Nuanced. - 67. Grace Kennedy: Journalism, Community & The Fraser Valley Current

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Aaron and Grace talk about her role with the Fraser Valley Current, and the stories she has written over the past year. The two also discuss journalism, municipal politics, community and so much more. Grace Kennedy is a mother and reporter with the Fraser Valley Current. Grace grew up in Langley and has been focused on journalism since she was a teen, when she helped start Langley Fine Arts School’s first online newspaper. After graduating from University of King’s College journalism program, Grace returned to the Fraser Valley and began working in community newspapers. She has been nominated for three BC Yukon Community Newspaper Association awards, and was named New Journalist of the Year in 2019. Grace started at The Current in April 2021, and has continued to focus on community news that makes local reporting so exciting and important. She also is heavily involved in editing The Current and its stories.Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

I'm Grace Kennedy. I'm a reporter at the Fraser Valley Current, and I've been there for a year in a couple months now, so almost the whole time that the current's been around. What made you want to work with them? Well, I knew Tyler, and, yeah, that was a big part of it. Tyler reached out to me kind of when he first had the idea for starting a newslet. or even before the Fraser Valley current had gotten around because we both worked for a black press, him at the Abbotsford News, me at the Agassie Harrison Observer.

And I like Tyler's work. And so, yeah, when I was on maternity leave, he was kind of talking, the first time he was kind of talking to me about it. And then, yeah, when I got going, I applied. Was that nerve-wracking at all to get started to start to think about what it would look like in maybe a less traditional form of media, or was that exciting to you? It was both, but I think for me, the nerve-wracking part wasn't that it was an untraditional form of media, because there are a lot of those out there that actually, they do really

well, and you see that, and you see that's kind of the way that it's going with, you know, if you're in the industry, you just, you kind of see the direction where people are trying to take things. And so newsletters were definitely one of those ways. So it's like, yeah, obviously, and when Tyler said it was going to focus on long-form journalism, that's what I love doing. So it's like, that part wasn't scary.

The nerve-wracking part was the financial part of it because it's like, well, it's brand new. What if it, like, what if it goes under and then I have no job and then I have no money? But luckily, my husband has a very stable job. So I was

like, if I was by myself, I probably would have been way more nervous about taking that step, even though it was a really great career step for me, like journalism-wise and also mental health-wise, just because when I was at Black Press, I was feeling very burnt out by just all the stuff that you have to do when you're a one-person newspaper. So I think overall it was really good,

but I wouldn't have been able to do that if I was just a single journalist. Right. striking out. Can you tell us more? Because it's sort of unique that the place that you were at has so many challenges to begin with, that it burns out journalists, that it's not really designed for journalists to reach their intellectual potential, to share their genuine thoughts and really elaborate on stories the same way. It sounds like you get to in long form journalism with the current. Was there a particular motivation to want to be able to develop more on your viewpoints or more on a story than you were able to? That's just what I

That's just what I like. I think every journalist has different things that they like to do. And like the Agassie Harrison Observer, where I was in the North Delta reporter and the Cloverdale reporter where I were before, those are extremely small newsrooms that were kind of built for a different time. You know, they were built to put out the weekly newspaper. And so you wrote stories throughout the week and you put the newspaper together and then you're done and you go on to the next week.

But as things have changed over the years, you kind of add. added all these extra things, which are very important, because that's how people consume news now. So adding the social media aspect to it, adding the online aspect to it. And then when you do stuff online, there's things like video and photos that weren't quite as prominent before. And so it all kind of gets piled onto one journalist. And there are certain people who can like just do that and they love it and they love the busyness and the breaking news and the community features and getting to do it all all the time and I'm not necessarily one of those people so I think that that was part of it is just it it was just too

much all the time for me and I like to take things slower I like to write many many many words about one thing. So that's kind of why long form is better for me. Interesting. Do you think that that is something we need more of in general is it feels like we get bombarded with so much information now that a thoughtful, well articulated story seems to get kind of harmed or it's harder for people to be able to follow through on in the traditional sense, was that something that you got to experience in the beginning of your career,

that there was more long-form writing, and then it tapered off? How did that sort of journey work? Well, I'm still a baby journalist by anyone's estimation. You know, I haven't been in the industry very long. So, yeah, I guess what's the best way? Was there more long-form journalism when I started? Not necessarily. I started kind of the way the industry. is now, more or less, like obviously newsletters weren't a thing then, but sort of the mainstream media structure that people are very familiar with. That's the industry that I entered in and that's what I went to school and kind of learned about. And when you're in school, there's tons of opportunities to try different things, maybe more so than you would get

just, you know, getting your first job right out of school. So it's like I did long form in university, and that's where I discovered that I really liked it. And I think but I think there is value in all sorts of different kinds of journalism. So it's a shame to me

that a lot of companies are all seem to be chasing the same sort of journalism because it does work for ad revenue. Like it does, clicks are good if you're looking for a particular type of revenue. So people are pumping out a lot of stories and doing it very quickly and not getting to do more of the long form stuff.

But that doesn't mean that that sort of journalism is bad necessarily because we need quick hits so that, you know, there's a fire and you see it and you're like, my goodness, why is there a fire? And you can go and you can be like, ah, this 200 word article succinctly explains why there's a fire and what happened and your good. to go. But you also need long-form journalism. You also need what I like to call, or what many people call fluff journalism, which I think is still very important, which is not necessarily investigative, not necessarily super important, but just stuff that is interesting for people to read and, you know, makes them feel good after they've read it. So there's value for all those different kinds of journalism that not every person is going to be good at all of them. Yeah. My frustration, I guess, with the fluff journalism is it feels so much less, I've had a few of those

pieces in other news organizations written about me, and it feels like it's missing, like they're just checking a box. And that's something I don't feel with the current. When you talked about, I believe it was Jothi that talked about the motorcyclist that came into town, that was a very long form article explaining and kind of bridging community divides and maybe the people you didn't expect or a story that you didn't see coming, kind of being shared. And I think uplifting the community that you go, wow, I didn't even know these people existed. And here they are bringing the community together. Sometimes it feels like they're missing the point of the story. Well, I guess to me, like Doty's Sick Motorcycle Club story, that, to me, that wouldn't

be a fluff journalism piece because that was, you know, that was an important, it was more of a a community profile or a feature where it was talking about something of importance. You know, they were coming to help these members of the community that had been, you know, hurt by the landslide that went through Rockwell Drive, I believe it was. And but so when I, when I think of fluff journalism, I think of more where this hoof trimmer had reached out to us. And it's like, who's going to, there's, there's nothing important about a story. story about someone who trims cow hoofs for a living, it's just, it's just fun. And Joti

had a similar story in the same series about an alpaca shearer. And so it's like, those things, there isn't, there isn't a huge significance to the story necessarily. But it's, helps people get to know things that they wouldn't have thought about. Yeah. So I think there's like a very subtle, but I think important difference there. And like, yeah, as a journalist, it's kind of your job to look at the topic and be like, what kind of story is this? Really, like, is this something that has a deeper significance that I need to kind of dive into more? Or is this just a story about a bunch of alpacas getting a haircut, basically? Which was an excellent story. By the way, that was Jotis. It was really good. So can you tell us more about that? When you're

thinking about a story, or when you're talking to a person, what is that process like in your mind to try and bring something to life? Is it that you go looking for all the stories? Do some of them just sort of pop up on your radar? What is sort of the process to develop a story? So it's so funny, because this is the question that everyone asked journalists. How do you find your stories? Where do you get your ideas? And I feel bad that I don't remember who said this originally. It was a writer of some sort. And they basically says, like, everywhere, there are millions of story ideas. You walk down the street, and there are just, there are thousands of story ideas there. And the average person will see, like, one, a reasonable writer will see, like, a dozen. And a really good writer will see, like, a hundred ideas. So I don't know where I am on that spectrum.

I don't see tons of ideas every time I go for a walk necessarily. but that's part of it is you just the stories that come from you internally are things that you're curious about or things that you notice and then you're like that's weird or that's interesting or that's different or I want to know more

about that and then you kind of dig into it and you develop a story that way and then when you're in a news organization and I don't know how it works necessarily as a freelancer I feel like that might be part of it more if you're a freelancer is kind of digging through your own ideas. But when you're working within a news organization, you also get people who email who are like, hey, I'm doing this cool thing, or I know of someone who's doing this, or you guys should really look into that, or things like that. And some of those are not great story ideas, but some of them are. And some of them are kind of not there yet.

so you have to take their idea and be like, well, what is the actually, like, important or interesting part of this? And then some story ideas come from, you know, you're at a family dinner and someone's like, I have a really important story for you. And sometimes it actually is a really important story. Sometimes it's not. So there's, and I've said this before, but there's this idea in the Harry Potter series of the Golden Snitch. And the role of the person is to go and chase it. And it's like paralleled to the idea of like your creative endeavor, the muse, the idea that you're not clear where you're going, but your interests, your curiosity is taking you somewhere. And you can't really predict where that's going to take you in the future.

And so you just kind of chase it and hope for the best. Do you feel like with the current now, you're more free to chase stories that interest you personally? Has that changed at all? For sure. Yeah. I don't think I've written a story that I haven't wanted to write for quite some time. And what was it like previously? Previously, you write stories that you have to write as well as stories that you want to write.

You know, as a journalist, there's always opportunity to write stories that you want to write. But when there are a lot of other demands on your time, those opportunities are sometimes fewer and further between than maybe you would like, and it would take more effort to do the stories that you would want to. Because like at the Agassie Harrison Observer, for example, when it's just you, you know, you're writing something that you want to write. And then there's, you know, notes on Facebook being like, oh my goodness, there's like four cop cars down here and a fire and this. And so you're like, okay, well, I guess I'm going to stop working on the thing that I wanted to work on. And I'll go, you know, drive down to Harrison and see what's going on there and stuff. So, and some people love that. I'm not one of those people.

Some people that's like, that's what they want to do. And so they're just waiting for those, for those calls. But for me, it's the getting to do more of the long form digging into things. And sometimes just data entry is. nice too, and I get to do some of that at the current, which is good. Right. So was it what you expected when you took the leap? What was the sort of genesis into moving in, getting started? Was it what you imagined? Was it better? How did you kind of approach those beginning phases? Oh, gosh. I don't even remember really, because I think it was kind of what I expected,

but obviously not at the same time. I think it's always like that when you start a new job. You go in with your expectations and some of them are met and some of them aren't. I think one of the things that was unexpected that was hard for me at the beginning was the level of in-depth editing that Tyler was doing on my pieces because I had always worked at small newsrooms. So it was like me and one other person or just myself. So my stories never really got tons of editing. And then with Tyler, again, it was just me and Tyler, but because we had this different format, our stories went through a lot of editing. And so that was, that was an adjustment because, and I think I have it pinned in my Twitter

account, but it's like, I want to be a journalist, but I don't like conflict, confrontation, or criticism, which is not great for a journalist, but that's, that's my own fault. But yeah, so it's like, I think going through that editing process was difficult for me. at the beginning. But it's like, it does make the story so much better. And so you just have to get past that. And then when I started editing more of Tyler's stuff as well, it's kind of nice to give it back a little bit.

Tyler's going to watch this and he's going to be like, that's why you're so rude. Because one time one of his endings, I said, and I did not mean this rudely, but I said it anyways. I said literally anything would be, better than this, which is so rude and not what I meant necessarily, but it just, it's, and Tyler has said, he's not as rude as I am sometimes, but it's, that's the sort of stuff that our stories go through is being like, this is quite weak. Perhaps we can figure out a way to make it

better or whatever and do suggestions on each other's stories and stuff. So that was hard to get used to at the beginning, but has really made our work so much better now. Yeah. Excuse me. Can you say more on that? Because on me being rude to Tyler or something else. No, on the process of editing the story, because there's something, there's something wrong with what's going on, perhaps in other newsrooms, where people are saying, I can't read this, where they feel so disconnected from the author politically in life experience and values in something where they say I can't even read this newspaper anymore because I don't feel connected to it and there's something about

the editing process that makes it accessible to all people if that's what the goal is and talking to Tyler talking to you talking to Farhan the goal is community and not to separate or divide people but to bring people together I'm just interested in what that editing process is like because people don't realize the process, the ending paragraph maybe went through 10 different edits to make it more accessible, maybe make it more optimistic, make it more like we don't have the answer to this problem and now you need to think about what we're going to do in the future. Like what is that sort of editing journey like and what is the end goal? What is the kind of guiding philosophy? Well, it takes a lot of time. And so I think

what you were saying about other newsrooms, I don't know if it, um, if time plays into why some readers aren't feeling connected to those newspapers or those news organizations, um, but I know it's something that's in short supply across our industry. And the Fraser Valley current is like really an exception to the rule because of our format. So, because like editing, it takes a lot of time. because it takes time to go out and interview people and I know I take more time than some other journalists to like think about the interview afterwards and then write it out. And so you've written your story and then best practices that you edit it yourself first. I don't always do that. And so, but then you go through it again and you say like, how can I make this better?

Is this really what I want to say? and then for us, then it goes to like Tyler or Joti and they give it a read and then it just kind of depends on where the story's at kind of what happens next. Because sometimes it's like sometimes it's perfect and you're just doing like small line edits like this word would be better if it was here. This word would be better if it was this word. This paragraph might be better underneath the following paragraph. Um, and then, but sometimes the edits are more substantial where you read through it and you make zero line edits because you're like, something about this needs to be totally reworked. Right. Um, or, you know, there's obviously the in between part where it's like, you have questions. And so you leave comments being like, what about this? What about that? And then you have to go back and do more research and do more interviewing and stuff like that.

Interesting. So do you find, that's a really interesting that you say that you sit with the interview or the conversation you had with the person. afterwards what what are you doing during that time what is or how do you go about approaching those interviews i'm just interested from my perspective of preparing for interviews with people thinking about the research prior um thinking about how i'm going to kind of lay out like people think that i just ask questions off the cuff but i sort of have an idea of what the two to three hours is going to look like over time and what area i'm going to focus on in the first hour second hour and third hour and so i'm just interested in what that kind of journey to develop a story is like when you're dealing with a human being that like maybe you go into it and you think

I bet they're like this and then all of a sudden you're like oh this person's much different than I expect and then you sit with this what is that sort of journey to develop a story like well I think you just described it right you go in with your research ahead of time and yeah like you always go in with a list of questions whether you have them written down in front of you or not like you know you know what the point is for talking to this person, you're not just going to go up to a random person and start asking them random questions. That's not what journalists do, right? Um, and then, yeah, and then part of the challenge of journalism is that you do have to listen to people as they're talking. And so then it's thinking about what they've said at the end. And, and then, yeah, just sitting with that

for a little bit, being like, does this line up with my ideas about the story before I went into this interview? And I'm thinking about this more for like people features. Because if you're doing something like, I'm working on a story right now about vertical farming. And so with that, those interviews weren't necessarily super unexpected. So it's, so with that one, my thinking afterwards is more like, how am I going to piece this all together in a story that logically makes sense? and includes all the information that I need. But I also just yesterday, because I'm assuming this will come out much later,

did an interview with Daryl Ralph, the ice cream man in Chilliwack. He's really lovely, and I saw the Chilawak progress, just published an article about him as well. Is that the person who bikes around back and forth on the Vetter Trail? Yeah, I think so. He has a mobility scooter and his ice cream cart behind him. And so I did the interview with him,

I had more or less an idea of what the interview was going to be like. And some of those expectations were definitely confirmed. You know, he's doing it because it's enjoyable to interact with the kids and he wanted to make people happy. No one goes into the ice cream business because, you know, if they don't want to make people happy, right? But there were also some elements of our interview that were a little bit unexpected. So it's like, oh, how am I going to organize that in the story? story where is that going to fall is that my new lead or is that going to come later is that going to how how is that going to i guess work within the story and then sorry lead and kicker

industry terms i'm interested yeah lead is just you know your first sentence of the story or more roughly like just the start of your story the kicker is just the end right so um and then the nut graph which is a really weird word that's like if you're in a break news story or whatever or just a more traditional news story that's your paragraph that's just like this is what we're talking about and here's why it's important like this is the essence of the story is the nut graph right so you have to think about that as you're talking to the person and sort of trying to reestablish where you're going to take the story it sounds like in a way but it's not drastic it's not drastic it's not like it's not like i'm writing the

story in my head as I'm as I'm talking to them it's just you know you're talking to them for a purpose the purpose is to write a story so of course you're going to be thinking about how the things that they are saying are going to impact the story that you're writing and sometimes it goes on like a totally different track or the people are just like too interesting and then you just listen and then you have to really think about it afterwards and be like okay so that was not at all what I had planned, how will that work? And then those ones sometimes take longer and sometimes in part because I put it off because I'm like, I don't totally know what to do now. And then you put it off and you're like, okay, now it's been like quite a while. I really need to write this

story. Right. Yeah. Can you tell us about some of the stories that you've written at the current and what stood out to you? Tyler mentioned that you, the Japanese internment camp was a really interesting story to you. And it didn't get the love that maybe it deserved because the Fraser Valley flood started to happen sort of at the same time. The same day, the same day, I spent so long on this story. And then the same day that we publish it, everything went to, you know, so can you tell us like that nascent stage, what were you thinking? How did the story get started? And what was the journey to bring it to life? Oh, gosh. It feels like so long ago. Now, that's the problem with journalism is that something that was like just a couple

months ago is like ages ago. But then also some things that were actually ages ago feel like they just happened. It's a very weird industry. I was actually going to ask you about that as well because you're always on the current thing. So a story doesn't like it falls into the background

and you don't get to show it the love that maybe it deserves. Maybe it deserves to be in your mind like the front page for a couple of weeks or something in like a hypothetical world but it only gets that one kind of of big share. Yeah, well, that's just, that's just how it works, right? Um, yeah, but, like, for, for the Tajmi internment camp story in particular, um, that one, I was aware of the

internment camp, or rather the museum that was, that was built there from when I was at the Agassi Harrison Observer. Um, but it was a little outside my coverage zone. It was more in the Hope standard coverage zone, so I never really got an opportunity to do a story on it. And I honestly don't remember what prompted me to want to do something on it then. Maybe there was an anniversary. Maybe I just came across it again. It's very unclear. Those are the sort of things that, like, often you don't remember later is, like, what actually prompted it.

But I, yeah, I went up and I did an interview with Ryan Ellen, who's the curator there. And he showed me around the internment camp. And at the time that I was writing that, I had like no self-control and I was doing like three or four very in-depth stories all at the same time. So I'm like, why not do another one? And so one of the things that I really enjoy doing is adding like historical elements to modern stories, especially if there's elements of history to it, like a museum or whatever. and one of the things that was at the museum at the time was the Broken Promises exhibit where it looked at Japanese-Canadian families

and it actually had itemized, like it had, you know, families, families and an itemized list of the stuff that was taken from them. And, you know, the value of that and all these documents that were related to them being sent to internment camps. so like obviously tragic for all the Japanese Canadians that that happened to as a journalist you're like look at this wealth of information about this terrible time in our history I wonder if there's someone from the Fraser Valley who went to Tajmi whose story that we could tell to kind of like bring this internment camp to life and I didn't find anyone particularly from the Fraser Valley that doesn't mean they weren't there it just means that, you know, maybe they were harder to find or whatever.

But there was a family who, and I should have reread the story because I forget their last name now, but there was a family from Vancouver who ended up going to Tajmi, and there was a lot of information about what happened to them, like the stuff that they had, they had a gramophone player, they had a bunch of records, they had like a kids, you know, ride on little toy or stuff and all that stuff was itemized as being a taken away. Husband was sent up to a work camp. Wife and kids were sent out Hastings and then they all were sent to Tajmi. I don't think this made it into this story, but the husband was brought back to Vancouver because one of the people he was working beside died. And so he accompanied the body back and then he met up with

his family at Hastings. I think it was the Nagoro family. That sounds very familiar and so it was kind of just looking you know into that family and then and then the structure of the story just obviously came out of that because you have this you know family history that you want to tell and there are a couple living descendants of that family that we did try and reach out to but we weren't able to connect with for the story. But, oh, and part of the other reason why I chose that family is because the Decay National Museum had some recordings of Takenegro. That's right. He was one of the sons, and he became a broadcaster.

And so he had done a lot of stuff and had talked about his family a lot. So it's like, perfect. Here are these records, you know, from this person who is there who can help tell the story in a way. So the story went from modern day at the Tajmi Museum with Ryan and his efforts to kind of preserve this place and preserve this memory in the Sunshine Valley and then going back to the Nogoro family

and being like, this is what happened. It was not great. And so, yeah, that story, I was really proud of it in the end because it was like the type, the type of story that I like to tell, where it's like important for people to know, there's not necessarily like, obviously there's a big problem associated with it. But it's like, it's not like there's something that people are able to do now. It's not like there's a big damn failure happening or whatever. But it's something that we need to know about so that we do.

don't do it again, right? And it has, yeah, the personal elements and stuff like that as well. We hear the statement a lot, which is those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Yes. And one of the frustrations I have is that like around what's going on in the Ukraine right now, there are people who've experienced what's gone on in Ukraine in the Cold War. And it seems like we're bad at wanting to hear from those people. It seems like, broadly speaking, we have trouble wanting to hear from our elders right now, wanting to hear from senior populations about what happened in World War II, what happened during the Great Recession.

We're entering a recession right now. It would be useful to understand how did they handle it. What was their mindset? What fiscal decisions did they make that we could learn from and try and apply to our own lives? Is that something you see or you obviously value people understanding history? And so I'm just interested to know where that comes from. Well, I think in terms of people not necessarily wanting to talk to their elders, because it's difficult right now. Because we, I believe that in society, we are in a period of a lot of change.

And a lot of that change is moving away from things that people have done in the past, like being racist, for example, which is good. I think we should not be racist. Um, but there is a challenge when sometimes if you think of like boomers, for example, or older people and being like, oh, they're part of that problem that we're moving away from. And then you kind of forget, it's like, well, they also have very valuable experiences that we need to listen to and learn from as well. Um, so I think that is a huge oversimplification, obviously. But that might be part of why, you know, your feeling. like people are, you know, reticent to, to listen to the elders or learn from their elders because we're trying to move forward. And if you feel like you're, you're looking at the past, then you're not moving forward, right? But you're totally right, where there are tons of things that we should be learning from history. And sometimes it's just easier to learn from people who aren't here if that makes sense that that shouldn't be the case but it's like it's easier to learn from

ancient history than from you know your grandparents history or your great-grandparents history and so I think that's part of it and when you're talking about Ukraine I did a story about Ukraine as well and that's one that I actually was hoping I could bring up because it has kind of a similar um layout to the Tajmi internment camp story that I did where I talked to

this woman named Katia whose last name. I now no longer remember. I think it starts with a Zed. And about her family, her parents are in Kharkiv. And I haven't heard from her recently. I hope they're doing okay. And

um, so it's talking about her and her experience with Ukraine and Russia, and then there's a huge Ukrainian immigrant population in the Fraser Valley. So it was trying to, you know, kind of connect that dot, or those dots, rather, to be like, well, you know, why, you know, did people come to Canada in the past? And what was that experience like? So I looked into this one family who came, from, I think it was the western side of Ukraine. They ended up in Abbotsford, moved to Alda Grove. And a lot of their, a lot of the reasons why they left were like a little bit parallel

to some of what, you know, modern Ukrainians are kind of experiencing today. Because, yeah, history does repeat itself because it's so easy to forget because a hundred years ago is not a long time, but, like, memory-wise, it's, yeah, ancient history. It's, yeah, we don't even remember it. People don't even remember, like, stuff that happened in the 60s, right? People barely remember the floods. Like, that was not that long ago. Yes. I think people want to forget the floods, though. So, what did you learn from that story? And what are some of your broader takeaways when you do interviews on this history because as much as you're sharing information, there's so much more in your experience of writing the story and things you don't

get to write about or it could end up being a whole book. So what does it like to write stories, maybe particularly on those relationships with different cultures and communities and global events? That's a good question. And usually it's bad when people, not usually, it feels bad when people say that's a good question, but usually it just means they're stalling for time and they need to think about it. But I think, I don't know, like there's always more to stories than ever gets to go in the article. And that's one of the, I think, frustrations of many journalists. It's like, I know so much now, and I cannot tell you, because there are not enough inches in this newspaper or, you know, whatever the digital equivalent of that is.

And so I think as a journalist, it's nice, in a way, it's nice to be able to have that extra knowledge because then you go into the next story, knowing so much more, and then you're able to just more seamlessly integrate that knowledge so that other people can learn it. So I can't say, I haven't done another story about the conflict in Ukraine. it's still going on so I'm wondering if we should but I think kind of more about some of the stories that I've written about like the indigenous people in the Fraser Valley

because you know growing up in Langley it was didn't really know very much about it I knew Quatlin was over you know on McMillan Island basically and that was more or less it because, you know, I went to high school kind of definitely before BC kind of revised their curriculum to include more indigenous elements, which I think is super great. But then working as a journalist, you know, in North Delta and Cloverdale, kind of get exposed to it a little more. In North Delta, I got to do a series on indigenous education, which was really great.

and kind of looking into why some indigenous students were struggling more than their non-Indigenous counterparts and getting to talk to Riannon Bennett, who is, I don't believe she is on school board anymore, but she was a really interesting, very passionate Delta school board trustee from Muscleum. And so she helped a lot, and I got to interview some other people. people at other people at Finesk and um an elder who I think her name is Roberta Price but now I cannot remember so I don't want to say that for sure but they kind of introduced me to humkomenum as a as a language and more about kind of the muskwean people and then when I went to the agassi um obviously there's like a lot of First Nations communities around

agassies seabirds stayless um are the two that I covered most And so I got to kind of experience more of that and get to learn more. And then at the Fraser Valley Current, we got to do different kinds of stories. And so it's like as a journalist, it's really great because like, yeah, everything you learned isn't going to get into the story. But you just know more for next time. You can write a better story next time. Has being a journalist enriched your life on the one hand?

hand, I feel like there's a certain school of thought where you learn about the darkest parts of our culture, of our history, of everything we've been through, and it can become really easy to dismiss humans, to have kind of like, there's always bad actors, there's always a negative element to a story, people are always mistreating other people. There's an easy kind of route people can take when they see our history and go, look at all the terrible people throughout history. But on the other hand, you can kind of help bridge divides, bring people back together, and make them look at history differently so we don't repeat it. And so I'm just curious how has being a journalist impacted your maybe philosophy of the world? Because you do know so much more than the average person about waterways, about salmon, about the world around us farms and kind of how we're all a community, even when we don't have to think about it.

at the very beginning of that question you had said has being a journalist enriched you and it's like well no one goes into journalism for the money so I think they probably go into it for the enrichment but yeah like of course it changes your worldview the same way as going to university kind of changes your perspective on things or even just like living in society changes your perspective on things the longer you do it because you learn more And then the more things you learn, then you can be like, oh, this is like, yeah, I agree with this, or no, I agree with that, or I don't agree with that, or, you know, that sentence was not complete, but I will just go on to the next one. And I think what you're saying about, you know, thinking about negative stuff and bad actors, that is definitely a huge part of journalism. I'm so grateful at the current that we don't have to focus. just on that um because i know that was something that was very draining on me before and it's part of the reason why i'm i'm never going to be a breaking news journalist well never say never but i don't love it so because that is it's so depressing and people who do that every day it's like how do you do it i don't understand that is

like quite the talent to be able to absorb all of that and still come out of it and like go to a pub and have a nice time. That's like, you know, like people like Kim Bolin or Paul Henderson who focus on like crime and things like that as their main beat. That is like truly astonishing to me that they can, you know, still be happy people at the end of the day. But, you know, different strokes for different folks. I don't know if I'm as optimistic that it doesn't impact them. I think that... Oh, I'm sure, yeah, don't get me wrong.

I'm sure it does. I'm sure, you know, the same way as being a paramedic is going to have a huge impact on you or being a nurse. The stuff that you see every day is going to have a huge impact. but yeah I think it's also partially the philosophy that you go into it with I know Tyler is a little more cynical than I am about about many things and that's just that's part of just like who we are yeah I think because like for me I do ultimately and have ultimately believe that like most people are good most people are trying the best their best the majority people deserve the benefit of the doubt and so that

informs the type of journalism that I do and how I approach stories, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad, right? Yeah. Just like every worldview is going to impact how you approach stories. That's why we need journalists from different backgrounds and different cultures and different economic statuses and all that sort of stuff. Does that mix into your journalism at all, that you have a very positive, maybe outlook on a story? And then there's a element that you're missing, maybe that it's more cynical, maybe it's more, I know people like to compare being a cynic to being

like a realist and they like to kind of overlap the two. Oh, my husband's going to watch this and he's been like, you are not an optimist because I'm not really an optimist, but I think my view on people is. But I think, yeah, like if there is wrongdoing there, obviously you need to see that, right? It just, I think it, um, not necessarily

that it impacts how I tell no, that's not what I want to say. I think it impacts the type of stories that I'm interested in writing. More so. What's your favorite story to write? What's your favorite type? Well, my favorite type of stories, like,

kind of the stories that we've been talking about where you get to take an in-depth look at something, you know. Science specifically, that's why I went to journals in school because I wanted to work for National Geographic and I wanted to write science articles. I am a little more modest in my ambitions now.

But, yeah, I just, I like making, I like explaining things to people. So, that's the sort of stories that I like to do. And I also discovered in university that I really like doing

infographics and maps. So stories that I get to do those in, that's always a bonus as well. When did you become interested in journalism? When did you start to think, were you reading National Geographic and saying, geez, this seems like a dream job? When did, when did you start to be curious about that field? Grade nine. But the story goes back to grade seven. This is, I do have this as like a prepared story that I tell people, when did you want to be a journalist? Like, well, in grade seven,

I wanted to be a marine biologist because my dad started getting me National Geographic. And I was like, I'm going to study lemon sharks. And I'm going to, I had my whole plan. I was going to graduate high school. I was going to go to Dalhousie University. I was going to study marine biology. And then I was going to go and study lemon sharks. Wow. And that was my plan in grade seven.

I had it all mapped out. I knew what some of the courses in my undergrad were going to be. And then I was reading National Geographic. And then in grade nine, I was reading a story on whales. And it had a description of the living situation for the marine biologists who were studying the humpback whales. And it didn't necessarily sound like my cup of tea. And so I was like, hmm, I see. And realistically, being marine biologists would be fun.

But I'm interested in too many things, I think, to have been able to tie myself down to one field like that. So I'm like, well, how can I still, like, be a marine biologist and learn about that stuff? but also have maybe a lifestyle that I am a little more comfortable with. It's like, I know, I'll work for National Geographic. I'll just write about it. And so that was my grade 9 plan, that I was going to work for National Geographic. But I think ultimately it was a good decision because I've always liked books.

I've always liked writing. I've always been reasonably good at writing because I've done it so much and I've read so much. So I think that was like a natural fit for me. right so yes that is my journalism origin story is that it was fiscally prudent and in line with my and then you know as a grown up you're like i could have picked so many other better paying fields but that's okay so what was the journey to go because you went to the east for you went to king's university yeah and what was sort of the philosophy once you got there and were you thinking a lot about like the value of journalism, or what was that sort of early nascent stage at university like? Well, at university, so the University of King's College is where I went. And they have a specific journalism program there. And I can't speak for all journalism schools, but I'm going to say I'm 99.7% sure that every

journalism school has an ethics program that you have to take. Because ethics of journalism is so important. Like, you can't, you can't be a good journalist if you don't know what being a good journalist entails. It's slightly different than being a good person, if that makes sense. So it's like, yes, ultimately, if you're a journalist or if you want to be a journalist, make sure you have, like, reasonable morals before you go into the industry. But, like, being good journalist is slightly different than being a good person. So that's why there's a course for that.

so yeah that's that's like part of it and then it's also just ingrained into the sort of journalism that you're doing they teach you at kings and i'm sure at others as well they teach you like these are the concrete skills of journalism here is how to write you know an inverted pyramid story here's how to your eyebrows went up um an inverted an inverted pyramid story is just your basic breaking news story so you have your lead, which is who, what, when, where, why. And then you have your second paragraph, which is how, and then information that comes after that. It basically, it's, the inverted pyramid story is built so that the most important information is at the top, and then you get to the less important information as you go down with the idea being that in the olden days,

um, a copy editor could just cut paragraphs off the bottom if it didn't fit in the spot for the newspaper and you wouldn't miss anything important. Wow. So is that culture at all changed within the current, or is it the same, the same logic? We don't explicitly talk about inverted pyramid stories. Definitely in our longer form stories, we do not do that. Right. Because we're doing feature stories. Feature stories are never an inverted pyramid.

Never is a strong word. Feature stories are almost never an inverted pyramid. But I think for people who are familiar with the current, you know, we have our agenda section that I think we do try and follow a little bit more of the traditional newspaper story style. So whether it's strictly inverted pyramid or whether it's just reminiscent of an inverted pyramid, it's hard to say. I haven't analyzed our stories recently for that. But yeah. what is the design of the Fraser Valley current from your perspective like the when you get the newsletter what what do you because I find and I've said this like with Farhan and Tyler I just find it so interesting that beginning opening piece that's human oh and then the journey kind of through what you need to know for the day I just I find the whole product so accessible and as Farhan kind of described it's easier to get your news from there than really anywhere else.

Of course, Farhan, say that. It's our job. We do need to promote our paper. So yes, it is more

accessible than anywhere else. Sorry, I shouldn't have moved away from the microphone. Yes, it is more accessible than

anywhere else. But I think it's just a different style of news. And like that intro at the beginning, um, that's not every newsletter has that, but most do, I find.

With a reporter talking about their life. Because the one I've used, as an example, is your husband and trains. Oh, yeah, he does love trains. Actually, him and my daughter were reading a train magazine this morning. It was pretty cute. But that was so human. That's what stood out to me.

It was like, these are real people. And it's something I feel like other news organizations really forget. And then they'll make bold claims that really offset people and make information harder to digest, maybe is the right word, to, like, be able. to consume because it's like you think the person is their political perspectives rather than their human beings, they've got interests, curiosities, they've got a life to live way beyond everything that's going on here. And it's why I like doing two to three hour interviews is because we get to not just see a person for their accolades and their check marks and their resume,

but we get to see them as a human being. And it's something I think the current and OMG media is doing a really good job of. Well, and we definitely do that on purpose. Like, one of the things that journalists really struggle with is like just horrible emails from people who, who, you know, in the period of fake news, but like fake news. But also before that, just kind of forget that we're people doing our jobs, right? And so I think that was something that Tyler kind of specifically included, whether Tyler specifically included or OMG specifically included is like, if you, if you, if you, if you, do personalize that, you know, we don't get a lot of really awful emails from people. You know, most people are very nice. Most people, if they have something a little bit more rude to say, sometimes they'll

include an apology as well, being like, I understand that you're, you know, working or this is part of your job, but, and then they have whatever they're going to say, right? And so I think that's why it's important for us. And I think, but I don't think it's just us. I think it's just very easy to see because it's part of our newsletter. Because there was a shift probably right when I graduated high school, maybe a little bit after where, like, Twitter was a big thing. Still is a big thing for journalists.

Not a huge thing for, I think, the general population. Kind of makes me laugh. It's just a lot of journalists and newsmakers talking to each other on Twitter. And academics, which is super helpful for me. But I think there was an idea when journalists were first getting on Twitter is like you can't share any of your personal information. You can't have any opinions. You're just like disseminating information. And then there was a shift.

And I think Justin McElroy is a great example of this where personalizing yourself on social media is actually a super valuable tool as a journalist. But then you do run into the problem of like creating your brand, right? And it's more of a brand problem on social media than it is in our intros. But it is kind of similar because then it's like, well, is this personal thing I'm going to share. Does that fit with my brand? Is that something that I want tons and tons of people to know? because, yeah, like humanizing yourself for readers is really important. I think that's partially why Justin McRoy is so popular,

because not only does he do great stuff, but he's very personable on a platform where it can be hard to feel personal connections with people. And so our intros do the same thing, but then I know for myself, you know, I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, I don't necessarily want to paint all, of her exploits in the newsletter, right? Because she'll, she'll hate that when she's a teenager. So then it's like, well, what in my life do I feel comfortable sharing with approximately

25,000 people that I don't know in the Fraser Valley? But you still want to share some things and not everyone is going to, I know we had one reader who wrote in who she didn't really like that I was sharing stuff about my family. She's like, you just need to talk about the community more in your you know, just focus on the community. No one wants to hear about your kids and stuff.

It wasn't, she didn't quite phrase it quite like that. But then that's valid. Like, you know, she's there for the news. She doesn't necessarily want to get to know us and that's fair. And when I first got that email, I was like, I'm just going to write about my family just to spite her. But then, you know,

know, when you take a step back, you're like, no, actually, that's valid. Like, there needs to be a balance in kind of what we have in our intros. But it is tricky because, yeah, you want to be personable. You want people to kind of get to know you a little bit. But you also want to keep your private life, a private life, right? I think that's the danger because, like, I really like substack. And I find it very interesting. But I do think that we're going to have this challenge of audience capture, of people

developing a perspective on something and then just hard committing to that topic and seeing, wow, this gets a lot of clicks, it gets a lot of views, it's getting a lot of traction. And so I'll just keep talking about that. And then they just kind of start to regurgitate and feed their audience, the exact same thing they want to hear. And you do kind of become branded as the person who talks about X and less a person who's dynamic and thinking about things and kind of elaborating on. all the different ways you could look at a perspective and at an issue.

And I think that that is likely a challenge. But I think that there's a certain element of that that's so important because I think that's where the faith in journalism is sort of changing. At what point in your university career? Because I'm very, I think journalists are as important as our doctors and those types of stuff. Oh, shhats. Yeah.

Because I think they're the stewards for the community. We can't, and we shouldn't always trust our politicians to tell us what's going on or the fact or be able to be completely transparent. Under some circumstances, they can't be, but under some circumstances they're not incentivized to. And so we can't 100% always trust their viewpoints. And that's where I think journalists tell us about everything that's going on in the best way they can. And so I think they play, when we talk about community, I think they play a vital role in that. and I don't see anyone sort of filling the gaps in any other way. And so if you want to understand how your water's working

or what's going on in the river near you or the mountains or the political systems or why is your school not getting repaired, there's a place you go to for that, and that's the journalism industry, was there a point in time where you realized the importance of that mechanism in our society or was that always on your radar? What was sort of the broader understanding of journalism is a function of our society. That's a very good question.

Because I'm not entirely sure that there was like a particular point. I always grew up, my dad always watched global. You know, so it'd be, you come home after school, and then we have dinner, we'll have global, you know,

global news on Tony Parsons, and then when he retired and then moved to CBC, and then, you know, Chris Gayla is after Tony Parsons and so on. Yeah, so, like, that part was always there. And, you know, when Fukushima happened, for example, we had, you know, the news on all day, right?

Um, and that's when you, you really notice the 24 hour news cycle because it's like, there's nothing new. There's nothing new that you can say about Fukushima, but it's still playing. Um, so I think that part of it was always there, you know, just kind of like in the background. is like if you grow up being aware that a news organization is there, then obviously you're going to think that news has some value. And then in university as well, you know, that's when it was really drilled into.

Like this is a very important part of society. And then when you're in the industry, obviously, you're not doing it because you think you're not an important part of society. like I don't think I don't think there are a lot of jobs other than maybe some retail jobs which is not the fault of the retail workers

but just the fault of the retail industry in general where you you or jobs where you just feel like you're a cog in a machine but I think for the most part most jobs are playing an important role in society I was going to say something else and now it has just left me. One of the things that I have worked on is trying to think of the role that all journalism plays and its value for society. Because in

university, it's drilled into you that there is a particular type of journalism that is valuable to society. Or at least that's kind of what I found. It might not be true for everyone. But it's like breaking news is valuable for society. Investigations are valuable to society. And some other sorts of things are valuable for society. Political news is valuable for society, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But like what we were talking about earlier, fluff journalism is kind of seen as not valuable for society.

And I disagree with that in part because that's what I. I like to write. But I think some of the problem that people have with journalism is because they do see it as very negative. And it's because there is sort of a value, excuse me, like a value system in place where it's like breaking news, investigations, excuse me, etc, are considered more valuable. and so you put more resources into it and it is more valuable in the sense that that's what helps you solve problems and solving problems is very important.

But I think it's also valuable that people enjoy their life and get a chance to read things that are interesting to them or make them feel good. So I think like that's why it's important that we have well-funded

news systems and news organizations and that we have a lot of different journalists who can do a lot of different things because all these things are important for very different reasons. So then if there's, like, obviously, I'm very biased. I'm a journalist. Fund our work. But I think, like, the more, yeah,

just the more opportunities there are for journalists to tell stories that interest them, the more valuable information we're going to learn about our society. It doesn't have to be all problem solving or investigations or holding leaders to account, which are super important. But just like getting to know communities and people and industry is better. I couldn't agree more. It's one of those, like, it's easy to say we're going to hell and a handbasket.

It's easy to do that and to just have a pessimistic view. And I think that that's really a huge currency in our culture right now, which is if you, you're very realistic, you're a very smart person if you think that everything's going to hell. Like, you're able to rest on, oh, well, climate change are these issues. And it's easy to kind of get discouraged and think that you're insightful because you're discouraged. And I think there are people like Peter Ross who is working with First Nations communities, with local governments, to try and figure out what is the conditions of the Fraser River and how can we improve it and what did the floods do to the Fraser River and how can we all work together to try and improve that and super inspirational person.

And it was so meaningful to me that he wasn't discouraged because he's the one who discovered that killer whales are some of the most contaminated mammals in the ocean. He's the person who was highlighting the fact that the Inuit because they eat a lot of things from the ocean have a lot of microplastics in them because we're putting a lot of microplastics into the ocean from our polyester clothing. And to his own statement, we're wearing a lot more polyester. You wash polyester in your washing machine. Millions of particles of microplastics are going into the ocean, like super dim finding. And to find out that polyester was done as a solution to try and address cotton problems and the amount of water that was going

into that. It can feel disheartening to find these things out and go, wow, we try to fix recycling problems by bringing in the blue bin. And from his research, blue bins have not done that much in terms of improving circumstances. And then you find out someone from Canada tried to come up with that. And then it didn't work and it's not having a big solution. But industry is using it as like, hey, we're green. We recycle. And things can look dim. But he still has optimism because for every one step backwards, there's two steps forward. And And there's that humility that he has to continue to want to help the world. And I think that's something that can get lost if you're just writing a piece on the problems,

which is that the person behind it has nuance and has dedicated themselves to try and address these issues. And I think that that's something you've done a good job of, and the Fraser Valley Current has, which is giving us like, here's your dose of the challenges, here are some of the good things going on, and this is light. This is, you're going to have ups downs, you're going to have people making a huge difference and you're going to have people who are dumping things in the river or the ocean and causing problems and to kind of remind people that things can be bad, but we can always be better and that every day is like a tool to kind of rethink what we're doing and get involved in things. And I think that that message is so much more inspirational than just telling people the facts of these are. the five things where we're seeing problems kind of rise in. Yeah. Well, and like to anyone out there who's

watching this and feels discouraged, that's a reasonable thing to feel. Things can be really discouraging, but you're totally right where things are bad, but there are people who are working to make it better. And yeah, that

Peter Ross, that's super interesting, right? The whole, just everything about that. And I think there's a type of journalism that does try and address that. We don't do it explicitly at the Fraser Valley current, but it's called solutions journalism, where you're like, you're talking about a problem. And then in the story, you talk about the solution, right? And that's, um, that's like a very specific type of story that is really gaining a lot of traction in a lot of different places. I think, um, I think maybe the

Narwhal or Hakai are doing kind of more solutions journalism and my apologies if they're not. That's just kind of what came off the top of my head. But that's something that when I was going to school, advocacy journalism and solutions journalism were just sort of new or just being talked about in our program. And they were not seen as necessarily like good things because for so many years, you know, dating back to the 80s, really, the kind of the heyday of objective journalism. So you're supposed to be objective. You're not supposed to give your opinion.

You're not supposed to necessarily come up with the solution, right? But I think we are kind of at a point in society where it's like, we've spent so many, so long being objective and just telling people the problem that, like, yeah, people are getting quite discouraged. And it can be really depressing. And so solutions, journalism does kind of provide a counterpoint to that. Like, yes, it is depressing. But here is one thing that people are doing to make it better.

And here's why it might work. Or here are some of the challenges with it or whatever. Yeah. I think that that's the challenge is because you don't want people, like, what's going on in the United States is people choose what they want to know or what they, what reinforces what they already think. Oh, and it's so easy. Yeah. It's so easy to do that. And I see a bit of it, and I didn't know this, but with, I think it's the Globe and Mail and the National Post are philosophically on two different sides of the spectrum. Not not left and right respectively. Yeah. And not extreme to the point where there's no facts left, which I would say is the danger within the United States with something like CNN and Fox is that they're so far apart from each other that you're really not curing the same. story from either perspective. They both have different kind of conclusions at the end, and that's not a good sign. I think it's less so, but it is a danger, which is I see people

only repost one news organization or the other and not have that balance. And it seems like with knowing people and talking to them, they don't repost a lot of post media, and they don't agree philosophically with most of the work they do in comparison to what I'm hearing about the current, which is what gives me optimism back, which is when I've sent out Fraser Valley current articles, there's a sense of positivity, there's a pride in subscribing, there's people who are like, this is good information or they enjoy the newsletter and just having people like Farhan yourself and Tyler on and having people go, I really like those people. Like, they're really interesting articles and it's not always the same thing. And,

It's something reliable that I trust. It seems like, as I've said, to Farhan and everyone, I feel like it's the solution because it's a bit of each piece that's necessary for people to understand what's going on in their community and take next steps, whatever the direction is, but also to just get back involved in the community. It's a word we use a lot, but my mother ended up doing the drummaking as a consequence of having that put in community events that are upcoming.

You just released one for August. which is all about the events that are going on. Returning after two years of a pandemic, returning back to the community and reconnecting seems really important. And it's something that you're able to highlight in a way that's more difficult if you have to read the newspaper every single day in order to understand what's going on. I mean, ideally, you should be reading us every day.

I jest, of course. But, yeah, actually, that's something, it's kind of two different things. but I'll touch on the events one first because that's something that we did a reader survey not too long ago. And that's something that apparently a lot of people mentioned is that they wanted more events in there. So that's something that we're kind of

trying to do more of is offer more frequent readers of the current will notice that our around town section has kind of expanded a little bit which is where we post events and so we're kind of trying to add a little bit more to that because that's a need that people have seen and that totally

makes sense because, you know, it used to be that you had your events listing in the newspaper, and they still do that, but it's, most people aren't going to the newspaper, they're going on Facebook, and Facebook algorithms are what they are. And so to kind of have a curated space where you can see kind of what's going on in your particular area, people are finding that important. So it's like, okay, that's a service that we can provide to people that doesn't really feel like a service because it's just events, but it's like, oh, that's something that people think is important. And so, yeah, when you're building a community-based something, a community-based something, you have to think about what people want from it. As journalists, often, you'll be like,

well, they just want, like, good journalism, obviously, because that's what we do. But it's like, no, they want more from that. And so that's kind of the difference between doing journalism and then building a brand or building an organization, which is kind of what we're trying to do, is thinking about what people want and what they need and what they're saying. And then how can we do that in a way that makes sense for us and is valuable? Oh, and the other thing that I just wanted to go back to is you're saying how the Globe of Mail and the National Post being kind of like left and right,

respectively, and people only looking at one, people forget that that is how newspapers started. Like, the first newspapers were like super partisan rags. Like, that is 100% what the point was, is like, one was for the Tories, one was for the grits, and you followed your grit paper, you followed your Tory paper, and that's how it was for a really long time. And then it was only in, like, the mid-20th century, maybe, like, the yellow journalism of the 20s. Yellow journalism?

I don't know enough about the history of journalism to be like, let me give you a definition of yellow journalism. But that's just kind of what journalism of the time was called. It was very salacious. It was very, like, kind of TMZ, if that helps at all. And then you had the interwar piece. period and the depression and everything, and then you have World War II, and that's when you kind of start to get away from partisan journalism. And you get into the journalism that we think of today as being the pinnacle of journals, this objective, this Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow

or whatever, the very, like, sedate sort of man talking into the microphone, somewhat like this. And then, and then, yeah, and then in the 80s was kind of like the height of that. But then when the internet came and money started kind of bleeding away from it, we are sort of going back to some journalistic roots. Not necessarily from the journalist perspective. People always think, oh, journalists are being told what,

to do from their superiors or whatever. And I really don't think that's the case. Like, I've heard of some stories like that, but for the most part, it's journalists doing journalism that they think is important. And the structures around them are the ones that are kind of leaning one way or another, depending on wearing, and that kind of shows, like, you know, how they get their ad revenue, the type of companies that they're working with and things like that. So it's not necessarily a journalist thing like it was in the early 20th century

in the late 19th century, but more of just like an organizational structure thing, except for obviously your example in the states there with like Fox News and stuff, because that is definitely a throwback to like very early journalism. do you feel like there was a strong we've gone through some very political things over the past couple of years there is a super understatement yeah so there's this disconnect

between I interviewed Clint Haymes past mayor Chilliwack he had some very harsh comments about the trucker convoy and I don't have strong I try not to have strong opinions on things because I think things are complicated. And oftentimes the people with the Canadian flags in their vehicle, I've seen them be like soccer moms. I've seen them be young people. I don't think that they're doing it maliciously.

Like you, I think most people have good intentions and if they have a strong position on an issue that there is something there. Whether or not it's they're 110% correct and we can't disagree at all, there's something there they're trying to tell us. us. Yeah, there's something that's important to them about whatever issue and they, you know, and then the rest of it gets wrapped up in that. Yeah, my fear is like, it's okay to say that like Stephen Harper was not the greatest

prime minister, that he made a lot of mistakes. But with certain topics now, it feels more so that you have to condemn something like the truckers and say that how could they, they were wrong or that like vaccines are the 110% the best thing that's ever been invented. Like, it feels like we're more in a time where you have to have stronger positions on things. You can't go, yeah, there might be something there. I'm not an expert, and that's, that's okay.

It seems like we've been pushed away from that, and people have more Canadian flags and they're trying to make a more bold statement. And if you disagree with them, well, we're going to have to fight about it or something. Have you seen that increase? Or am I having a biased perspective on that? I'm just curious. I don't think you're crazy, for sure. But I think it's because of the internet and social media.

Because if you think about going to like a family gathering, for example, a place where you're likely going to meet people who have slightly differing political viewpoints than you. And there's also some value in not just like totally ripping them to shreds. It's like, of course you're not going to. you know, go all hard out on your, you know, your anti-vaccine, well, I won't say, of course, but there is value in not going out on your anti-vaccine standpoint or your anti-freedom convoy standpoint or whatever, whatever it is, because there's some valuable connections

that you want to maintain that are beyond just your opinions on those things. but I think as more people interact with more people in social media and online, or through op-eds, for example, then, yeah, the only way that you're going to get, the only way that people are going to see you as believing in the thing that you believe in is if you believe in it wholeheartedly, unreservedly, with nothing. And so as more people are, interacting primarily online and that's something you see with people who um kind of get pulled

into far right silos kind of and far left silos as well like people kind of forget that that's another thing that happens um but when you're kind of sucked into this very insular community and you only hear people who are kind of talking about the same thing repeating the same thing um then then yeah you you do have to agree wholeheartedly with that because if you don't then you're an outcast and if that's your if those are your people then like you don't want to be an outcast right no what that people don't want that no one's ever wanted that in the history of you know people going back to like when humans and ethanderalls are getting together so do you feel like i well okay i feel

like the current is again a tool to kind of combat this because so many different people can read this and there is a community spirit that I feel like is strong it's the the bedrock of the product and then the rest is discussing complex issues because I want to talk in a few minutes about the politics we have municipal elections coming up in your kind of perspectives but I want to understand, do you think that there's something fundamentally different about what the current is doing in comparison to traditional sources that allows it to move away from this? I was very concerned about this during all of it.

I get worried when people have such strong opinions that they want to shut down our highways or when they think that there's no consequences to anything. like I get scared when both sides start to get stronger and again I talk to Farhan because I feel like this is a way to cool the temperature of it to say okay we hear this side we hear that side let's level this down and let's just talk about community and what's going on because when you're on something like social media all the time it's easy to feel like people are your enemies there were so many people I saw say if you believe this you can just unfriend me now and it's like what a terrible path forward for our culture if you only have people you 100% agree with on your social media feeds and it doesn't mean they're right but again I think there's usually an attempt to have merit to what they're trying to say and social media allows you to think that person's wrong on this issue so I don't need to talk to them anymore and it's like well they might be 10,000% wrong on that issue but they might be right about this issue or they might be trying to connect community members in this other kind

of unrelated way to their perspectives like I think social media has pushed people to have perspectives on issues they never had to have previously. And so they're having opinions and sometimes they're wrong. And they're not experts in political science or all these issues. And it feels like the current just reminds people, people are farming alpacas. They are working with cows. They are trying to do these positive normal day-to-day things. We do like to remind people. Well, I do like to remind people about cows. I'm definitely the resident cow person at the current. much needed for the amount of cows we have in this area.

Yes, there are two cows for every person in the district of Kent. Wow. That's a lot of cows. Also, really quickly, isn't it like the Fraser Valley makes like 80% of the agriculture for BC or something like that? Somebody just said that to me recently in a blue one. I mean, it sounds reasonable. And I do remember reading that statistic, but I don't remember the numbers, so I can't be like, you're right. But yes, there is a statistic where the Fraser Valley does a lot of something relating to agriculture, for sure.

Well, and initially, so initially when you were asking this question, you were saying, is, you know, is the Fraser Valley current combating, you know, kind of divides between people, you know, better than other news organizations is kind of the roundabout way of what you were saying. and my initial reaction was like, well, no, like everyone's doing their part. But thinking about it a little more, I think the thing that we are doing that's helpful is that we're new. Because that is one of the challenges of legacy media is that it's been around for a long time. And people have their built-in opinions sometimes passed down from their parents or their, their grandparents, where it's like, we don't like Global because Global did this story about our Uncle Ned, and it was wrong in 1979, and so we don't like Global. Or, you know, CBC is so left-leaning, or CBC is so right-leaning.

And I think that's one thing as a news organization is if you get people complaining that you were both leaning to the left and the right on the same story. had that recently. It's like, okay, so I guess it kind of balances out in the end. Valid complaints on both sides, so works out well for me. But yeah, I think for the current, because we're new, people don't have a totally set in opinion on us yet. And so you can bring people of different views together. And I think, like, Like, if you're thinking about journalism organizations as being on a spectrum, we are definitely a little more to the left than to the right. And that's because of who Tyler is and who I am and who Jotie is and Farhand and all the rest.

It's like we have stories that we think are important to tell. And so we are more likely to appeal to readers who want to know those sorts of stories. So I think in a sense it's like, yes, we're new. People are still figuring it out. we have definitely, with some of my coverage of Barry Newfeld, for example, we have definitely pushed away some people who would perhaps fall further to the right on the political spectrum. So we are certainly not a perfect meeting ground for everyone, but no one's going to be, right? So I think, like, we do want to do that.

We do want to be able to bring the Fraser Valley together. but by virtue of people and how people interact with stories now and how often people just don't want to interact with things that they don't agree with, it's never going to be perfect, right? Yeah. Is one of the challenges that like perhaps typically conservatives are right-leaning people care more about finance and that's a very difficult topic to cover in any meaningful sense because of the length, like, how to, like right now we're seeing inflation,

we're seeing information that's suggesting recession. It's difficult to explain that on a local level or come up with solutions that are going to appeal to a conservative community. Well, I think, and just to clarify, when I was talking more right or left, I was thinking more like socially, socially speaking. So people more on the right, the more like traditional. family values sort of people and people in the left, you know. But I think from, like, if you're thinking more just about other stuff, like fiscal stuff

or policy stuff or whatever, then, yeah, I think, I don't think that's difficult. It's just social stuff. It's like either you feel that people deserve to be treated equally or you have views or you don't. It's kind of my view on it. It's not super inclusive of people who don't, but it's like, yeah, either you feel like LGBTQ plus students deserve to be represented in schools or you don't.

And so the people who don't, they're not going to find that some of the current stories really appeal to them. But I think what you're talking about financially, Tyler is so good at that. Like, so good at that. And so I'm learning from Tyler how to do that a little more. And I think that's one of the things that's fun about being in local news and having the time to focus on it, especially if you don't know stuff like budgets, like, you know, very well, like I don't. I think that something kind of neat is that you do get to take that deep dive into it.

and you do get to kind of break it down. One of the, weirdly, one of the most enjoyable and most memorable stories I did when I was at the North Delta Reporter was the Delta School Board budget from the first year that I was there. It was like my very first, like, lock-in. We went to the school board office, and it was me and Sandor from the Delta Optimus, and we just sat there, and they told us their budget stuff, and we asked questions, and I was super nervous because it was my first time doing it, and I had no idea what I was supposed to ask.

So I kind of just let Sandor do it all. But then they explained the cuts and what the cuts would mean. And at that time, they had to cut some of their spending. So they were cutting EAs. And part of that was because they were anticipating that they would get fewer students with special needs that year. And so then I got to go back to the office. Make an infographic, because that's what I like to do, and kind of explain to people, you know, what, you know, what this is going to mean for them and, you know, why this is important and why the school board has made this decision and what the impacts are going to be for students, what the impacts are going to be for parents.

And that's so valuable, but that takes a lot of time. So I think at the current, that's something that's really great. And that's something that, like, obviously we were doing at the North Delta reporter as well, that's something that all. local papers try and do. It's just how much time you have to spend on it kind of depends, right? And one of the things that it's always difficult as a journalist to get compliments afterwards, because that's one thing that school board trustees complimented me on afterwards. They're like, we really like that infographic.

We thought it laid out what was going on really well. And I was pleased with that, but it's also like, I don't know if you're supposed to to like my story about your budget. Like, that feels wrong. That's something interesting that I think you bring that's unique, which is this interest in sharing information in a way that's accessible for people. Obviously, writing is like all journalists share information, but making it, again, consumable for people, there is a culture once people graduate university that a certain portion of

society. It's just not that intelligent and won't understand, no matter how many times, predict, it's very common in law school to go, the general world will never understand this. We understand it. And so don't even, don't bother wasting your time trying to explain it to like a client. You'll just fix their problem for them because they don't understand. But it's something that I think sets a really important example is when, like our provincial apiculturist, Paul Van Westendorp, was willing to sit down and explain bees to people. like when people take that time and go like most people don't know this but it would be cool if they did and like we would be better off if they did again paul ross being willing to break down what's going on in our oceans what we can do as citizens and really encourage people to take up that role and that responsibility but not thinking they're more intelligent and that passion for education seems like it's something really you enjoy is saying like this is something that's super weird that most people are never going to understand if we don't make it more accessible. And then that's where infographics come in. Can you tell us about that?

When did that come up for you? And is it like a challenge? Like you go, this is very confusing. Can we make this readable? Like, where is the joy that comes from for making that for people? It's a lot. Your questions are always fun because there are a lot of different questions in one. And sometimes you ask an earlier question and then a later question. I want to answer them both. So I think first is that like all journalists want to make things accessible. The question is, what skills do you have and in what way can you make it accessible? Video journalists make things accessible in a very different way than I can. And then some older journalists, their way of making it accessible is just in their writing style

because that's, that's, you know, what they've done through their career. And I'm really lucky that I got to go to journalism school in a time when online journalism was becoming important to educators, right? So Tara Tyre is one of one of the profs that I had in university and she's really great. Hi, Tara, if you're watching. I feel like she might not, but I'll send this to her maybe. But she did a really great job of introducing like the importance of online and the these really cool things that you can do online that you can't necessarily just do in print. and so there's this platform called JS or this group called JS Night Lab

and they have really cool journalism resources that I love using because they are different interactive ways to make things more accessible. Like I did a story about frogs and the province has all these audio recordings of what the frogs sound like when they're croaking. And so J.S. Nightlab has J.S. Nightlap sound site. And so you can embed the sound site into your story so that it will say the word, you click on the word, and then you'll hear the sound. And that's something we have a, fingers crossed, we have a Helcamelin language series coming up. So that's something that I'm really excited to use for that. Because what better way to make that accessible to people than to see a word and to click on it and then to hear what a sound. like, right? And yeah, so I'm pretty sure it was Tara that introduced me to infographics, definitely to mapping. Pretty sure she taught me Google Fusion tables, which is now obsolete. But that was something that was like really fun to try out because people are really,

people like interactive things. That's why video games are popular and like phone games are popular and stuff. And there's some really cool stuff that you can do with it. And so it's just, like, I feel very lucky that I got a chance to learn some of the basics of it so that I can test it out and see. And that's why it's always good to have, like, a team too. Because one of the things that we do at the current is we do a lot of editing on our stories.

We do a ton of editing on our infographics. like stories make sense they're long you got to pick the right words you have to do the interviews and stuff and then the infographics there's

we don't do quite as much editing on the words of infographics but it's like does this color work does this placement work is this the right graph to use is this the right animation to have with the graph

should we be using a gif what can we use Tyler loves gifts he wants to do. He jokes that he's going to do a university course on the importance of gifts in journalism. But it's just different ways that you can show things to people. And so I think that's something that's really cool. And it does take a lot of time because like I'm not a very mathy person. That's probably why I wouldn't have made a wonderful marine biologist. So it's like we're looking at

census data. I really like doing census stories. I really struggle. with census stories, because you have to, like, look at the math and look at the numbers and then come up with the story from that. So, I don't know, that's a very roundabout way of doing it. But sort of one last thing to say on that is that because I'm not a very mathy person, sometimes it's just easier to make a graph. And then you're like, oh, I see the pattern now. I'm not very good at patterns.

So it's like, if there's a pattern in numbers, I won't see it. But if it's on the graph, then I'll be like, oh, obviously, that's going down, or that's going up or whatever. So it's like sometimes you just make it for yourself so that you kind of know what the story is. And then it's like, well, I've already made it. I might as well, you know, put it in the story or whatever. And then it adds context for those people who might have the same challenges you do. Exactly.

Which is, I think, one of the broader challenges of journalism is that it's often print. And I think we have like a C minus in literacy rates in Canada, something like a C or C minor. Well, that's not ideal. Yeah. I think that's why I sort of like podcasts because there is way more people who can listen than can read. And it's a challenge for people to be able to figure out what's important and really digest it, where you can always rewind someone talking about it and re-listen to it and kind of go, oh, okay, that makes more sense. I've heard it a few times. I come from an oral tradition,

so it interests me that podcasting exists and is a way of communicating ideas long form, and then it's super inspirational to me to think that there are these indigenous stories that are long form that have, like, a narrative element that you can't, you could write it down, but how the beginning connects to the end

might not be as clear. Again, I think people really like the Harry Potter series, because the very beginning of the first movie connects with the very last of the last movie but it's if you're not looking for sort of the patterns or the connections you might miss it if you're reading it because you don't remember from the what is the seventh book

to the first book what happened but if you can watch them you can kind of see the overlaps or hear the overlaps of how they're kind of talking about things yeah well yeah exactly like you're saying different people learn in different ways that's like a very, I want to say a very basic understanding of people. I'm not sure, like, I've known that for as long as I can remember. That's been something that's been taught to me.

It's like, you know, I'm a very visual learner in the sense that's like, if I'm reading it, that's good. If there's a picture or a diagram, that's really helpful. You're obviously more of like an auditory learner, right? You know, with the oral tradition and with podcasts and everything. And so I think with journalism, it's so important to try and use as many different things as you can to make things as accessible to as many people as you can. And so, yeah, that's why, like, that's why CBC is actually really good for a lot of things

is because they have the web story, they have some really great journalists who do some really awesome infographics, and they have the television part of it, and they have the radio part of it. it. So it's like, even though there's limitations for some of the stories that they can do, it's like they have all those elements. So it's like almost guaranteed you can find a story in a format that's going to work for you. Right? Smaller organizations can't do that quite so much. Like, you know, Adam, Adam, Louie's at the Agassi Harrison Observer right now. I do not want him to like, as one person to go out and have to do all these stories that he has to put out for the observer. in all these different formats just so that everyone can have an option. But if you have the capacity to do that, then why not, right? So that's one thing. What has it been like to be a part of a team now? You were on your own.

Oh, it's so nice. Yeah, sorry, I cut you off. But yeah, it's so nice to be part of a team because you kind of, and not that I wasn't with a team at the Agassi Harrison Observer. it was different because black press works in kind of an unusual way, I suppose. And I don't, I haven't worked at any other news organization, so I can't say if it's similar for postmedia or CBC or wherever, but it's like you're at your own newspaper. So it's like at the observer, I was, you know, responsible for figuring out all the stories and

writing them. If I needed a second set of eyes, I could contact someone at the progress, for example, and be like, hey, Paul, hey, you know, Greg when he was there or whatever. This is a very complicated story and I'm not confident in how I've written it or whatever. Do you want to take a peek at it and then they can look at it and help out? So it's like it's not like you're totally on your own, right? But there is a sense of, and also in the Agassizier Harrison Observer office, when I was there, we had a salesperson, and we also had Tanya, who didn't work for the paper. She worked for classifieds, which was supposed to be based out of Surrey, but she lived in Agassi, so then she would work out of our office. And she was just like a great wealth of community information because she had lived in Agassi for so long.

So it's not like you're all by yourself. But working with a team of like-minded journalists is very different when you can all be focused on the same thing. And so that's been really nice. It's like it's been nice to have Tyler and Joti and then Josh for our intern for the little bit that we had Josh. Because then you have all these other people who are thinking about the same things that you're thinking about all the time. and like thinking about your stories and offering ideas and stuff. And that's why it's important to have diverse newsrooms, too, because it's like if we were all exactly the same,

then it would just be like talking to yourself, kind of. So. Can you put that into context? We had the floods. That's where a lot of people became aware of your team. But more recently, there was a shooting in Langley. Oh, yeah. And so I'm just interested, what does that team dynamic look like during adversity, during a dark time in the community?

How does that, how do you work collaboratively and how would that be different than a regular office at Black Press? I can't say exactly how it would be different than a regular office at Black Press just because I was, I never really had to cover any huge traumatic events when I was with Black Press. So it's hard for me to say exactly. I know at Black Press, it's like there's a province of reporters, right? Because Black Press papers kind of basically go from Surrey to Whitehorse. So, and there's some digital reporters that kind of float around. So it's like if there's something big happening, then there are people who can assist you. With that, and it's very similar at the current.

poor Joti, she started on, like, November 15th, which was the first day of the, like, flooding and stuff. So she just, like, joined. And then it was like, okay, so, like, we'll onboard you later. Just, like, sit tight for a minute. And, but she was great. Because with the floods, it was very much, I was very grateful that I had Tyler on the team because he's a really good, like, level-headed journalist in that. He knows one of the things that I struggle with is knowing what is important breaking news. And he knows what's important breaking news. So he's kind of, he was

kind of taking the lead on like, like, oh shit, this is big or this is not so big or this is whatever. And then we were just following his lead and kind of his direction and working together in pumping out tons of stories and like one thing that we don't necessarily do super often is tag teaming stories. We tag teamed like almost every story for the first like week or so for the floods. And then yeah, so that was, I don't know, it's hard to say because it's like when something like that happens, you just do it. You don't really think about it because you can't think about it because you can't think about it

because there's no time to think about it. So you're just, like, operating on... I'm sure Tyler thought about it more because he was kind of heralding it. And as a reporter, I was more following his direction. And then as time went on, then it's like, I was thinking my own story ideas and stuff like that.

But in the beginning, it's just like, you do what needs to be done to give people the information that they need at that moment. So do you think it would have been harder if you were by yourself? Oh, 100%. Yeah, because, yeah, just... partially because, like, I am a younger journalist, so I didn't, I wouldn't have all the kind of industry knowledge that Tyler had of like, like, what should one do in a disaster like this? I don't know if he's covered a disaster like that before. I feel like most people haven't. I feel like he probably hasn't, but it's just one of the things where, like, the more experience you have, the better you are at dealing with those sorts of situations. So, what was the response like in that particular situation? Because I got to see a lot of the tweets or the,

the emails that you received that were like, we evacuated because of you. And it's still like a trip in my head to think, again, of that effect that journalism can have on families, on human lives. It's again, it's one of those things that makes me confident that journalism is one of those important industries that is comparable to that of a doctor or, like, police officers where if you don't have that, people don't evacuate their homes and then people lose everything or and potentially their own lives if there isn't that response and talking to Mayor Henry Braun and hearing him talk about how farmers couldn't kill their own animals that they had to call in family members and some of them didn't even have the chance to do that and like

that is really heavy stuff to talk about to think about and the fact that things could have potentially been communicated earlier but weren't and then there were vast consequences for people and that that can have an effect. What was that sort of like to come out of it and see the overwhelmingly positive response to your reporting? That was weird. That was really weird. Just because as a journalist, you kind of like, you're throwing things out into the world

that you think are important. And sometimes you get emails back from people. But, like, often you don't get emails back where it's like, this had a concrete impact on my life in this specific way. So that was, I was very, I don't know if humbling is the right word. This feels like a very cliche word to use. Surreal?

Yeah, I think surreal would be better, where it's just like, oh, yeah, I am actually like doing something that has tangible effects. You know, I'm not just like writing things and then maybe people will read them. It's like, no, people did read them. People did, like, leave their house early and then didn't have to, you know, evacuate last minute or whatever. And yeah, like, totally, like you said, that's why journalism is important and valuable.

And why local journalism is important and valuable as well? Because one of the reasons why we were able to be, I guess, as valuable and new sources, as we were is because Tyler knew a lot about the Valley and about the nooksack already. I didn't know anything about the knick sack. But Tyler had done interviews already about that for a story that he had planned to do a long time ago. And he knew a little bit more about the history. And so that's why it's important to have journalists who know the community who are able to stay in the community. And that's something that journalism really struggles with.

especially for smaller communities, especially for rural communities, which is a problem in disasters, right? Because usually it's a small paper. If you're a small paper, that means you're getting a new journalist like me, who's often by themselves. They're like flown in, this is their first journalism job, and they're just, you know, living in their new community. And then eventually they're going to get a better paying job because those jobs don't typically pay very well. And then they're going to leave, and it's going to be the next person who doesn't know anything. And that's kind of what happened at the Agassi Harrison Observer for a while is I was just a young person who would then go off and go somewhere else.

And I was part of that cycle, too. I was at the Observer for a year, went on Matt leave, was there for a couple of months and then went to the current, right? And so, like, that's a huge problem because you need to have that sort of knowledge of the community in that background to know to just, like we were talking about earlier,

you just like, the more you know, the better your stories are. Yeah. Right? So. It's the same with policing, right? Because that's the argument for municipal policing, which is you don't want an officer who lives in Manitoba, finishing depot and then ending up in northern Yukon

where they have no connection, no meaningful understanding of how things are done or that community culture. Yeah. No, yeah. I think that's, that's totally true. Same, same argument for, like, rural doctors, I think, as well, where you get a connection with people and then, and then if you leave, right? Yeah.

And I don't know if there's a really good solution other than just, like, creating good, high, like, well-paying jobs in real communities for, for journalism, which is a challenge. It's a big challenge. What was the shooting? I know it just happened recently, but that was. also another hard to comprehend that that took place kind of event what was that process like um well tyler was on vacation and i had just gotten off vacation and like often because tyler has the most experience i have like maybe two years more experience than joti and then obviously

josh our intern has the least experience out of all of us so um when When Tyler was on vacation, and I were on, Tyler and I were on vacation at the same time, right before, like, the couple days before, so Joti was in charge. And then, and then I got back, and it's not that I was in charge, like, we're a team, but typically I would take a little bit more of the, like, let's take the lead on this role. But I didn't know that Tyler was still on vacation, so I assumed that Tyler was, like, on top of things. So I saw the shooting stuff in the morning. And actually my first thought was like, oh, thank God I don't work at Black Press. So I don't have to, so I don't have to like go chase this right away. And then got into the office and Tyler had sent a message being like, hey, we should do some coverage on this so that we have it for the newsletter.

because it could be something really big at that time. All we knew was that some people had been shot. Who's to say if it was like you know, two people were shot and it's just sort of the same as what happened in the tragic homicide that happened

in Chilliwack a couple days earlier? Too many homicides right now, not having it. Or if it's going to be something bigger. And so I was chatting back and forth with Tyler and he was being like kind of vague and not really making any decisions? And I'm like, I don't, why are you doing this? Like, you're supposed to be working. Do your job and tell us what we're supposed to do. Um, and then, and then it clicked that

he was still on vacation. So it's like, oh, okay. Um, so then you just like, make the decision and you're like, okay, well, I guess we're just going to write the story and, and follow through with it, um, during the day. So that's just kind of what we did. Anyways, that's a very long-winded. It sounds like Jothy took the lead on that one, though, or was very involved. We were all sort of involved in that. She definitely took the lead on social media, for sure. I was kind of doing the behind-the-scenes stuff, because I was putting the newsletter together that day. So Jotie and Josh were doing sort of just some of the background stuff that they needed to do for other things that we needed to do for the newsletter.

and I was just watching the updates as they were happening. Because one of the challenging things for us is because the Fraser Valley is so large, it's impractical for us, too, with such a small team for someone to drive out to Langley, right? Because I'm here in Chilli. And so it's like, is it worth me for me to drive an hour just to be in Langley so if something happens, I can be on the scene and get photos or whatever at some place like the Langley advanced times, they're in Langley, obviously they're going to be on the scene. That's the important thing. And for a large organization like CBC or Global or CTV or whatever, they're going

to send out their video journalists, that's what they do. So for us, it was more just like watching for press releases and watching for videos and stuff and then just updating the story as that information came in. So I did that during the day. And then because of my toddler, I'm usually off at four, so then Joti took over for a little bit after four. And then in the evening, I went back on and did like a final update when I was finalizing some of the stuff for the newsletter. So for us, like, it's not as dramatic as, this is one of the tough things about journalism. It's like it wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. And when you're doing it, I find your, it's work.

So it's like, obviously, it's super tragic that Paul and Stephen were killed in that, like, gun shooting incident across, like, all these different areas and that, and it's also difficult that, um, the suspect is dead so they can't find out why, right? but you don't you don't think about the like emotional side of it so much because you're just working you're just writing it out you're just like you know you're looking at the information you're writing it out and you're and then you're looking it over being like did it make any spelling mistakes did I get everyone's name right and then public and then clicking publish and then getting a photo and then socialing it and doing this and doing that and doing the other thing so yeah that's one of the reasons why I don't love that type of journalism is because you don't get a chance to like feel very much because you're just working on it

it's one of the aspects of being a journalist where your role is to disseminate information for people and for a reader we sort of get to process it I think to your point I think a lot of people do just read it and go oh that sucks and then move on with their day But there is something going on in the valley right now where there is more violence. Like I just saw Paul Henderson wrote the story on what happened in Yarrow with the gas station owner. Now, I imagine that those kids are imperfect and they're young people and they're likely causing shenanigans and having a good day. But then the owner or someone related to the ownership of the Petro Canada goes outside and, like, beat. them with half a shovel or something and then they have to go to the hospital like when i read that

it was it was really heavy because and i mentioned this to tyler like we know that the heat has a huge impact on people in a way that cold has like a different impact on people and i saw that from my understanding surrey is allowing all public pools to be open to the public no charge I don't think we're doing that in Chilliwack and I think it's alarming to me because from what I've seen we've got two air conditioners running in our home

right now but at Home Depot they don't allow you to pre-order or save like an order to have it shipped to you and then on Best Buy they're more expensive but claiming to be on sale so the one that we found was like $650 and then on Best Buy it was like

$1,500 regular place $1,700. It was exactly an air conditioner and so my concern is that we don't prioritize getting people air conditioners the same way we prioritize them having warming centers in the winter and that there's some sort of disconnect taking place there and people don't like working as a native court worker I get to see people come in and and have court matters after a really hot weekend and seeing that like yeah we can we can put the blame on you for misbehaving drinking alcohol and then having the sun beating down on you but a certain amount of that is it's 40 degrees it's 35 degrees

and sleeping in a room with air conditioning is such a different experience because your temperature is regulated but for the few days where we were we had our home flooded and we had to move those nights where it was hot it was hard for us to sleep because we were so used to having temperature controlled rooms and then there's a whole community of disadvantaged people who are just getting by on like they have a couple of hundred dollars extra per month to try and live off of and then it's 40 degrees and they can't afford to go anywhere and they're going somewhere is outdoors where there's maybe water but that doesn't cool your temperature like you're still getting heat stroke it's just you're not feeling it in the same way and it's really heavy to see what's

going on for me personally because i used to be that kid where we used to go to the outdoor water center to try and cool off, and then we'd still be hot and uncomfortable, and we'd try and find a subway or a McDonald's to kind of hide out in for a couple of hours to cool off, but then you see people misbehaving, making bad acts, and it increases during these periods, and it just, it's heavy because part of it is absolutely their fault, but the other part is the temperatures, the situation that we're dealing with is challenging for so many people to think clearly and act rationally. that I think it's like 13 or 14 degrees Celsius that you actually think at your best,

that you've got, like your prime, no distractions. When it's 35, you're not thinking clearly. You're more reactionary. You're more like wanting to give the person the middle finger when they cut you off in traffic because things aren't as clear in your mind as they should be. And so for me, there's a certain weight that these events have. Well, I think that's really interesting what you were saying. I personally don't know, like, I haven't seen enough, you know, interactions following a heat wave to be like, yeah, I totally agree that people act out when they're hot.

But it logically, that makes sense, right? It is a whole culture in the court system where we go, it's going to be a hot weekend. We're going to have a busy week in a couple of weeks when all of those charges end up in court. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so obviously that's something in your industry that you would have experience with and know.

That's something that's, I don't know, that's always interesting. Industries always have these little tidbits that kind of show off the world in a different way that you wouldn't expect. I wouldn't have expected that, but that does make sense. And I think in thinking in the Fraser Valley specifically, there's a big challenge, well, thinking in society as a whole, there's a big challenge where there is not a lot of free places to go. there's not a lot of places that you can go and just exist. And specifically in places, like during heat waves, there are not a lot of places you can go that are air-conditioned,

where you can just exist. You have to spend money. And that's a problem. And then thinking in the rural Fraser Valley specifically, not only are there almost no places you can just exist for free in air conditioning. It's extremely difficult to get to because there's lack of transit. So you have to drive your car.

You have to walk. And sometimes you can't walk. Like, you know, people in Harrison Mills are, Agassi has the Friendship Center open for the heatway right now because it's air conditioned. If you're in Harrison Mills, you're not going to walk to the Friendship Center. That's like, you have to walk over Mount Woodside. You're not doing that.

But like, nor is there a reasonable bus service. to get you there. Right? So that's something that, like, as climate change gets, you know, more climate changey, that's something that communities are really going to have to think about is, like, how are we going to, if we can't ensure that every home is air-conditioned or then how can we ensure that the majority of people have access to free air conditioning? And that's something that I think politicians and municipalities are still thinking about.

I think the heat dome helped people understand that a little more because so many people died. Yeah. Right. That's the heavy thing too, right? It's not just putting something in like a downtown Chilliwack where we know there's a community of people struggling with homelessness. We put in a cooling center. We're talking about seniors in either care homes or in apartments where they're trying to get by, but they're living paycheck to paycheck.

They can't afford a $500, $600 air conditioner. And so it's not just one portion of society. It's affecting a broader scope of individuals than cold temperatures seem to. Yeah. Well, and I think cold temperatures, like with cold temperature, if you're cold, you can put on a sweater. You can put on another sweater and so on and so forth until you are a ball of sweaters, but perhaps you are slightly warmer. If you're too hot, you can't take off your skin, right?

And yeah, there's only so much you can do to really cool down. You see a lot of people on social media sharing their tips and tricks for cooling down. And that's very important, obviously. But there needs to be some, in my opinion, there needs to be some. some structural changes. Because this is kind of going to be the way that it is, I think, and that is a little bit depressing, which is not what I said earlier was how I, you know, you know, I think I said earlier I'm a little bit of an optimist, not necessarily for

everything, a little bit of a pessimist in this regard. But like, yeah, so, and I think it's especially important in rural areas, which predominantly have older populations. So District of Kent, Harrison Hot Springs, Hope, Brazier Valley Regional District. People are spread out. People don't necessarily have great transportation options. And judging by the latest census data, people aren't necessarily making a ton of money. And the value of their money is decreasing with inflation.

Exactly. So, like, how are you going to help the most people with your example? like obviously we're going to need something in downtown Chilliwark, right? There is a large population of people who are going to need a cooling center there. But you also need to think about other spaces as well that are going to need it. And I don't have a good, I don't have a good solution. I have not created the solutions journalism story for this yet. Yeah.

This is an area, though, that really interests, like, if I'm ever going to be described as extremely one way on something, it's that I want everybody to have equal opportunities to succeed and I think that's a reasonable request yeah and so when I think about how good the quality of sleeps I get because of the air conditioner in my room the ability for me to focus and get tasks done when I'm in a temperature regulated space the the other one always for me is water I really think that chlorine in the water is a bad thing I've looked at the government of Canada's website they say small amounts. Over time causes cancer. That's what we have in our waters right now. So I'm big on alkaline planet, which is a local, a local company. They sell filters. They filter out the chlorine

water. I think it's like 20 bucks to get a new filter for every three months. I'm big on wanting that in struggling communities because I used to have terrible acne until I started, we got the showerhead, which filters out the chlorine in the water, and we got rid of the chlorine in the water, and then my acne went away. I feel better. I used to feel like if I drank a lot of water, if I was doing a hike, and I chugged that water, I'd feel like the water was like in my, like just sitting in my stomach. Yeah, you could feel it there, yeah.

Yeah, like I had like a water baby or something, and it was like jugging around where now I'd never feel that way. And so when I think about that, I want everyone to have those small tools that can help you reach greater success because I used to hate water because of the taste of it. And now I don't hate the taste of it. And so when I think of those things, I just, it worries me because I don't want people to get more disadvantaged. And those small things, I think they add up over time. And that's one area where when I think about how hot and uncomfortable I was nearly my whole childhood and we didn't have 45 degree days the way we have now, it really, it really made me sad when I was

downtown and saw all the kids playing outside and thinking do they have like a cool place to go home to where they can cool off and breathe now granted most of them are going to be fine but it's just a sense of like i want them to have that fair opportunity that fair chance to think clearly to not make silly mistakes because they're so impacted by that heat yeah well and it's it's like basically you're describing maslow's hierarchy of needs right once your basic needs are met then you can focus on becoming a better person and enhancing your community and working on bigger problems. So, like, I don't think it, I don't think it's terribly radical to want everyone to have those basic needs met, to want everyone to be able to, you know, live in an environment that

is conducive to their well-being. That's just, that seems like what people deserve, right? because you know I think back to the heat dome like we are my husband and I are super privileged and that we own our home and we have two portable air conditioners and we were able to use one in our bedroom one in our daughter's bedroom and during this heat wave it's going pretty well like you have to you have to alternate so you don't get acclimatized to the air conditioner too much you have to like go outside and then go in the house you're like wow the house is so cool and then you go into the air conditioning room and you're like wow the air conditioner room is so cool and then you you stay there and then you have to go back outside again to be like, no, this is this is the best it's going to get. But during the heat dome, you know, we had those two air conditioners going and we had, you know, we played in the hose tons, just like constantly soaking cold showers all the time and stuff. But it was extremely stressful for me in our very, you know, privileged household where we make good money and we have these air conditioners and stuff where I was like,

waking up at five because it was hot and the air conditioner wasn't keeping up with the heat outside and I was stressing about opening and closing the windows and the blinds and the timing of that and was it cold enough outside for me to open the doors so that our house would cool down and then having to remember to wake up at the right time so I could go close the doors again and close the windows again

so the house wouldn't heat up as much and it was still freakishly hot. Right. And so, and like, and we're very lucky. And so, you know, for me to be having those feelings and thinking about like a single parent who has to deal with that and work and stuff. And, and then, and then, yeah, elderly people doing that as well. It's like it occupies your whole mind. So, yeah, I think that hopefully. hopefully people in charge will be able to come up with some reasonable solutions to to make it so that's not an experience for everyone because we are going you know the global temperature is rising even if we like shut off all the fossil fields right now it's not going to reverse the trend necessarily right yeah i i think my frustration is more with industry because I don't think just like with gas prices I've seen them coming from

Vancouver to Chilliwack and seeing them nearly at par with each other knowing that they're supposed to be that was super depressing I had that same experience yeah they're supposed to be a difference because of our tax systems in Chilliwack and there wasn't and even Mayor Henry Braun was calling it out like hey this doesn't really make any financial sense and again an industry is going to make decisions in their best interest. I just interviewed Joel Backin, who made the movie The Corporation and the new corporation describing how it's their whole job to act in their own best interest. It isn't, we do not set parameters that they're supposed to act in everybody's best interest.

That would likely change how we define corporations. And so I do understand it from that perspective. The thing I don't love is that how are they always sold out? How are every week? like we have a heat dome this year they should be like we're going to need air conditioners it's going to be a big thing and they're sold out and there's something about that that if i'm a business person i'm thinking we need maximum amount of air conditioners for everybody and if we can sell even more bring the price down we can sell even more and make greater profits and so there's something i would want to understand more about the business side of things because i don't understand why there isn't an incentive to try and bring the costs down, sell more like you do with iPhones and really get it out there, you're selling more and it's becoming more of a cultural norm that's going to do better for your business over time than running out every few days and saying, we're just sold out a very, like, that doesn't make sense.

And why does Best Buy still have them in stock? And it frustrates me. No, that's fair. I think I have no answers for you. I think it is complicated. and but also I think you know as someone who's focused on local issues a lot I think that is one of the issues with kind of the monopolistic tendency that we're seeing in capitalism as a whole is because like we're having a heat wave here and in British Columbia you know we don't have a culture of air conditioners the same way they do in in Texas or other places that are hot all the time right so it's like this is a big deal for us. here on a national or a global scale, probably not, you know, it's probably not top of mind for the CEO of GM Electric, right?

Yeah. And that's a, that's a challenge where, yeah, like local, local issues are very important to local people. And when you only have, excuse me, when you only have non-local individuals solving local problems, then you have a challenge. Yeah. Can we talk a bit more about politics? We have a municipal election coming up.

But I find local politics probably the most interesting because typically has the biggest effects, but you also get some of the greatest people. And like interviewing Mayor Henry Braun was, I felt very lucky that we did the interview post him deciding not to run because I felt like I got a lot. out of him that even he said maybe I would have bit my tongue there maybe I would have wandered around that question and so it was great to get like an unfiltered honest conversation about the state of affairs but is it challenging to cover local elections as a journalist is there something you'd like to see done differently um I don't love how our debates are done now because the people asking

the questions have a vested interest in having a great relationship with them afterwards. And so... So you're thinking, like, the chamber sponsored debates and things like that. Not specifically calling out the chamber, but, you know... But where they have, like, a vested interest in not saying something that the person after the debate is going to go, I never want to talk to those people ever. I can't believe I was asked that. And, like, not that you need to ask provocative questions, but tough questions need to

be asked in those moments and I just don't have 10,000% confidence that an organization that does need to work collaboratively afterwards is going to be able to ask all of those tough questions in every circumstance where when you're a journalist I hope that typically a politician goes we're going to get some tough questions they're journalists yeah I would hope I would hope the same thing because like as a journalist like if you're if you're running for politics anyone who is watching who is thinking of running, excuse me, thinking of running for politics, like, yeah, you're going to have to talk to journalists whether you like them or not. So buckle up, but a cup. Yeah. Oh, I've only ever covered one municipal election. I don't love it. I don't

love politics. I like policy, but I don't, I don't love the optics of politics, if that makes sense like I don't necessarily like people I don't necessarily like covering the campaigns I guess is a good way to put it just because it's you only get to find out if they've meant what they said after the fact and of course I want to believe that they mean what they say so we'll find out in October but yeah I think it's tricky it's tricky it's tricky to cover local politics because there's a lot of people running for quite a few positions

in quite a few communities. And so our challenge at the current is that we cover Langley City, Langley Township, Abbotsford Mission, Chilliwack, District of Kent, Harrison Hot Springs, Hope, FVRD. So that's like almost 10, right? Yeah. And so it's like, okay, well, oh, and plus school boards.

And so it's like, okay, well, how are we going to cover this in a way that is meaningful for people without wanting to die? And that is challenging, and we're still sort of trying to figure that out. We're going to have a plan by, like, September, because that's when the nomination lists come out, and that's when we need a plan. but yeah it's challenging and I feel for Adam at the Observer this year because if you're at the Agassi Harrison Observer you cover Agassi and you cover Harrison and that's two municipal elections and that's going to suck but I think in general yeah I think in general it's just it's easier to cover provincial and federal elections even though they don't have as tangible an impact on small everyday things because you have parties, because you have, you know, fewer

candidates, fewer positions, typically better known names. So, and like more predictability, I think, in general. If you follow politics, then you can kind of have a sense of where something is going to go. Not always. Like, you know, what we saw in Chilliwack and. in the provincial election, that was wild. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know about the municipal election, man.

We're going to have to figure it out. Yeah, it seems interesting because it is where the rubber hits the road for so many people. It does impact the community so vastly. And so many people don't know who their local representatives are. And it seems like that could be the difference, that you're able to bring is allowing people to understand on a deeper level why this matters in a way that right now most people have no idea

who the mayor of Chilwaukee is or the mayor of Abbotsford like the average person I've talked to. They have no idea and it doesn't, it's nice that it doesn't worry them that much because things are running well and we've got roads and we've got lights and things are working. Well, and that's the important thing, right? is if your city is not literally falling apart, then that's good. That's what you want.

Yeah. And I, I just don't, I just don't know how feasible it is given the resources that are in journalism, not just in the current, but like thinking about the progress and the Abbotsford News and the Langley-Advanced Times. there are just so many candidates for quite a few positions. You know, like there's one mayor position, but you got counselor positions as well and stuff. And so much backstory to all of them, like the Langley Township elections.

So far we've got Blair Whitmarsh and Eric, what is his last name? Woodward. and a woman who's running whose name I no longer remember just because Blair and Eric are already on council I think her last name is Sparrow I could be wrong but it's like you have a lot of backstory with these people where Blair Whitmarsh is like I'm gonna because Mayor Jack Rose isn't running again this year he's been on council for a while he's been a fairly as far as I'm aware of a fairly uncontroversial mayor.

And so, uh, counselor Whitmarsh is like, I'm going to run for mayor. I'm going to follow basically what Jack was doing and we're going to, going to keep it homeostasis. Um, and Eric Woodward is,

is the opposite. Um, you know, he's been kind of the center of some Langley controversies for a while with the Eric Woodward foundation. He owns much of Fort Langley. And, um,

if I'm not, entirely mistaken. I think that's part of the reason why he ran for counsel in the first place, is because he maybe wasn't, and I can't remember exactly. So Eric, if you're watching, feel free to correct me later. But I think he wasn't entirely happy with some of the decisions that were happening in the Fort Langley area. So he ran for counselor, and now he's running for mayor on the idea that we need to make some changes and stuff. And so, and you're going to have the same thing in the rest of the you know in the eight other communities as well um and they're going and you know depending on the size of community they're going to have varying importance on the

rest of the phaser valley as well so like um the decision for mayor and abbotsford frankly I don't even remember who's running for mayor in Abbotsford right now it was one of the counselors with that Henry Braun mentioned is now going to run his counselor I don't remember Oh, right, right, right. Yes, we did talk about that in one of our editorial meetings. So it's like the election in Abbotsford is maybe going to have a little bit more importance on the rest of the Fraser Valley because of Abbotsford's, you know, importance as a center in the Fraser Valley and the decisions that they're going to have to make in regards to flood protection and things like that. but that doesn't mean that the election in Harrison Hot Springs is going to be any less important to the people in Harrison. Harrison Council, which I covered at The Observer, is notoriously, that's a good word. It's, um, there's a lot of back and forth between, particularly between Leo Fasio and John Allen, who have been two kind of common players in, in the Harrison political scene for decades, for many, many years. They both run for mayor. They both ran for mayor for like the last four elections. And I think Leo's won, um, the majority of them. And, and I don't, I actually don't know if, if, um,

Both of them are running again. I don't think they've announced it yet. So we'll find out. But it's one of those things where it's like that's going to have very little impact on the Fraser Valley as a whole. But it's going to have quite a lot of impact on Harrison residents because it's a small community. And it's also a resort municipality. So there could be some really big changes that come in the future, hypothetically, depending on who's in power. So anyways, those are my.

municipal thoughts. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just curious, like, would you be able to do it based on, like, maybe issues of, or, like, are you guys considering panel events for this? Because just my personal frustration is, again, I just feel like they're not always asked. I've attended different debates, and it feels like they're always asked, like, what is your approach on housing? And it's very thoughtless. And I've played around with the idea of getting more involved in hearing more meaningfully from people who are running so that we can get a better understanding of who they are as a human being and then hopefully that will give us some sort of inclination on where they would actually go on a decision when push comes to shove.

If they have a history in their life of pushing and fighting and standing up for things, then I would bet that that person is going to follow through. But if all we do is ask, like, how would you, like, Bud Mercer did a good job of just kind of making a joke, which was like Jeff Shields, who's an accountant, was asked about like what he would do like to address homelessness. And it's like, that is not the platform he was running on. It's not his expertise. And it's sort of unfruitful to ask him what his thoughts are on an issue he doesn't understand. And then I think Bud Mercer was asked about like transportation. And it's like, well, he's got a back. He's bringing his criminal justice background to this. So let's ask him about how he would. address those issues and not and like I you can make an argument that it would be fruitful to understand how they would go on those issues but if they don't understand the issue no matter what their answer is it's going to be sort of redundant because you don't know how they'll make

the decision once they get given all the facts and so I just I feel like it could be done in a better way my hesitation is I'm giving someone perhaps I don't like the term platform but I'm giving someone the space to tell their story and I try and stick it to people who are trying to do good and politics is that space where they're acting in their own best interest and they're going to tell me things that people want to hear and there's not an incident. And I've had privately politicians say, I won't come on your podcast because I wouldn't be able to be my honest self and I appreciate that, but it makes it more difficult for me to weed out the people running because they own land because they're a real estate agent and they're going to

be able to influence decisions that are going to impact zoning and that's going to help them in their business. And so it's like, it's tough for me to decide how to best approach asking questions or choosing who should come on. Yeah. Well, and I think, um, I think that's, it's always going to be a challenge. And one of the things that, um, one of the things that councils do have to help that is if you do have a conflict of interest, then then you need to declare it. You need to step out. Right. Um, So that's something that's helpful after the fact, right? I know Chris Clute on Chilliwack Council, he has, you know, quite a few family members who are doing quite a few developments or changes or rezoning

applications. And so he's, you know, he's always stepping out of the council chambers. And so that's something that's helpful after the fact from that point. But I think just getting to know people before the election is going to be challenging for precisely those reasons that you said. And I'm also glad that you remembered your question after I went on my tangent. Um, and as a journalist, I don't know if there, if we have a really good way to fix that necessarily, because when you have 10 plus candidates in nine communities, that's 90 people, right? So like, I,

I can't sit down with 90 people and do a good in-depth interview with them in the time between the nominations are announced and an election, right? So that's why you end up with these questions where you're asking an accountant about his opinion on homelessness or his opinion on housing affordability or things like that because, like, no, that's not his expertise, but you know what? As a counselor, that's something he's going to have to think about. So where are they right now? So like, no, it's not perfect. And I think that's something that organizations that have a smaller focus are going to be able to do a little better. Like the Chilliwack progress is just going to be focusing on the Chilliwack election

and the Chilliwack School Board election. So I hope for their sake that they're going to have more time to kind of dive into the individual people a little more. But I do think that's always going to be a challenge for municipal elections. And that's one thing that social media does help with a little bit is that you can be like, okay, so, you know, Ken's running again in Chilliwack. What do I know about Ken? You can go learn more about Ken.

You could look on his Facebook page and be like, what does it say here? And you can kind of, you know, for people who are technologically literate, that that's an avenue that you have. and you should totally take it because because it's just a huge volume of people that are running. And, yeah, so I know for us, one of the things that we're thinking is to do kind of more of a questionnaire. But it will be, my guess is it will be reasonably generic across the board because that's just the only way that it's a manageable amount of work.

And that's one of the challenges of, journalism is sometimes you can't do everything that you want to do because you need to be like, well, will I sleep? Will I eat? You know, can I have a shower? And you just have to work with the parameters of what you're able to do. Right. That makes sense. Where do you hope the current goes through your time there? Are you looking out five years into the future? Do you have aspirations where your organization can go, the difference it can make? Well, I mean, the difference it can make, obviously. Like, you want it to keep growing and keep on meeting people's needs as far as local journalism

and keep on getting better and doing better journalism and being able to do more interesting stories and deeper dives and things like that. And that, you know, being able to grow as a journalist in that structure is hopefully only going to help make it better. That's hope, right? Um, as far as like the company itself, you know, because I'm not in an admin role, because I'm not in sort of a management role, I don't necessarily have a five year plan for the current because that's up to Tyler and Farhan and, and, you know, the rest of, um, the team members who are kind of planning that. Um, but obviously I'd like it to be around in five years. I'd like to have a job in five years,

you know what stories do you think over the past year do you think people should look back on that they shouldn't let fade away into the back of their minds

where they should like the Fraser Valley floods of course a good example of something where we're going to want updated stories we're going to want to stay on the loop do you have any other examples of things people should try and

go reread or stay up on that will help keep our communities informed well thinking about the election coming up. I did a story around the same time that I wrote the story

on the Tajmi Internment Camp where I went through because the Chilliwack School Board was going through that special advisor and the investigation and things like that. So when we were waiting

for the special advisors report, I wrote a story on kind of the last decade of the Chilliwack School Board centering on some of the controversies surrounding Barry Newfeld, because that has been the focal point of the last decade of the Chilliwack School World.

Hard to believe it's been a decade, but it has. So I think if people want to get a sense of, because Barry Newfeld has said he's running again, Daryl Ferguson has said he's running again, I believe Karen Bonder is running again, and Terry Westerby, who is new to the trusty world. is looking to run. But if people kind of want to educate themselves on some of the history of the school board before they vote in Chilliwack, I think that would be a good story to go revisit. And because this is another, like, it has another interactive tool from the JS Night Lab

team of tools called Timeline. And so you can kind of like click through and see the timeline of the last decade. Some people, one person said it read like a soap opera, which it totally does, because it's wild. But I think that's one thing that you can, that would be good for people to check up on, because it is going to be relevant in October again. And that's one way you can kind of educate yourself as like looking at things that have happened in the past. And what other stories did we do that would be good? Water? Yes.

We've done a lot of water stories. Sadly, I don't remember a lot of the stories. You just did one, though. running low on water, water quality, Chilliwack needing, we're on an aquifer. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes, so I had 100% forgotten that I wrote that story because I wrote it possibly before we had a website.

So, like, right in the beginning, before the heat dome, I'm pretty sure. I can't remember exactly But yeah So that was an interesting kind of look at our The water system that we have here And yeah Chilliwax on an aquifer So it's like we're you know we're good

We have a lot of water But it's like hard to tell how much water you have That's what blew my mind in the article Was we don't know that much about aquifers I know I say this a lot But we as human beings We drive our car with the lights

And we feel like we've got stuff figured out. And then you say something like that. And when Paul Van Westendorp was talking about how honeybees dance in their hive to communicate with each other and bumblebees don't know how to do that, it's just like it wrinkles my brain and then it makes me less confident that we've got everything figured out. Well, that is the cool thing about the world is that we will never know at all, which is like cool and also scary. But yeah, like the aquifer thing, logically that makes sense. Like, we don't really know how deep an aquifer is.

It's not really easy to tell how much water is in an aquifer. You know, the water has to come from somewhere. And so are you able to judge where the water's coming from and stuff? So that, when I was writing, that totally blew my mind as well. But it's like, logically makes sense. right? Yeah. There's lots of stuff like that.

That's why it's fun being a journalist because you get to get to figure it out and be like, oh, we don't know. Do you have one story that stands out to you that taught you the most or an area that you feel like you've grown the most in? Because that's something that I always try and remind people of is like,

it's important to stay like a learner. It's important to humble yourself to a topic and try to understand it a little bit more. Like, I'm watching the series How to Change Your Mind. And it's about, like, our relationship with psychedelics and LSD. And it's like, it's one where maybe I have a conservative tendency because I think to change your mind or develop yourself, you should just do that through hard work and effort and, like, overcoming adversity.

And so it's interesting to learn how people have changed their values, become more open and understanding is a consequence of something like that. It's not something I love, but it's something that like I learn about and I go, wow, the world's so much more complicated than I realized. Yeah, I don't have any particular, it would be hard to pinpoint one particular story where it's like, I learned the most from that.

But I think there's definitely one of the things that I think you find in journalism is that stories always lead to more stories. So it's like, and that's one of the things. And that's one thing that we do a lot at the current is we have bonus stories. So we'll do a big story. And if you're watching closely, you'll notice this. You'll do a big story.

And then a couple weeks later, we'll have a smaller story on a very similar topic. And that's our bonus story of like stuff that we learned that didn't quite make it into the big story. Or we'll have like the big story and then an excerpt of an interview and stuff. So I think like personally as a journalist, one area, where I feel like I've grown a lot is in my reporting on indigenous issues and indigenous coverage. And I'm like super grateful for all the sources that have like helped me get better at that. Because it's really important, especially in the Fraser Valley where we have such a large indigenous community and history that is like so under told. In a sense, and I'm like, I'm looking over there and I'm seeing all your books and like some of them that I want.

and like the Stolo Coast Salish historical Atlas is so good. And I'm glad that I was introduced to that so I could buy it, so I could learn from it, right? And so that's one thing that I feel like I have learned a lot about. And obviously still tons more to learn, but it's really nice to get past the point of feeling like you know nothing and then feeling like you know lots. and then feeling like you know nothing again it's always good to get to that like last feeling

like you know nothing section because that means you're kind of on a good learning path because there's always more that you'll get to know about um and in a weird way like the dairy industry is also kind of like that for me because i've done a surprising amount of reporting on dairy cows not surprising when you think you live in the place around yeah surprising and not surprising I guess surprising in that it's not, it's not commonly covered. Yeah. Because it's like super industry specific.

But yeah, it's like they, I have more story ideas for, for dairy related stories that I'd like to tackle someday that I haven't gotten a chance to. Right. Yet. Like I'd love to,

you know, because dairy cows are typically like Holsteens. Dairy farms are full of females, right? Yeah. because that's where dairy comes from. So it's like, where are all the dudes? And because I went to a dairy industry awards ceremony once, and they had door prizes.

And some of the door prizes was like 10 units of semen, like five units of semen. And it's like, that is a good prize for a dairy farmer because you've got to impregnate your cows so that they'll produce milk, right? So it's like, so how are they getting these units of semen? Who is the top producing bull? the Fraser Valley it's like that is that's such a weird story but it'd be so fun to do yeah so that's

on my list for someday I feel that way I feel like talking about bees was when I started the podcast not on the radar and talking to Chris Koo about birds wasn't on my kind of like this is where I'm going to take this and it's really important to me to go in different directions and really get curious about it and it's I have like a whole logic why I don't send the questions out months in advance because then I'm excited about it when the person's coming on in a few days and that genuine curiosity comes through where if I write it a month in advance I'm kind of like oh yeah I was going to ask about that and maybe there's not that like inspiration behind it and I think that that's what gets other people interested in a topic is if you're interested they'll come

along for the journey, but if it's a monotone kind of process where you're just checking a box, you'll lose that. And those quirky topics have been some of the most successful, made other people more curious about where they live and connecting with the farms and the culture and the hard work people put in to have grocery stores filled with food. It's like you don't always realize that you can, like, we only buy our eggs locally now from places who've built a whole egg stand because they're working every day to get that running and it's like it's so cool and then the other weird thing is they're not as impacted by inflation as quickly as your grocery store is going to be because there's a whole process to get it into and everybody in that kind of market line has to

get paid and so prices go up faster there than they do if you go to your egg producer if you buy milk local like whatever it is yeah for sure yeah so can you tell people how they can connect with you on Twitter, on how they can connect to the newsletter, and maybe why they should? Don't connect with me on Twitter. You can. It's fine. I don't post very much. Yeah, so Twitter is definitely my professional social media. So it's at Grace Ken, two ends, because I'm Grace Kennedy. It's spelled like the present. And yeah, and then the current, go to FVcurrent.com, and then you can subscribe there, and you'll get to learn all about me and Thailand. and Jotie and our cool stuff.

Because it's cool to learn. And that's why you should do it. And it's much more committed to community. It's much more digestible. If you find yourself scrolling through Facebook, trying to find out what the latest stories are, it's not good for you. It's not good for your mental health.

It's not good for your overall well-being. I think that Fraser Valley Current does a great job of telling you what you need to know, keeping you in the loop. getting you excited about your community. So I highly recommend you go follow Grace, Tyler, Jothi on Twitter to stay up to date, but also go subscribe to the newsletter and stay in the loop about your community. So Grace, I really appreciate you being willing to make the trek. I know it's getting very hot in here.

So I appreciate you enduring that as well. I've learned a lot through this. And I think what you guys are doing, the personability of it, if that's a word, it means a lot to me. I'm always excited to share you guys' work and let people know because I really believe it's the next path forward for journalism and for reconnecting our communities after the events that we've been through. Well, thank you so much for having me, Erin, and for being a better spokesman for the current than I have been so far. No problem. You're the one doing the work to get the stories out. It's one of my challenges

is getting the word out on social media because by the time I've put in all the work work into all of the development of a podcast. It's like, I'm done now. And so getting the excitement out is, it can be the hardest part. So I just appreciate all the work you guys are doing. I think we're really lucky that you've all dedicated yourself to that. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And that's the same challenge that we have at the current, too. It's because you spend so long on a story. And then you're like, oh, it's done. Oh, wait. Now I need to tell people that we've done it. Well, I will be always happy to get the word out. What I hope to do in the future is to have you guys on to kind of recap what's been going on over the past four months or whatever it is

so that for people who didn't tune into that story now they're a little bit more caught up in the loop and we can get kind of some of the behind the scenes of what you guys learned so that would be sweet yeah and thanks so much Aaron