Rye journalism students regularly get sent these “Job postings/announcements” emails from the School of Journalism. Open to submission, they allow for students to catch wind of any potential work that may pique our interest. What caught my eye in the one sent this afternoon was this little blurb:

In the past, I’ve found several unpaid internships/work opportunities from these emails, and unless you count a few free concert tickets, I didn’t get paid a cent. In fact, looking through old emails, the majority of positions pay either less than minimum wage, or not at all.

How can a Journalism school neither recommend nor endorse unpaid internships, yet in the same string of emails, post volunteer opportunities? What’s the bloody difference? Most startup media outlets are “not for profit” as it is.

A few Toronto-area journalists already have weighed in on this subject, and, I think every professor I’ve had at Ryerson has said that they’re a necessary evil in getting work exposure. The truth is that while working for less than minimum wage is illegal in Canada, brandishing one’s work under the guise of the magic word “internship” gives employers credence to receive quality work from young people who are simply getting taken advantage of, by way of the promise of experience. I’m not naive in where the media industry is in Canada, by the by. I’m well aware of its future implications (650 jobs, also, could cover four years of J-school alumni), and understand the increasingly fierce competition I will be facing when I graduate. Seriously, some of my classmates are incredibly talented people, even intimidatingly so.

Where I take issue with all this is my school’s obvious reluctance to explore the idea that journalism is becoming a increasingly unviable career path, and the ol’ faithful sources of jobs are taking flight. How can I be receiving one piece of advice from faculty in the classroom, then get a complete opposite statement via email? 

I don’t discount work experience from internships. I would, without question, accept an unpaid internship at any major newspaper for the summer; the work experience is invaluable. But when my school delivers a mockingly brash statement of duality like this, well, it kind of makes me want to punch a wall.

Ever feel alone, but not in a social way? Of course there are always those certain calls from family members, texts from friends, and junk mail from window cleaning companies that bombard us with messages of different importance like clockwork, but I’m speaking of a different kind of loneliness. A disconnect.

Raised a nerd, I remember logging on for the first time around age 9 at school. Mostly it was to use important educational tools like Ask Jeeves and simple online versions of encyclopedias, but us kids quickly discovered this little gem. The internet was exciting. MSN Messenger and chat rooms soon followed, and I got my own computer, a hand-me-down from my aunt at age 11. Soon I discovered message boards, IRC communities, and how to make my first blog. My love for the internet was full steam.

I think it sort of directed me towards my love of communication, and soon, journalism. The only other example I can think of is the music, skateboarding, and videogame magazines I subscribed to at early ages, but even then the idea of writing for a living never clicked to me. It only was until I forced friends to read hilariously personal narrative entries in Livejournal and blogs that I really, truly enjoyed to have something that represented a voice beyond speaking to just one person at a time.

So you can expect my frustration when it’s nearly one full month into a new home, but same city when we still don’t have internet yet still (Still!).

It’s a simple matter of getting a Trained Expert of Wiring over here to flip the switch. We could easily hail a Rogers van, waving a six-pack and yelling “come fix our internet, guy!” But no, we must faithfully wait for the Rogers van to, at the instruction of our latest ISP choice, Distributel. Hopefully they are less of a nightmare than Teksavvy was, but that’s all beside the point.

I get Twitter through my cell phone, and check it regularly. I feel like it’s my lifeline to my once flourishing online world. I update this blog at school and cafes mostly these days, and I scrape what little information I can out of the internet before I have to head to class, or an assignment.

It all happened so quickly, too. We are so connected at all times these days, that you really don’t notice the grip it has until it suddenly vanishes. No more new music (a big one), new blog posts, or the constantly morphing and changing framework of my world, as dictated by my bookmarked blogs, news sites, web 2.0 fun ventures, and of course, Facebook.

A lesson in patience and self-reliance, true, and it has developed into the pursuit of a few more hobbies and interests, some of which you’ll no doubt be seeing in the future, but still, I can’t help but wonder just how I’m going to distract myself tonight. Maybe I’ll read a book. Remember books?

My time without computers began with a tough decision; what was I going to do for a whole 24 hours? When I’m at home, my laptop is always within my grasp. It is constantly playing music in my bedroom, and on the main floor, my room-mates and I have set up a server computer connected to our large stereo and television that streams music from our respective laptops. And if it’s not streaming music, somebody’s playing video games, watching television, or a movie.

Saturday, October 16 was when I was to complete my 24 hours without the computer or my cellphone. I figured this would be the easiest time to do it; the computer is basically a requirement throughout the week as I am at either school or work from Monday to Friday, and both require at least some use of a computer.

Naturally, I needed something that would occupy my time. Something that wouldn’t involve me strutting around the house, constantly being tempted by checking my text messages, email, and Facebook pokes. So I decided to phone a friend who’s been meaning to show me something.

I met Joshua through a floor mate from residence last year. He and I developed a wonderful friendship through the sharing of similar ideas and thoughts.  We are both, for example, hugely into photography, but our methods are completely different. I take hundreds of pictures in one sitting, while he carefully plans out and executes each press of the shutter button.

In April, Josh lent me a book called Access All Areas: A User’s Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration, written by the now deceased Toronto-based urban explorer Jeff Chapman. The book talked of a world I had never known before. A world of “getting to places that people weren’t supposed to go,” or whatever that meant. It opened my eyes to the hidden areas of Toronto that we all walk by but hardly ever see; the unknown, gutted, emptiness in the middle of our country’s largest urban centre. I was riveted at the notion of seeing what very few ever would, and it both sparked and petrified my inner desire to explore.

続きを読む…

The past weekend I witnessed downtown Toronto turn from one of the safest cities in North America to a near police state with mobs of people clad in black, faces covered, brandishing hammers, makeshift metal bars, spray paint, and war cries, all in the name of protest. The chaotic rumble plaguing what began as a very peaceful, coordinated, cooperating protest rally will no doubt be the red ink stain that blemishes the rightful, intended message of the groups protesting at the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit. I was there on Saturday the 26th, documenting what I saw with my camera, trying to provide introspection of what I witnessed. It was quite the experience, though I’m not quite sure if that is for all the right reasons. I’m sure those reading have been following the news and are quite familiar with the shocking turns the weekend took, though I hope to provide a unique, first-hand perspective that major media organizations can not.

I left my house in the grey morning at around 9:30 am, boarding the GO Bus that stops one block away, and immediately noticed the group of people at the back of the bus. There were 4 or 5 of them, all students, protesting the $1 billion price tag Prime Minister Stephen Harper donned the weekend with. They were a nice enough bunch, and provided some good company and lightheartedness to an otherwise tense feeling of foreshadowing of the unknown events to come.

続きを読む…