Reader says: WTF CBC??

It's horrible that the MotherCorp would cut the only reporter position in a region as ginormous as yours. We are all worse off for this.

There are two ways to look at my layoff.
No. Make that three.

Yes. There are at least three ways to look at the way I lost my job. Wait. Maybe there are more. Hm.

I'm getting confused. Why don't we just look at the "facts:"

1. Poor Jackie: she doesn't have a job anymore. And now has to leave the place she's called home for the past two years. Moving is hard. Moving from the north is harder. Leaving people and places behind you may never see again is difficult. Leaving without a job on the other end is even harder. Poor Jackie.
2. Poor Rankin: there are a handful of reporter positions for the territory. One in Rankin Inlet. One in Cambridge Bay. About 5 or 6 in Iqaluit (giving half-points to the news reader and senior reporter etc.) The position in Rankin will soon be gone, leaving a huge gap in news coverage for the territory.
   
3. Poor Regions: while there is *supposed* to be a reporter position in Cambridge Bay, this isn't the case, really. The reporter assigned to the Kitikmeot is actually currently based in Iqaluit. The plan *was* to move him to Cambridge Bay, but there are some logistical issues that have been tricky to work out. That means there are only reporters in the Baffin region now. All reporting outside Iqaluit will now have to be done by phone.

BUT there are a couple good things going on here.

1. Locals doing local news: For the past couple months (and especially since I left for vacation) my coworkers here in Rankin Inlet have been doing more and more news clips. Instead of me taking clips from the interviews they've done and writing them into a story, they're doing it themselves. This means more chances for bilingual stories. And more stories grounded in the culture of the regions. This is a good thing.
   
2. Jackie gets what she wanted: to head out of Rankin sooner rather than later. And she doesn't have to pay her own way to do it.
   

So reader, while I agree with you on principle... that cutting the only reporter position in a geographic area as stupidly huge as the Kivalliq is a real shame...

Having the local people here in Rankin do that job is probably the direction we should have gone in in the first place. Have them trained to do the reporting, or at least job-shadowing the reporter for a couple months so they know how things go.

The PROBLEM here isn't in eliminating a job (because in reality, though not in name, they are going to have others fill that void). The problem is that yet again we're going to have people in the Rankin station thrown into doing a job they've not been really trained to do. Sure, more often than not, you learn by doing. But there's journalistic theory involved in reporting. Guidelines and rules that need to be followed... and until you get someone up here to hold a session on Journalistic ethics and practices... the station's going to be at a bit of a loss.

Non-reader asks: Did you go out?

As I was walking to the story meeting room this morning...

Co-worker: *mumble-out*?
Jackie S. Quire: wha?
CW: *you-mumble-went-mumble-out*?
JSQ: *giggle* whaaaat?
CW: You. Look. Like. You. Went. Out. Your. Face. Out!
JSQ: ohhhhhhhhh yah, I went out *squinch face*

So I went on a 2.5-week long vacation "down south." And came back nice and brown.

I went for a weekend at a friend's cabin. And came back with my skin feeling a bit tight, but not looking all that different.

And my co-worker can tell I've been out on the land.... and I don't even have the tell-tale hat/goggles tan line.

Go figure.

** I should mention said co-worker speaks perfect English, I just was feeling geriatric and he was mumbling a bit too haha

Reader & non-readers ask: Oink Oink?

No.

I. Do. Not. Have. Swine. Flu.

So what the hell happened when I was gone? Seriously, I leave town, the GG snacks on a seal, creates a international ruckus and the entire territory comes down with H1N1.

Looks like we're not getting along very well with animals lately :P

According to yesterday's report by the GN Department of Health, the count's now at 140-something, split 60-40 between the Kitikmeot and Kivalliq regions. For some unknown reason no one's tested positive in the Baffin yet. But frankly, I'd say that's just a matter of time.

Seriously though, we're okay. Yes people have H1N1 (in fact, my skidoo buddy/inuk boyfriend was sent down to Winnipeg because of it) but it's still pretty much "business as usual". With a little bit of Purell thrown in for good measure.

Pretending to be Megan

Reader asks:

How do you tell your coworker to STOP REWRITING YOUR STORIES and putting your name back on them, when you don't want to sound like a whiny child, and you don't want to start a confrontation?

I swear to God, I sent this story I'm working on to my coworker to check over, and he COMPLETELY rewrote the whole thing, INCLUDING the quotes. Now, I only semi-recognize 2 paragraphs, and most of the quotes were never actually said by the interviewees. I'm so frustrated I'm actually close to tears.

Any advice/calming words would be appreciated.

I just about puked all over my desk. That's how sick this whole thing makes me. I can't believe that someone who calls themselves an editor would butcher copy like that - let alone ENDORSE changing quotes.

Here are my thoughts:

You may not want to start a confrontation, but if you do not recognize the piece, your name should not be on it. Imagine if it was even a mildly-controversial story. And his rewrites made your writing inaccurate. You would be held accountable. It's your name on the copy.

You need to talk to this person. He is so out of line. I've read your writing, I know that it's good. You have flexible style. You are a good journalist. It's not that you are a bad writer or a bad reporter. You have a bad editor on your hands.

I remember back in j-school, one of my fellow students was working for the Charlatan (the school's weekly news publication). She wrote a semi-technical article that required some calculations on her part. When she passed it into her editor, the editor made changes without properly researching.

The article was published in the second-last issue of the year.

The following week (the LAST issue of the year), the "readers comments" section blasted the reporter for poor research, calling her "yet another incompetent Charlatan writer" and so on.

Because of the changes her editor made without double-checking.

And because it was the last issue of the year, she basically never got a retraction, never got an apology, and ended up feeling (rightfully) REALLY jilted.

Now the woman has obviously moved on from the incident. She never went back to writing for them, and has been a television reporter in Edmonton for a year... but I advise keeping this in mind next time he "over-edits."

But that's just IMHO.

Basic blogging questions

Non-reader asks: So... what IS a "blog"?

So I was sitting at the Kissarvik Co-op, enjoying one last meal with friends before three of us fly away to different parts of Mexico... when the topic of my blog came up. I didn't MEAN for it to become a topic of conversation, but it did. I was saying what I was doing in Yellowknife, and one of my friends asked "So, you have friends in Yellowknife?" (somewhat aghast, because if I did have friends in Yellowknife, she'd be sure to know - I'm a talker, what can I say?)

I hemmed and hawed and finally spat out "Well, they are blogging friends"

And they all laughed.

One person even joked, (nearly choking on his french fry, I might add) "are you having a BLOGGING SYMPOSIUM"

My response: Yah, absolutely we are.

Then his girlfriend asks "Okay, but what IS a blog?"

Dun-dun DUUUUUUUN!

I've discovered the only thing more difficult to explain than "I *know* such-and-such a person through their blog" is "What IS a blog."

Because blogs aren't the same thing to everyone who writes them.

Some people write for themselves, and only themselves. These rarely see the light of day, and may-or-may-not include the intimate details of a person's life that they may-or-may-not share with others in their non-digital existence.

Some people write for family: I liken these to a less-invasive mass email update - - I had one of these once, when I was in France.

Some write for a "small" audience: Targeted ramblings like a "Recipe blog" or photoblog...

While others write for a wide audience: I think a lot of the Nunavut Bloggers have seen their blogs reach this category... we started out writing for ourselves or our families... but now we have widened our scope. Now we even write for other bloggers, people looking to move to the North, people who want to live vicariously through our writing...

And that's pretty cool. But it's not an easy thing to explain. Neither is:

"So, what do you write about?"

But that's another post. :P

For Kara

Reader asks... What is a condiment reunion? I am curious since I am a condimentaholic....


Oops! Sorry to disappoint, but I don't think you'll be very interested in *my* condiment reunion.
You see....

Condiments =
BUT condiments ALSO =


(DAMN I miss my hair looking like that.....)


You see, once upon a time, the three lovely women in the photo above were serendipitously assigned to the same dorm room at university. But it wasn't just any dorm room, it was the newest building on campus, with four individual bedrooms per unit, a kitchen and two bathrooms. It was called a "suite."

So the group of us were not just "room-mates" we were "suite-mates."

After first year, we moved out of the university residences into a town house. Not just any town house, a CONDO. One we would live in for the next 3 years. So no longer were we "suite-mates" or "room-mates" (I think you see where this is going...) we were "condo-mates."

Or, as is more fun, Condiments.

Now you know.