Allison Buchan-Terrell

Up against a wall of silence

When I started this project last summer I was bursting with optimism. I had such lofty ideals and goals for this little documentary that could. That, and I promised to document the process on this blog. Well, to put it tritely, life happens.

In January I got a call I never expected. It was the first day of winter classes. Four missed calls on my phone from a familiar number. When I realized what number it was, my heart fluttered. I interned at the Agenda with Steve Paikin, a current affairs program at TVO. I loved it and they apparently felt the same way about me. A job had opened up. Temporary for now with a permanent position dangled as a lure. What this meant, in a nutshell, was that I would be working full-time squeezed into the space of part-time and attending classes. Needless to say, my life has been a teensy bit hectic. What started as a three-week contract turned into another month and another and another. Six in total.

And on top of work and classes, I’ve been chipping away at this project. It’s been extremely difficult. Progress is measured one interview at a time. Now, I’ve hit a wall.

I knew when I started this project that some ‘gets’ as we call them in this field — that is, getting interviews — would be easier than others. I knew I could probably convince my former co-workers to talk to me and community groups. I have to say, having spoken to about five of each, they were more honest about it than I expected — frank, even. But the roadblock remains the same: clients, participants, recipients, those with lived experiences of the program.

Here’s the rub. I’ll be frank for a moment. I have a terrific memory and I can easily recall names and faces of clients I’ve interacted with over the years, but I cannot use that information if I am to act ethically. See, I cannot use the information because I am not really supposed to have it. Using it would be a violation of client privacy. So I have gone to great pains to do this the right way. Giving flyers about my project to my old boss and community groups. Asking community groups and caseworkers to suss out potential interviewees. Some have been helpful and others have stonewalled. Frustration.

See, some of my classmates and peers in the field would not hesitate to use the information I’ve retained to their advantage and just start dialing. But I can’t bring myself to do it. So instead I visit food banks during key hours and hope to catch a few fish. And I go back to my community groups to beg and plead for help. I don’t want to lose the heart of this project — the voices of those who live the experience.

If you are reading this blog or came to this entry through a search and want to help me with my project, please send me an email at allison@abuchanterrell.com.

Using the tax system to top up low incomes

Original via scazon

[I wrote this post a day after the report came out. Believe it or not. But my world got shaken up a bit and I lost my free time, which was dedicated to things like this blog. But better late than never, right?]

There are few pleasures more enjoyable than having your work validated — especially by the chamber of sober second thought! On December 8, a Senate subcommittee (specifically the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology’s subcommittee on Cities) released a major report titled  In the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness — the result of a two-year cross-country study. Watch an interview with Senators Art Eggleton and Hugh Segal on CBC’s Power and Politics here (skip ahead to roughly 37 minutes in).

In a nutshell they found decades of social policy making  at various levels of government have had two devastating results:

1. When all the social programs are working and the individual gets all possible income and supports, the income too often keeps them in poverty rather than lifting them out into full participation in their communities.
2. At their worst, current policies and programs trap people in poverty and create unintended (and perverse) effects that make it impossible to escape reliance on income security programs and shelters.

And so they recommend a complete overhaul of the social service system. In particular, they recommend we establish a goal that individuals and families, regardless of why they are in need, receive income supplements through the tax system to bring them up to low-income cut-offs after taxes (as measured by Statistics Canada). In other words, a guaranteed annual income. The federal government already relies on income support programs that are triggered and delivered through the tax system. Only those with enough income to pay taxes receive credits and deductions, but now many credits are being paid to people who do not pay taxes but do file returns. Like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) refundable credit low-income tax filers receive or the National Child Tax Benefit and Ontario Child Tax Benefit and the Working Income Tax Benefit. Especially the Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, which has proven tremendously effective at lifting seniors out of poverty.

This interests me because I’ve been asking my interviewees about what changes they would like to see and while many have said higher rates. One, who has been a caseworker for roughly a decade, felt the Ontario government was signaling a move toward a benefit geared to income. She said:

Just even in the wording of the last Ontario Child Benefit memo that came out in the summer, because of the downturn in the economy our clients are often times the hardest hit and then the last to rebound, so I think when that kind of took place rather than letting the Ontario Child Benefit roll out slowly over the five-year period they accelerated it to the maximum to try and kind of make up the difference for those families that were hardest hit. I think in those situations — just the wording of the memo indicated a further division — almost a geared to income — and the wording of that to me just kind of seemed like a hint towards more changes to come. (I am opting not to name her at this point until I get her permission).

So how would a geared-to-income benefit work?

I would imagine it would probably just be based on taxes, so that similar to the Child Tax it would be if your family income fell below a certain income bracket that you would qualify some type of top-up or supplement…I don’t know if it’s that people are screened because how children’s services for childcare subsidy — theirs went to the tax form. So it’s just line…I think it’s line 256, so makes them when they meet with clients, you’re either eligible or not eligible based on that one tax line. But then again that brings it back to that same thing: does every client fit into that mold? Does every client fit into that situation or scenario?

I haven’t had a chance to go through the report with a fine-toothed comb yet. But it is definitely some food for thought as I go forward with my project. Once I dig a bit deeper into the report, I’ll get back to you with more thoughts. For now, I’d love to hear yours!

Each medium has its place

Original by qwincowper

There is an unspoken hierarchy of mediums in the journalism world. It starts at the pinnacle with so-called long-form journalists including magazine and feature writers and moves down to the less-glamorous, but nonetheless gritty (and thus respectable), newspaper reporters. Next is radio, which holds a kind of nostalgic and kitsch appeal. And finally there is television at the bottom (or base, if you want to be punny) — the lowliest medium in its pandering to the masses and its superficiality. And similarly it is assumed, a parallel hierarchy of journalistic skill exists from artistes to hacks.

For the past six weeks I’ve worked like a grunt in the most base of mediums, television, and thought about this hierarchy a lot. Particularly as I continued to struggle “to get” television news. For me, I can’t get over the double compromise. There are many compromises you have to make to tell a concise story and this maxim is as true for print as it is for radio, but there is another over-arching compromise in television: pictures rule all and you can only tell the story you can tell in pictures.

And trying to overcome the unambiguous camera lens and convince people to grant you on-camera interviews or allow you to tape events, is how you spend much of your time. Moreover it is not enough to be concise; you must simplify (sometimes to the point of cliche) complex events not merely assuming your audience is unaware of the topic at hand, but also uninterested. And so you constantly straddle the line between information and entertainment, more often tipping into the latter. I found myself justifying my “academic” (re: uninteresting) interviews and feeling frustrated with flashy but fluffy final products.

[If my school offered a radio masthead class, I would have taken it. But instead we are offered a broadcast masthead, which is only television news. And daily television news at that.]

So I thought alot about the hierarchy especially in terms of why radio is my chosen medium for my project. After all, it is so lowly on the totem pole for a major project.

But I also thought about it in light of how journalism is changing. It used to be, and my program is still designed this way, that you would decide which kind of journalist you wanted to be and would train extensively in this medium and work exclusively in this medium. But I think we are going to see that change more as online journalism grows.

I think the way we are going is to instead choose a medium based on its suitability for the story we are trying to tell. So when I thought about the right medium for my final project I considered a couple things: for one, the challenge of getting my subjects on camera and of requiring a crew; and for another, how this complex issue is best explained. And I thought all the information graphics in the world could not beat the effect of someone’s intensely personal story spoken into your ear. I not only wanted the challenge of focusing entirely on the narrative, but felt compelled to use this most basic of storytelling forms to unravel this issue.

There is something beautiful and clear about someone telling you a story person to person. For me it was the difference between trying to figure out the economic crisis watching CBC Newsworld and understanding it after listening to the Giant Pool of Money. But more poignantly, the difference between reading the heartbreaking story of a Rwandan woman repeatedly raped in front of her children during the genocide and hearing a first-hand story from a survivor*. I think, and this is an unscientific personal opinion, that when it comes to the extremely personal, human stories, it is better to hear them and this is not to diminish the beautiful work of Stephanie Nolen — in fact, she is one of my favourite journalists. But to hear personal stories in a subject’s own words, in their own voice, is invaluable for certain stories. I remember sitting in an editing suite with one of the producer’s from Spark, and she was teaching me how to edit audio, and she said she loves to hear people think on the radio. To pause and hear that dead air for a moment or a sigh or a breath is so revealing: there is truth in that. It’s something you cannot replicate in print (and isn’t really acceptable on television).

That is what I want to have in my story. The sound of my subjects (and also myself) pausing to reflect and work through this mud.

* I interviewed Professor Basabose when I worked as a student journalist at the Gazette at Western. Sadly, I deleted our recorded interview and I can’t load the written story from the paper’s archives. Perhaps I can update this at some point. But for now, trust me that I did.

My Ontario Works experience

Original by x_jamesmorris

At this point, I feel like I have to tell you about how I got here.

For most of my working years, I’ve pushed paper. I’ve filed and typed and answered phones in offices all over the town where I was raised. Sure, I’ve also been a cashier at a grocery store, but pushing paper happens to be my specialty. And it pays better. I financed much of my undergraduate degree working summers as a temp: the lowliest of the low on the office totem pole.

And so at the start of one such summer in 2005, I got a call from my temp agency rep — an extra perky young woman who ends each sentence with a high-pitched okay. She had a position for me at the region (the municipal government) in the social services department. I remember scribbling notes on a scrap of paper about the hours and the rate per hour — both decent. But I distinctly remember how she emphasized how overwhelmed the staff were. A big part of my job was to relieve the pressure. I puzzled over what this would look like come Monday morning. To be honest, I was intrigued by the department. Poverty was an abstract concept for me.

See, my hometown is smack in the middle of one of the wealthiest regions in Canada. Poverty was a small rundown strip of Kerr St. with high-rise apartments and second-hand shops. A place we drive by on the way to downtown. I knew the mid-rise building behind me was subsidized housing, but I didn’t understand what that meant.

But I catch on pretty quick. And I started to understand as I spent my first days at the front desk of social services. I remember the first day hearing one of the workers convincing a client he still had a lot to live for. I remember opening housing applications and learning a person’s complete history. In the case of battered women, too many details in shelter letters. I was still soft. My co-workers would scoff that I spent too much time on the phone with clients. How could I hang up on a woman who had no milk for her children — children she was fighting for custody of in a frustrating case. As I said, I’ve worked in the business of pushing paper and this job was largely about pushing paper. Never before did paper carry intensely personal stories, but also smells and stains. Intimate details. Stale cigarettes and coffee. Sweat. Tears. Blood. I was getting to know a whole swath of people I didn’t know existed until they appeared at my counter. My heart hurt for them and for their stories of woe. Stories I could not stop listening to.

And now I’ve worked there for four summers and one Christmas holiday. Stories fresh when I started have become old tropes. Going back each summer is like Groundhog Day. Little things change, but most everything stays the same. And so when my co-workers found out I am studying journalism, they kept joking I should write about this. So I am.

Up next: the proposal.

Three keys parts of news stories we don’t get

*Not my notes. Original Dan Paluska

Forgive my disappearance. It is the second week of classes and I am still adjusting to the schedule. As far as my project goes, I had a meeting last week with my supervisor and I’ve got my deadlines. I’m in the process of refining my proposal: digging deep in one issue (rather than rake over many) and sharpening my hook. So I’m thinking like madness and making lots of notes (some in the middle of the night). Today I approached former colleagues at the local office to set up preliminary interviews. It’s all happening.

For now, a must read. Matt Thompson on  Three keys parts of news stories you usually don’t get:

As long as the news is structured solely around what just happened, journalists are going to be fighting a rough battle. With a latest-news-only approach, we stoke demand for journalism by trying to snag people’s attention with each new development.

There’s another way, one that leads to a more informed and more loyal public, and allows us to do better work. It involves:

• Enlarging the market for journalism by making it easier for more people to understand the longstanding facts behind each story.
• Increasing the appeal of journalism by letting folks in on the details of our quest to uncover the truth.
• Expanding the appetite for journalism by explaining what we don’t know, and what we’re working to find out.

He speaks directly to my project goals: explaining how the welfare system works (something we don’t get in many stories on the topic) and being transparent not only about my perspective but also about how I arrive at the narrative I am developing. And I find as I embark on this project — and it becomes increasingly real — I am thinking a lot about narrative, timeliness, hooks, characters, sounds and all the other technical details. He also has a great post (with video) on telling larger stories and the opportunity to encourage understanding. An opportunity I intend to capitalize on.

Transparency is the new objectivity

Screen capture of Eye Weekly

Last week David Topping of Torontoist took Eye Weekly task for a glowing review of MTV News written by Liem Vu , who it turns out was an intern at that very program. As Topping says, “He was as much at the time the article was pitched to Eye, he was when he was conducting interviews, he was when he was writing it, and he still was when it was published.” And the article made no mention of this, which didn’t appear to be a problem for Eye.

Online editor Stuart Berman wrote to the Torontoist that he knew of the internship and added, “This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a story written for us by someone who’s on intimate terms with the subject they’re writing about…” For Topping, an intern writing a news article about the place where he interned is pretty intimate.

I wonder though if Topping is happy with simple disclosure. The article was updated disclosing the writer’s internship after Topping got in touch with Berman. Or I wonder if disclosure is not the issue, but rather proximity. Should journalists produce pieces on subjects or organizations they are involved with, however intimate the relationship? This summer I finally watched Capote , which follows Truman Capote as he researched and wrote In Cold Blood (the ground-breaking non-fiction novel). And I was struck by the portrayal of his relationship with Perry Smith, one of the men convicted of murder. They exchanged letters, phone calls and shared stories of their past and personal secrets. This was a fruitful relationship for Capote who was able to build a compelling tale chock-a-block with intimate details. But does this kind of intimacy taint the story? I could cite Janet Malcolm’s the Journalist and the Murderer here, but I digress.

I think for Topping his beef was also with the article’s place in the news section, which is still considered the shrine of objectivity. But objectivity has been declared a false idol. At PDF09 Dave Wineberger pronounced transparency is the new objectivity. And the journalism world breathed a sigh of relief. In our digital world, where links are the coin of the realm (Thanks Dan! ), readers can see the connections between the final draft and the ideas that shaped it. And they can decide for themselves.

“What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.”

My greatest worry about my major project, aside from being scooped by another journalist, was the giant caveat I must put on it.

Full disclosure: I worked at an Ontario Works office, the program I intend to report on and my project will reflect my perspective as someone who worked there.

Over the summer, I worried it like a child picking a loose scab: can I overcome this fact? Is being honest enough? Now I wax over what disclosure means. Is it how long I worked there? Summers for the past couple years. Is it exactly what my role was? I was a clerk pushing documents between clients and caseworkers. Is it the connections I have within the system? I know where to find clients and caseworkers. Or is no level of disclosure enough? Whether I have done any favours for clients or caseworkers to secure sources?

For most journalists transparency means disclosing conflicts of interest. Ryan Sholin, of Publish2 and Wired Journalists, says  transparency means showing your work . It also means going further than simple conflicts of interest like mine. Showing why I know what I know and how it informed my project. So I make a commitment to not only be transparent in disclosing I worked there, but also in showing my work. You’ll see the interviews I do, the reports I read and my thoughts as I complete my project.

The explainer

Original by Stahlman Design

Graphics like these are common place in mainstream media. We call them sidebars, value-added, info graphics. Really they are space savers: we use them so we don’t have to take up word count or air space explaining the what’s and the how’s. But there is value in the exercise behind the sidebar: explanation. I think back to last fall when the words subprime mortgages and hedge funds became common parlance. My father studied economics and I had him try and explain hedge funds to me. Very little penetrated. So on the recommendation of friends, I downloaded the Giant Pool of Money, a special NPR podcast on the housing crisis. And for the first time I understood. Jay Rosen said:

Coming out of the program, I understood the complete scam: what happened, why it happened, and why I should care. I had a good sense of the motivations and situations of players all down the line. Civic mastery was mine over a complex story, dense with technical terms, unfolding on many fronts and different levels, with no heroes.

It was completely different from the news cycle we know where first we learn of events and then we seek to make sense of these events — to analyze them. Rosen calls analysis, interpretation and explanation “higher order acts,” which follow the basic act of reporting. But for some stories, he says, there are some stories that until the audience grasps the whole, they cannot make sense of any part.

Alex Blumberg, a producer at This American Life, in an interview with blogger Simon Owens said, “I feel like my constant problem with the daily news media is that either you’re always entering the story in the middle or often at the end,” Blumberg said. “And they don’t do a very good job of talking about the beginning and what got us to this point where it became news.”

I am reminded of the question that guides CBC Fifth Estate producer Harvey Cashore: how did we get here? Journalists are at great at saying something has happened, but we also must explain why it happened and what it means. Context is king. And as Rosen says there is a tremendous market for this journalism. We have an abundance of news and events, but we do not always get the matching explanation, context and analysis. And our audience is hungry for it.

What does this have to do with me?

Well, as I worked the front desk at the local welfare office over the Christmas holidays, I found myself explaining as best I could the system and all its quirks to new clients — clients who had never received financial assistance or even considered receiving it. And I realized there was room for explanation here. We are in the midst of economic turmoil. People are losing their jobs and applying for help. Few understand how the system works and why it works as it does. And this system affects the shape of their lives for at least the immediate future.

Welfare is not an underreported issue. Many news organizations do stories on the welfare system. Especially the Toronto Star, which does an excellent job of covering it like its War on Poverty series . I’ve read personal stories of trying to live on the meagre rates, on hitting the welfare wall and legislative stories on changes to the rates and rules. What I feel is missing is a large story on the context:  how the system works and how we got the welfare system we have now. I want to not just talk about rates being unlivable but why the rates are what they are and who made set them and what informed that decision. For example,  many Canadians who found themselves out of work this year applied for Employment Insurance and found they did not have enough qualifying hours , but who set the qualifying hours and why?

Instead of just repeating the opaque terms like “360 qualifying hours,” or “asset exemption,” I want to explain how we got here and what it means. Over the course of the next eight months I will share my research and interviews with you as I try to untangle our social safety net. Up next: full disclosure.

Coming soon: my portfolio and blog

Original by bixentro

This post is a quick one to ask for some patience while I set this blog up. I am still putting it all together. I should have the portfolio and resume section up by August. (I say August because I have half of a 20-page essay to write by then and I should really complete that first). And I plan to begin blogging about my major project in earnest in September. So stay tuned! Oh, and thanks for stopping by. jqu7zrtgvx