Photo by the brilliant William Wilson
Good morning. I hope you’re all doing well. This is your état des lieux for the month of September.
This month has been full of highs and lows. Since the previous état des lieux on August 27th, I have released 17 pieces, whether that be podcasts, films, or written pieces On the Trail. There’s no way that I release at this speed all the time though, so I hope you’ll be comfortable if there are quieter weeks. I work alone basically. I’m working on a few higher profile items right now, and they’re taking some extra time.
Nonetheless, I try to get good work out there for you as often as possible. In the past month, I had a lot of great momentum, with my pieces on the ownership and governance of media companies across the country turning into my largest piece ever written for On the Trail. I recommend it.
Will and I released our mini documentary on the Bike Lanes in Toronto, a video that will stand the test of time I think. I had one person DM me and tell me that I was washed up for doing a piece on bike lanes, and that I went from doing hard hitting political content to a piece about bike lanes… it made me laugh, simply because the Bike Lanes in Toronto are some of the most political pieces of infrastructure I’ve ever seen.
This week, I also released one of my favourite pieces I’ve written when I talked about the ethics disclosures of the Newfoundland Labrador government. I have two more pieces coming out about the province in the next few weeks. I love doing work like that, because it’s all data, and no one writes about the Atlantic provinces. There’s almost twice as many people who live in greater Montreal than who live out east across the combined whole of all of the Atlantic provinces. I mean, it’s a travesty that companies will do polling for the Montreal mayoral race, but not at all for a provincial election in Newfoundland Labrador! I know it’s harder because there are only 500 000 people in NL and there are more than 2 million on the island of Montreal, but still.
In regards to my reporting, I felt good this month. In regards to the events of the world and my mental health, it was much less good. Let me wax philosophical for a moment, and tell you about my feelings.
Specifically the shooting of Charlie Kirk was incredibly disturbing to me. I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours a night for around a week as I processed it. There were a couple reasons for that.
One, it was graphic, disturbing, and represents another escalation in the United States’ end of democracy. This month, we watched as the USA creeped ever further towards the end of democracy, first with the response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, where the far right started threatening anyone who expressed disdain or lacked empathy for Kirk— The same people who openly celebrated the murder of Democrats in Minnesota, and who made fun of Nancy Pelosi’s husband being assaulted, the same people who don’t care when school shootings happen— violating the first amendment, and then we saw it continue with Jimmy Kimmel being cancelled at the will of the president. He came back, only because the far right influencersphere decided that this was the violation of the first amendment that was a step too far.
I have ex girlfriends who live in the states. Some of my best friends live in the states. Also Canada is their neighbour so yes, seeing their obvious fascist turn is disturbing, and left me reeling after Kirk’s murder.
Second, not to make it about myself, but I was disturbed because I’m a public political entity. Mind you I’m not controversial like Kirk, Kirk was a white supremacist who didn’t believe that black people should have the right to vote, and claimed that people shouldn’t have empathy, and said that people being shot was an acceptable consequence in order to keep the second amendment.
Mind you, I live in Canada, where political violence is more top down, with cops shooting children, or assaulting protesters. And yet I still was affected and felt afraid of being killed for being a public figure. It’s a bad time to be a public figure. Discourse is dying. People are angry. I’m trying to be a voice of peace, but what does that do in a world so torn apart?
Again I ask whether what I’m doing is useful or not. I always wanted to do something for the good of humanity, but I don’t know if journalism does anything. Sometimes I think it does, sometimes I think it doesn’t.
In case you’re curious, this is a common feeling among journalists.
The moments where I think it helps is when both conservatives and leftists separately text me to tell me they appreciate my work. This month, I’ve have several professors, great people, ask to work with me, or to present my work to their classes. I’ve had journalists talking to me behind the scenes because they like my work, and I’ll be doing some work with bigger entities than myself this coming week. Those are gratifying moments.
Even still, sometimes you’re doing work, and so little feedback comes to you that you don’t know if what you’re doing matters at all. And no, Instagram and Tik Tok comments are not feedback. I hope it does, I hope people are affected by it. We don’t know the impact of our actions, and no one will for a long time to come.
We, as a society, have been trained to need instant feedback. This instant feedback is an addictive loop which I participate in constantly (I’m often a propagator of this feedback loop on social media), so what I hope is that my work and voice in journalism has a long lasting impact.
In ten years, hopefully my commitment to being independent, working on socials, and continuing the fight in a different and more modern way has the impact I hope it does. Still, I’m a child of the 90s, the first internet generation, and I will constantly need to remind myself that change is slow.
The great René Lévesque, father of modern Quebec, worked tirelessly for more than 10 years as the leader of the Parti Québécois before he won an election in 1976. He didn’t quit and kept working, slowly building more momentum until finally he changed Quebec for the better (mostly) and became the mythical figure we know. Real change is a decades long process, but for my generation and the generations below me, this isn’t easy to accept. So we should keep reminding ourselves of that.
I processed through some of my trauma around Kirk’s killing, by the way– I remembered all of these things, and it helped me. I can sleep at night again.
This next month, I feel that On the Trail is about to burst into flames and have a big ol’ growth spurt. I’m nearly certain of it. I’m excited for what I’m working on, and I believe that we’ll keep doing our goal of, to quote Gabrielle, changing journalism or dying. We gotta keep doing what we’re doing, and if we don’t, there won’t be democracy in the future.
Either we change journalism, or journalism dies, and democracy with it. Look at the states, y’all.
Go spend all your money and subscribe to the Rover, subscribe to me, subscribe to the Independent, subscribe to Pivot and anyone else. Cancel Netflix & Disney plus, and put all that money into indie media. Cause we’re all broke.
And trying to save democracy.
I enjoyed your piece on Newfoundland and look forward to reading what you write about them in the future. While I may not live there anymore I would love to be able to move back to a better province than when I left.