news journalism. All that supporting and promoting something, rather than criticizing and getting at the “truth.”

Maybe this was one of those blessing-in-disguise things?

(Me taking the bads news…and realizing it’s good news!)

I go back to the dugout smiling, chew some tobacco, and decide that if I’m going to play ball, I better use the right bat…

(If your parents know people in high places feel free to contact me...)

The Riddle

Join me on my search to do the impossible: find a job in the journalism industry…

How long does it take a Journalism minor to find a job in a dying industry?

No–It’s not a joke. Stop laughing. This is my life.

If you want to know the answer, you’ll have to keep reading this blog.

Those of you who know me know I like to write. I majored in English and minored in Journalism, but writing is what I love.

Yeah, I know. You probably like to write too. I’m sure your neighbor does too, and that guy whose dog you walk. That’s kind of the problem. We all write, but we can’t all get paid to do it…

After graduating, I was an editorial intern at Progress magazine, “Atlantic Canada’s leading business magazine” as I always say on my resume.  I did things like fact-checking, proof-reading, and setting up photo shoots.

It was all very peachy: I had a big office in a penthouse suite that overlooked the Halifax harbour. I felt important, though my paycheque always reminded me I wasn’t…

After a successful year, in which I re-learnt how to write, edit, and landed myself a cover story, I thought “What’s so hard about this ‘getting a job’ thing?”

All I really did was hit up an old professor for his contacts and VOILA.

Well, It’s seven months and an economic recession later and I’m going to attempt that same thing…

My goal: to work at a newspaper before starting my masters in creative nonfiction at Goucher College in July. The school’s in Baltimore, but it’s kind of correspondance so I can live anywhere and hold down a job as long as I’m submitting my writing .

Not exactly the degree guarenteed to make you a breadwinner (Hence my dad asking, Do you really want to go to this school?). But hey, it’s my upper-middle class dream, and I’ll be damned if anyone tries to stand in my way. Besides, I hear the New Yorker’s always hiring, right?

Why a newspaper? I picture myself at this program being with a bunch of over 40-year-old veteran daily news reporters and published journalists looking for a creative shake-up mid-career. Actually, that’s less my imagination and more based on fact.

The two people I know who’ve done and are doing the program were professors of mine, over 50, and with an embarassingly more amount of experience than I have. They were the norm.

I figure working at a a newspaper will beat down my confidence, teach me to write under deadline, and give me something to commiserate about with my soon to be classmates…

Why is this concept at all interesting? I’ll kindly refer you to http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/, which without even going to the site should be self-explanatory. In a nutshell, all us gen x fuckers expect news online for free because some idiot at some newspaper starting putting up online content without charging. Now the idea of paying for any news seems ridiculous. Problem being, online advertising doesn’t bring in much cash, so newspapers are expected to put out the same quality of content without enough funds to pay their writers. It’s a terrible time to try and get in the biz…

Why should you read this blog? Because you like my writing, because you feel sympathy for me (Thanks mom!), or because you want to see me fail. Everybody’s welcome! (Especially if you’re an editor who thinks this concept is brilliant and wants to offer me a job…)

So what was the question?

How long does it take a Journalism minor to find a job in a dying industry?

Let’s find out…