,
14 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Can I take a second to talk a little about journalism? (I know not everyone is into this.) It is a funny business, profoundly public. Your work is OUT there, with your name and often contact info. Your mistakes are as public as your triumphs. 1/
You tell stories for a living, often sad, brutal stories, sensitive stories, of people or communities in pain. Sometimes quickly, on deadline. You do a lot of good, which keeps so many going. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. All that is public 2/
This is why journalists sweat accuracy so much. Telling people's stories is a trust. Exposing wrongs is a trust. Anyone who thinks journalists just toss off their work has not seen the pains they take to get it right and the agony they experience when a mistake happens. 3/
(In the last hour alone a journalist bracing for a possible clarification called the uncertainty the 'literal worst moments' in her career. Good journalists do really feel that way. It matters.) 4/
But HOW we do our work has been much less public. While anyone who watches TV can see media scrums, with all their good and bad, that is a tiny sliver of the actual work, such as the painstaking tracking down of one crucial fact, which can takes hours, days, weeks or more 5/
The time spent in courthouses fighting for access or basic information that should be available to the public but for various reasons isn't unless you fight. The time spent filing Freedom of Information requests, then appealing them, then filing again. 6/
The eye-burning reading of sometimes hundreds of documents. The careful building up of contacts and sources, the challenging interviews, the deliberate obstacles of those who don't want something revealed. The unseemly intrusion journalism sometimes requires. 7/
This the job we chose, and we love it - no complaints. But it is also why the job is so expensive, in time and resources. So much good journalism takes time, care, diligence. It costs. You don't get results without putting in the time and the effort and the cost. 8/
Often the WHY we do it is opaque to the public also. Why does it matter if this information is secret or revealed? Why does accountability matter? What difference does the story make? 9/
Not everyone will care about these things, and that is fine. But for those who do, we have trying to lift the curtain a little. That is why you have been seeing threads like this one, from Social Justice reporter @lmonseb: 10/
Or this one, from our affordable housing reporter, @emathieuStar 11/
Or any given tweet thread from city hall reporter @jpags,. But this is a good example, showing the obstacles of getting public information through current access laws and systems. 12/
Yes, we are proud of our work. But these threads are less about that than opening up a little of the who, how and why to those who may be interested. And that behind any given public story there is a whole other story, the one we know. And now, much more often, you do too. 13/
And this is a two-way street. We want to hear from you also. You can always reach out by email trust@thestar.ca with questions or comments. And for any concerns about our journalism we have our public editor @kathyenglish looking out for your interests. Thank you for reading.
