Hiroshima - The Blog Post

With fewer and fewer of its veterans still with us, study of the Second World War is becoming more and more important lately. I have always been an avid student of war history, but must confess that I had never heard of John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

I purchased a newer edition of Hiroshima, originally an article that took up an entire edition of The New Yorker in 1946 but was later turned into a book format, a couple weeks ago for my journalism class. I found it to be an interesting, if not exactly uplifting read.

The book works because of how vividly it portrays the total destruction of the Japanese city after the dropping of the atomic bomb that essentially ended the war. Hersey is very careful not to provide any sort of opinion on the events. He simply uses a reportorial style to lay a staggering amount of facts out on the table and allows the reader to provide the emotion. Hersey has said this style was deliberate and that he wanted the readers experience to be as direct as possible. While he does not use flowery language or tug on your heartstrings in any way, the book is still very powerful. Hersey speaks of death, mutilation but also uncommon human kindness. The sheer amount of detail that Hersey is able to include is impressive.

With that said, there is something that is clearly missing from the book and that is the American perspective on the events. The book focuses entirely on six people who were in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing and how it affects them. There is no mention at all of any Americans and we do not learn of any context about the war or how they came to their decision. At least a few mentions of this in the piece would have made it stronger and a bit more balanced, in my opinion, but the counter argument of it being refreshing to see a perspective of a side other than the Americans in a war time piece also has merit.

Despite this small complaint, journalists can learn a number of things from the book. First, we can learn the importance of not putting yourself into a story where you do not have a place. It may have seemed forced or trite has Hersey included himself, it is often best to just leave yourself out of it altogether.

We can also learn the value of taking careful notes, as Hersey must have to get all of these facts into the book. A final lesson is how impactful it can be to tell the other side of a story where most of your readers have only heard one point of view. It is likely that most Americans knew little of the suffering after the bomb dropped, certainly not anything this personal.

I think the book can be compared favourably to a Canadian/Japanese television movie that I saw a few years ago in my high school history class. The movie, also called Hiroshima primarily tells the other side of the story as it looks at the American’s decision to use the bomb and it’s impact. I really liked the movie and it did get positive reviews, despite not being well known. It was interesting to see how the book version of the story basically picks off where the movie ends, showing the devastation caused by the decision. It is interesting to note that while the movie tells a largely American story, it has almost no American involvement and while the book is told through the Japanese point of view, an American writes it.

In researching the reception received by the article upon its release, it is clear that the article has quite an impact. Multiple sources say that the magazine sold out within hours and that is was commented on by other magazines and outlets. The text of the article was read on the radio in multiple countries and free copies of the book were sent to book club members. The New York Times and The New Republic both lauded the article and I could find very little criticism of the article. It seems that, with the article being published at the start of the Cold War, some said the article seemed too critical of nuclear weapons or too sympathetic to the victims. The only other complaints seemed to be from people who simply missed their usual dash of humour in the magazine.

In closing, I would just say that the book had quite a strong effect on me as a reader. I found it to be very powerful and a highly informative look into the aftermath of one of the most deadly events of our time. While I might have preferred a slightly less fact based and more emotional style of writing, I still got a lot out of the book and even found myself a bit choked up a certain points.

After reading this, I hope even more so that the study of war history does not leave us with the veterans who fought in them.

A legend dies

This past Friday Nov. 19, the sport of Hockey lost one of its true greats in coaching legend Pat Burns.

Burns started his career in the NHL by coaching his hometown Montreal Canadiens before moving to Toronto, Boston and finally winning his Stanley Cup in 2003 in the New Jersey swamp.

Burns had beaten cancer twice and was even falsely pronounced dead earlier this year, before losing this last battle with lung cancer. Tributes have been flying in from across the hockey world and most have featured one question:

How and why was burns not elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame before his passing?

The HHOF induction ceremony for this year was less than one month ago and would have been such a fitting send off for Burns. The voters knew he had a terminal illness and for them not to vote him in this year ahead of some, frankly, below par inductees is disgraceful. Burns will surely be inducted next year but by then it will be too late and the damage to the league has already been done.

Bitterness aside, here is a great video tribute to Burns from an October edition of Coaches Corner, finally Don Cherry gets something right. The Burns stuff starts about half way through.

Everyone should also give this poignant obituary from the Toronto Star a read. Obituary writing must be very difficult, but this writer captures the emotion well, while also telling a story.

RIP Pat.

My inspiration

As a lot of you probably know because Kevin brings it up every oral presentation class, my grandpa was the Sports Editor at the Winnipeg Tribune for many years. He was a sportswriter is entire adult life and earned a big following here in the city through his words.

His skill at the craft has always served as an inspiration to me in trying to get my start and he has always been willing to help and encourage me on my way.

He is pretty sick right now, and is in the hospital but it's great to see that my inspiration has been an inspiration to other sports writers as well. Here is an article from Friday's Winnipeg Sun about my grandpa. I personally think it is a bit overly dramatic in places, but thanks very much to Paul Friesen, a terrific writer himself, for taking the time to do it.


He’s the single biggest reason I’m sitting at this keyboard right now, my early inspiration.

The man who brought the Canadian Football League, especially the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, to life like nobody else could, simply with words.

As a kid, every day I’d rush to get the newspaper, the Winnipeg Tribune, to gaze at the latest pictures Jack Matheson had painted.

In those days you were either a Tribune family or a Free Press family, and those of us lucky enough to be in a Tribune family knew we had something the other kids in town didn’t.

I’d read his words, often a few times over, and although I didn’t know it at the time, they’d stick with me, landing like seeds in a fertile spot in my brain, where occasionally they continue to sprout, decades later.

I also didn’t know at the time that Matty was, quite simply, as good as it got in Canadian sports writing. A master of the written word.

That’s why it’s so hard to hear he can no longer read or write. Time has snatched those gifts away.

At 86, the great sportswriter is confined to a hospital bed, his body and mind failing him.

“Every once in a while he’ll kiss my hand,” his wife, Peggy, told me. “Unless a miracle happens, he’s not going to come home.”

The LGIW, as Matty always called her — the luckiest girl in the world — doesn’t feel so lucky these days.

But while it doesn’t look good for her husband, when she and son Jim, the oldest of three kids, begin to reminisce about better days with Matty, you quickly realize how lucky they’ve been.

“The softest father in the world,” the LGIW called him.

While Matty could be hard as nails in print, he was apparently a marshmallow at home. She’d be busy doling out the discipline, but he’d prefer to dole out the ice cream, or take the kids out to toss the football around.

How many kids have a putting green on their front lawn?

Matty’s did.

And while he taught Jim how to play golf, he passed down a more precious gift to his No. 1 son.

The kid became a sportswriter.

“I’d have to write and my dad would be looking over my shoulder,” Jim recalled of his early days as a scribe-in-training. “That was more pressure than actually going to the game and figuring out what I had to ask to write the story.”

Of course, when you eventually get the stamp of approval from Matty, you know you’re on your way.

The man, simply, was never boring in print.

With Matty, a receiver didn’t make great catches, he made catches he had no business making. He wasn’t wide open, he had enough time to make a speech before the ball came down.

A player didn’t punch another, he played the tom-toms on him. A quarterback didn’t get good protection, he had enough time to scribble the recipe for meat loaf on the football.

I’d even eat up his annual Christmas column, which began with “Merry Christmas to...” and ended with a few hundred names.

And to think, after serving two years in the navy, it took Matty a few months to work up the nerve to go to the Trib to ask for a job in 1946.

“The job he had (before that), they fired him,” the LGIW said. “He worked in an office, pushing a pencil. And you know that wasn’t Jack.”

No, he wasn’t at home unless he was at a game, talking to players and coaches, then banging away at his manual typewriter, where that day’s clack-clack-clack would become the next day’s must-read.

As a sports editor, I imagine he could be intimidating to the young writers.

Word is he never chewed them out, though. At least, not so they heard it.

“But, boy, did he write nasty notes,” the LGIW said. “He was a writer right to his fingertips.”

As passionate as he was about the Bombers, curling was “the love of his life.”

“It was a tossup who he loved more — me or his job,” Peggy cracked. “Sometimes I thought it was his job. He got up in the morning wanting to go to work. He was the only person I knew who wanted his holiday to end so he could go back to work.”

Lucky for us. Because a day without Matty in the Trib was a day you should have hung onto your 25 cents.

It turns out Matty had his own inspiration as a kid, huddling around the radio for Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts. He’d listen to Foster Hewitt, then write the story — at nine or 10 years old.

Even then, it was all about the words.

“He didn’t read comic books,” the LGIW said. “He read the dictionary.”

Don’t kid yourself, though. Matty knew how to have fun. If it wasn’t singing around the piano, it was with a drink and a cigar in a smoky hotel room, preferably during Brier or Grey Cup week.

“Or the hospitality suite,” said Jim.

Usually with his wife at his side.

Peggy often travelled with her husband, making it to 39 Grey Cups. No wonder he called her the LGIW.

“We’ve had a good 63 years,” she said.

What she and the kids wouldn’t give, though, for one more hour of lucidity. One more chance to say a few words to the man whose life was words.

And if they got that chance, which ones would they choose?

“Just that I love him,” Jim managed.

If you feel compelled to contact the family, they ask you don’t call or visit.

Write some words down on paper, and send it their way, instead.

Matty, no doubt, would prefer it that way.

End of an Era...

...Well not really.

But the 2010 CFL season mercifully came to an end for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers last night and, as my classmate and friend Sean Angus said nicely, it was a game that summed up the entire season as the Bombers lost by four points or less for a shocking 9th time this season.

They say it's the mark of a bad team to lose close games but that is just ridiculous. Turn even three of those nine games around and we would likely be getting ready for the playoffs.

I was watching, often from the press box, for all of these losses because I covered the team this year as the official game reporter for winnipegbluebombers.com. It was definitely an honour and a great experience so thank you to former CreComm Dave Turnbull for hooking me up.

Covering a team is one of the biggest parts, if not the biggest part of sports reporting and covering the Bombers for a full season is essentially as big as it gets here in Winnipeg. I learned a lot about sports writing including how to cover a losing team, how to network with professional writers and how to wrangle an extra free meal in the press box.

Here is one of my game stories for you all to check out. You can read the rest on the Bomber website, if you like stories that will depress you.

keith

My first election coverage...

This week, I got my feet wet in covering an election. I was a reporter for the live KICK FM election night special.

I was stationed at Sam Katz's election night headquarters - a swishy ballroom at the Radisson downtown.

I filed four live reports for the station, each of about one minute in length, to provide colour from the the event. I was lucky enough to be stationed at the winning camp and that definitely made the night more enjoyable.

Here are the top five things I took away from the experience:

5. Reporting live is tricky - You never know what is going to happen and you never know when you are going to be needed. I had to be ready to go whenever I got a call from my instructor, Garry Moir. You need to be ready for anything and you need to believe in yourself, even when you are nervous.

4. Trust yourself - CreComm gives us the best preparation we could ever have to do this type of thing. Sure, I was a bit nervous about going live on a fairly popular radio station but I knew that I had all the skills I needed to succeed. At the end of the day, you just have to think of it like you are talking to a friend about the scene you are at. We CreComms know this stuff. Just make sure you remember that.

3. Get out and talk to regular people - Sure, I was on radio and I wasn't going on TV and doing interviews or doing having to actually quote people for a print story, but I still made sure to get around and talk to people about their feelings. This made my live reporting a lot easier and a lot more interesting. I didn't necessarily have to quote them exactly, but the fact I could say "I spoke to..." and then reference someone from the event surely made things more interesting and informative for the listener.

2. Never forget how your friends can help - First year CreComms were doing an assignment for journalism class on election night and a couple of them were assigned to the very same place as me. One of them, Chadd Cawson was a big help throughout the night. We worked together to talk to people and get information and it was just nice to have someone to talk to in the crowded room. Another, Pamela Vernaus, was also very nice and allowed me to listen in on an interview she was doing for her assignment and use one of the quotes on air. Bottom line, you should never be afraid to ask talented people for help. It is clear that the future of CreComm is in good hands.

1. Everyone in CreComm is lucky - Our program is truly great and it gives us so many opportunities to do awesome things like this. It allows us to test ourselves in tough situations, but situations that will make us desirable to employers moving forward. We should all be proud to be in the program and never take it for granted. We might be students, but we're proving we can hold our own compared against professionals in the industry. Never forget that CreComm is the reason for that.

All in all, the experience on election night was a lot of fun and something I would love to do again.

Maybe when the provincial election rolls around, I can even get paid for my work.

keith

Election Fever

This Wednesday, my journalism classmates and I will be covering our first election.

The 2010 Winnipeg Civic Election has been an unusually exciting civic election campaign and I have really enjoyed every minute of being a part of it. You definitely get a much better understanding and feel for things when you spend so much time with it.

All of us in the class will be involved with some sort of professional coverage on the 27th. I was chosen to be one of the four reporters covering things for 92.9 KICK FM, our campus radio station.

I will be at Sam Katz election night headquarters filing live reports for the one hour program, so please tune in!

Here are some of the key story lines that I am following:

- Can Sam hold on to the momentum he seems to have gained in the last week or so and get a third term?
- Has Judy run out of steam? Her support seems to have flat lined. Will she turn it around in time?
- Can the understated John Orlikow hold of the Michael Kowalson challenge in River Heights-Fort Garry? This has been the best battle of the campaign for sure.
- Is there one more rabbit in the hat for Ol' Harvey in Daniel Mac? He looks certain to lose his seat but has proven he can't be counted out.
- Who will win the ridings in which there is no incumbant? Old Kildonan, Elmwood-East Kildonan, Charleswood-Tuxedo and Mynarski all look close.
- Will there be an upset? Justin Swandel looks to be in trouble in St. Norbert and Grant Nordman could be unseated in St. Charles.
- What will the voter turnout be? With a record number of Winnipeggers casting ballots at advance polls, the turnout figures to be well over 60% this time around. This would be awfully refreshing.
- Last but not least, what will Marty Gold yell into his microphone about once the election is over? Knowing him, I am certain he will find something.

If you get the Free Press, check out Bart Kives comprehensive election preview in today's paper. It paints a good picture of how things may unfold.

Overall, covering the campaign has been a really positive experience for me as a young journalist and something that has truly opened my eyes. The best part? It's been fun as well.

Harder than it looks

This morning, a group of my classmates and I walked practiced running a live newscast for our Broadcast Journalism class.

I am just going to put this out there right now, it is way tougher than it looks on television.

As someone who is used to watching the professionals do it on television, I just assumed that it was as easy as they make it look. Everything runs seamlessly and mistakes are so rare that it seems like a huge deal whenever the do.

That was not the case with us.

Sure, we kept things going pretty well as we rotated through all the jobs associated with a newscast, but we also made a lot of mistakes. My self included of course.

Being the director was obviously the toughest job, as our instructors said it would be as you are in total control of everything and a slip up by you throws things into chaos.

Other tough jobs were audio, switcher and anchor.

There was one job that really shocked and was easily the biggest surprise of the day. I will give you a hint, Sylvia Kuzyk.

Yeah, thats right. Weather. It's hard!

Everyone basically gives the weather guy (or gal) a rough ride and they are stereotyped as the dumb one of the group. It doesn't help of course that there are a lot of brutal weather men out there but I will certainly be giving them a lot more respect from now on.

From memorizing your high pressure patterns to finding something to say about pretty mundane stuff to learning how to pivot properly so you don't point to Montreal while saying Winnipeg, presenting the weather on news is far more than just telling the audience about sunny skies.

I'll leave you with an example of what can happen if the weatherman doesn't do his homework. Talk about a natural disaster...

The forgotten man.

Something has been bothering me a little bit lately.

In our journalism classes, and all throughout CreComm, people have been celebrating Dawna Friesen's appointment as the new anchor on Global National. This is not what I have a problem with, however over the top I think it may be, sometimes.

What has bothered me, and maybe this is just me being too contrary, is the lack of mention about Kevin Newman in basically any media, particularly Winnipeg media.

I admit, I haven't spent the past weeks actively searching out tributes to Kevin Newman and this is a personal opinion.

And, before anyone asks, I know he left by his own choice and wasn't forced out or anything.

It's just, amidst all the unbridled joy, I feel like Newman has been somewhat forgotten by Winnipeggers and CreComms for the great work he did for a decade.

Newman took over the fledgling Global National in 2001 as their first anchor and executive editor. Competing against much more established newscasts on CBC and CTV, Newman took his network to the top of the game.

By the time he left, they had pulled even with CTV as the most watched national news in Canada. Not bad for a program that had started less than a decade before.

Newman was a multiple Gemini winner as Canada's best anchor and came up with the idea to go on a cross country tour in covering the 2004 Federal Election, an idea that has been copied by all other major networks these days.

His final show featured many emotional tributes from groups thanking him for his work through the years. It was a great episode and a fitting send off for someone who really revolutionized anchoring in our country.

Kevin Newman is the guy who really got me interested in television news and always made it more interesting and easier to watch then it had been in the past. I don't think people should forget that simply because the new anchor graduated from our program.

Maybe that's just me but either way...thanks for the memories Kevin.

This is journalism.

I posted earlier in the year about Joe Posnanski, my favourite writer. I really think his columns help prove that sports journalism isn't just reporting scores and cliches but its about great writing and about inspiring people through the story.

This is a link to his latest column on the Sports Illustrated website. It is about Los Angeles Dodgers play by play announcer Vin Scully.

Scully is quite possibly, although it would be argued by hockey fans in Canada, the most famous and legendary sports broadcaster of all time.

The column, in my opinion, is perfect.

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/09/30/the-heart-of-los-angeles/?eref=sihp

Deadspin...is the future?

I am pretty "oldskool"when it comes to getting my journalism.

I still like to read the actual paper more than online and I still like to watch the news on television rather than get my fix from things like twitter.

The same thing somewhat applies to sports, my topic of choice for...everything.

I am probably one of the few people left in my generation who still reads and subscribes to the physical copy of Sports Illustrated. I watch established classics like SportsCentre rather than these brutal new shows on The Score.

Yeah, I figured I was a true purist. Until I checked out deadspin.com.

One of the most popular sports blogs, deadspin claims to be free from all the mainstream bias that shapes traditional sports websites like ESPN.com or SI.com. It features a lot of content that is a bit out of the ordinary and could even be considered a TMZ for sports.

I love it.

They portray things in a new and interesting light for me as a sports fan by looking at angles ignored by other outlets. In this way, sites like deadspin are truly the future. They provide content quickly and operate without traditional parameters. They can post whatever they want and do it whenever they want to.

Check out this post that has made my evening.



Yes, that is Kansas City Chiefs star Dexter McCluster rapping about cell phone safety... Awkward.

You wouldn't see that on SportsCentre. At least not yet.

I could get used to this new world of journalism. Even if it does make me a hypocrite.

Well that was awkward...

Last week, Yvonne made a great post about the awkwardness of going door to door to ask people for interviews. It generated a solid discussion but I just kind of sat back, I didn't see the issue either way and felt that however you wanted to do your interviews, go do it.

Then I started to do more of mine and found that the whole thing definitely was... well, awkward.

The combination of bothering people, asking them about something that is fairly taboo in general conversation and trying to get them to answer questions on something they often know nothing about is pretty lethal sometimes.

One particular person was really bad.

They basically flipped out on me when I asked them what they knew about their councillor and what he had done at City Hall. They got super defensive, clearly bothered by the fact that they didn't actually know the answer and must have thought I was questioning their intelligence. That or calling them a bad person for not knowing.

The bottom line is, they chastised me for being impolite and were pretty frosty for the rest of the talk.

I guess I learned a few things from it.

- People hate talking about politics in general

- People don't like when they feel you question their intelligence.

- A lot of people don't respect student journalists.

- The Tim Horton's on Ferry Road attracts a weird crowd.

I would like to hear what my classmates and any other readers think about those things or if anyone has had similar experiences. Let's discuss. Uh, if that's ok with you of course.

But hey, it could be worse. It wasn't as bad as this. I never liked Randy Orton anyway.

The best sports writer around....is a blogger?

I read a lot of different sports writers columns. Like a lot.

While I should say that my favourite is my Uncle Jim who writes columns and covers the Oilers for the Edmonton Journal. I don't like the Oilers though.

And I certainly respect Red Smith, the man generally considered the best sports writer of all time. He wrote in a different era though.

There are many other great sports writers. From Frank Deford to Mitch Albom to Jason Aldridge to Damien Cox.

Ok, maybe not Damien Cox.

That said, the very best of all in my opinion is Joe Posnanski.

For me, his word on sports is the gospel. Except even more strongly written.

Joe wrote for the Kansas City Star for many years. He won multiple Columnist of the Year awards. He moved on a couple years ago and now maintains a very popular sports blog called

Curiously Long Posts.

Posnanski's blog is syndicated on SI.com and features some of the best writing I have ever seen from a sports writer or writer period.

On a blog. The future is now.

Here is a fantastic article he wrote on the Lebron James saga this past summer.

If you like sports, check out his blog. You won't regret it.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/07/29/a-boulevard-called-chagrin/

What is Journalism?

First off, welcome to this new blog that I have set up for my Journalism class at RRC.

The blog is an assignment for class to discuss various things in the world of Journalism and our first post was to look into what journalism was...

This is a pretty broad question but perhaps that is appropriate because Journalism is a broad field and it seems to be changing everyday.

The interesting thing is that some people argue that journalism is dying, while others believe that it is simply evolving with the times and getting more and more exciting.

The answer, as usual, probably lies somewhere in the middle. The traditional forms of journalism such as the print newspaper and idealistic images of 1950s style families sitting around watching the national news are dying. They are products of a simpler time and there just isn't time for them in todays day in age.

Today, Journalism seems to have morphed into this wild new world with words like Blog, Twitter, and App taking over.

Simply put, the world moves so fast nowadays that Journalism has to be faster and more instantaneous. This has lead to a much more independent and less structured form of journalism moving to the fore where anyone can blog and stay connected through social media.

Reporters roles have changed as well. Instead of being able to be experts in one field and sticking to it, they now need to be jacks of all trades. You cannot simply write for print any longer, but rather need to write your story, take photos for it, film footage to be posted on Twitter and so on and so forth.

I guess what I am saying is that Journalism has become harder than ever to nail down into one specific definition. It is now a million different things.

It is different to everyone.

I sometimes long for the old days of journalism. I always wanted to be that press reporter in the fedorah with the suspenders and the notepad out roving for the truth.

While that image may be lost, the core values of Journalism have not really changed. The goal remains to find stories that will interest people or that people need to know and to bring them to them in effective ways.

What has been altered is the way that we do it and what we can be sure of is that the changes will not end.

Despite this long winded post, it has become clear that you can answer the question in the post title in simply one word.

What is Journalism?

Changing.