Samantha R. Lawson

Journalism Student at Mohawk College Hamilton, Ont. ignitenews.ca

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Jon Wells Interview

Jon Wells, reporter at The Hamilton Spectator

Social media interview by babyjournalist

INTERVIEW:

00:16 “How and why did you first start using social media?”

I needed to get an account, so I could use it as a tool. That’s how I saw it. I wanted to find people on it, but we were encouraged, as reporters, to start posting our articles on Facebook, to expand our audience and get people involved. So, I have a personal Facebook account that I created, to help find people and that sort of thing. And I also have one that is called ‘Jon Wells Spec Author’ where I link my articles.

13:16 “So you find it fairly beneficial then, to use social media?”

I do. I’ve done a fair bit of true crime stories for the spec over the years, you know a big long series, so I’ve got lots of time to dig. This kind of thing that I’m doing with that (referring to Jeanette Smith story) I’ve done it many times. Let’s say there’s a victim, and you want to find friends that knew the family, or you want to find people that knew the killer. So, what you’re looking for is to turn up little stones, to see if you can contact people. It’s just kind of the layers you’re going through. People post so much stuff that you can squeeze a lot out of that social media sponge.

14:14 “Do you find that people are usually pretty open to speaking to you through social media?”

It does seem like that. Maybe because I’m old school I always kind of think people are so private, maybe they don’t want to speak to a reporter who’s getting in touch with them out of the blue. But of course, I forget that people post because they want to put themselves out there. It’s a sign that they are often willing to talk.

14:49 “Do you think they would speak more easily through that social media context than they would with a phone call?”

I think so. I’ll use Canada 411 to find a phone number and use what used to be called a phone book. I’ve done that hundreds of times, making what is called a ‘cold call’. I call like ten numbers trying to find somebody, and when you find them, it can be jarring getting a voice on the phone. It’s more personal, it’s more direct. And sometimes you don’t have a lot of time once you say you’re a reporter, sometimes they hang up on you. But, when you can write someone a message, and couch the message and massage the words, it gives them a chance to look at it and sit back. And, for better or worse, people send stuff, they write stuff back, even if it’s not in their best interest. So social media can open up these doors where people are more willing to crack something off back to you and open up about stuff.

16: 57 “Do you have guidelines to follow, from the paper, for how to use your social media?”

I know when it come to posting things on Facebook or Twitter, you have to make sure you’re using a personal account if you’re giving certain opinions. You have to declare that your views are your own, not The Spectator’s. The rest of it is more a matter of ethics in terms of dealing with other people. You know, if you write someone you have to represent who you are and what you are doing. It’s certainly not illegal to tell someone you are a friend when you are a reporter, but it is unethical.

21:24 “Do you find it a little risky live tweeting as a journalist?”

I think in the case of the type of live stuff that I’ve done, there’s no concern, because that stuff was about me. If I was in court, tweeting or something like that, I’d be more cautious.

There are people out there who do a lot of tweeting, they cover accident scenes, they do a lot of monitoring of the police radios, and they’ll post stuff, quite quickly. And sometimes it’s not accurate. And now the concern there is, what if they want me to write a little brief on thespec.com about an accident, the police haven’t called me back yet to verify anything. Meanwhile someone else has tweeted ‘three car pile up, two people injured,’ but I can’t use that stuff. Even though there’s a couple guys who do this who are almost always correct, they don’t work for us, and until we can verify with the police or fire department, we can’t use it. Now you can use what they’re saying as a nice spring board to call the cops and say ‘I’m reading a tweet that says this happened, can you confirm that.” So social media increases the whole pool of information that’s available to you. The question is: what are you going to use?

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The Building Betters the Brew

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Scouting for the right building to brew beer in is similar to the hunt for an office space. You’re searching for somewhere that is spacious and appealing to the eye, but most importantly it needs to be a place you can envision yourself succeeding in. Ed Madronich and Shawn Till saw their dreams of starting a brewery coming true when they sealed the deal on their historical building in Dundas.

It was built in the 1860s by Richard Todd Wilson who served as mayor of Dundas from 1891-1892. Initially, the red-brick walls housed a foundry as the steel industry boomed in the Hamilton and Dundas area. But, it began a new life in the late 1800s when converted into a curling and skating rink. The ice provided entertainment for skaters and curlers alike for roughly 40 years before the building began its next chapter. At the time, the property was owned by J. L. Grightmire, an enticing businessman of his day who was heavily influential upon the Dundas area. He found himself involved in sports mainly, but also the bussing industry.

Highway King Bus Line served as the direct route from Dundas to Hamilton and back. They stored busses in the former ice rink, resulting in slight alterations to the building to accommodate the size of the vehicles. Starting operations in 1923, the busses carried folks along the connecting road between the two towns. The bus won out over the train in a transportation battle mainly because of convenience. A bus does not need to have rails built prior to its use.

As a successful industry grew, the smaller bus companies were bought up by larger ones. Canada Coast, for example, purchased Highway King Bus Line. Busses were increasing in size and capabilities, and travelled distances much farther than just one town over and back.

Once it was no longer housing busses, the building was used for manufacturing for about 40 years. In 1974, Ted Dekker, retail manager at the brewery, says Valley City Manufacturing took advantage of the space.

“They made church pews and office and lab furniture across the street for over 100 years.”

Madronich and Till found the building appealing because of the size it offered them. Brewing tanks are very large and require ample room. But, there was a major issue standing between the pair and their brewery.

In 2001, a dump truck lost its breaks when travelling down Sydenham Hill. After blowing through multiple red lights, the driver made a split-second decision and crashed the truck into the side of the future brewhouse. No lives were lost, but the building was damaged and repaired with concrete blocks for the time being, not the beautiful red brick.  

Upon purchasing the property in 2012, Madronich and Till assessed its condition. Multiple renovations were necessary to bring the building up to code. But, it was also a priority to maintain its historical integrity. Dekker, says they knew such a task was not going to be cheap,

“It wasn’t part of the business plan, to rebuild that wall.  But they said, ‘If we get some money, we’ll do it.’”

So, a Kickstarter campaign was established in June of 2015 to off-set the cost of repairs,

“They got a pile of bricks right off the start, and then thought they should continue to do it because it gives people an opportunity to be part of the business,” says Dekker.

The campaign still lingers at the brewery through its “Brick Me” program. Beer connoisseurs and supporters alike can purchase an engraved brick through the brewery’s website to be built into the building.

“People buy them for birthday gifts or business partnerships,” says Dekker, “So, every three months or so we do another couple layers of bricks.”

They are original bricks from the building because the opposite wall behind the brewing tanks was taken down and replaced entirely. And once they were finished renovations, the real fun could begin.

Craft beer has been an industry on the rise in the past decade and breweries are popping up around every corner. Rob Creighton is the brewmaster at Shawn and Ed Brewing Co. and has been with them since the beginning. His job involves working with the owners to get a brewery on its feet. Shawn and Ed’s is his 14th brewery.

Creighton has been a brewmaster for 42 years and says that new trends in the beer industry come as waves,

“It’s kind of interesting to see where we are (now) compared to where we were in ’77 when I started.”

The industry has boomed so much that colleges and university have begun offering programs specifically catered towards how to start a craft brewery. For example, Niagara College has a Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia offers a two-year Brewing and Brewery Operations program.

In this most recent “wave”, craft breweries have been releasing beers with unique and adventurous flavours. For example, the Half Hours on Earth brewery in Seaforth has been pumping out beers such as Razzy Star, a sour wheat ale with raspberry and orange peel, and Can’t Ignore My Techno, a dry-hopped sour with pineapple.

“It’s not generic anymore, it’s as wild as you can make it,” says Creighton.

At Shawn and Ed’s, they’re keeping a happy medium by featuring beers that can be considered “approachable”. For so long, beer has been fairly uniform in its styles. But as human knowledge grows in the science and complexities of brewing, the wilder flavours are hitting the markets.

Shawn and Ed’s beer is approachable because it doesn’t jump in the deep end flavour wise. They’re initially sticking to a German lager styling. You can enjoy the LAGERSHED original, a pilsner style lager, as well as the more adventurous BARRELSHED No. 1, a pale ale that Creighton considers his personal favourite out of the bunch. And it won best pale bitter over 5% in Canada at the World Beer Awards in 2017.  

Creighton believes in brewing classic styles well, instead of producing new styles with lackluster tastes. But he also says that beer taste can be subjective,

“The beauty of beer is that nobody’s the same. Everybody’s taste buds give them their own taste profile.”  

The craft beer at Shawn and Ed’s allows for those who are curious to come out and try something new. Their slogan “for adventurous mouths” reiterates this idea. They realize that the new craft beer market can be overwhelming, but change is inevitable as well. Veteran beer companies such as Coors Light recognize that as an older generation (i.e. baby boomers) ages and starts to die, their beer preferences die with them. A new generation is taking beer in a different direction, and there’s no going back now.

“These guys already know they’re dead, they just don’t know how to evolve,” says Creighton, referring to larger beer companies.

So, as an attempt to not be left in the dust, these corporations are buying up the smaller craft breweries as they become popular. Labatt Breweries purchased the Toronto based, indie company Mill Street Brewery. And Sapporo out of Japan bought Sleeman Breweries, which was originally founded in Guelph.  The bigger companies are also trying to experiment themselves to produce craft beers.  

Gerry Bartlett is a retired Constable for the Hamilton Police Service as well as a customer of Shawn and Ed’s. He finds himself frequenting the bar for the welcoming and accommodating staff, but also to quench his thirst,

“They have their four go-to beers and they’re all good. And they always come up with something interesting in their seasonal stuff.”  

Bartlett is a perfect example of the older beer-drinking generation dipping their toes into the expanding world of craft brewing. He said he favours his dark lagers at Shawn and Ed’s, but has branched out to try sours and IPAs as well,

“Yeah, I guess I like sours. I hated sours, and then I stopped in at Fairweather and there’s mostly sours, and I’ll have a glass of one.”

Maintaining relationships with customers such as Bartlett remains an important part of Shawn and Ed’s business. It helps to have the support of the community when just starting out. Bartlett says it is good beer, but also good people behind it.

The brewery has been live for about five years now and shows no signs of slowing down. Talk is in the air of bourbon barrel beer as well as a possible bacon infusion. They maintain their classic styles but show no fear of experimentation. Shawn and Ed Brewing Co. is one to watch as the craft beer industry continues to flourish.

http://lagershed.com/

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Journalist Interview

Video Games: An Open-Door Greg Rosser Didn’t Know He Could Walk Through by babyjournalist

Esports has been a growing industry in the last decade. Enthusiasts are no longer playing solely for their own entertainment but for earning revenue. After graduating high school, Greg Rosser was living in his mom’s basement, playing video games. It was a low point for him and he found himself questioning his next step. But, Rosser could see his life taking a turn for the better as he gained viewers on his streams. Once the money started to come in, things were looking up, “I was really good, at a video game, so I was being paid and sponsored to play it, and then I used that to get my own place, get a car, pay for school.” The idea of journalism interested him when he saw a friend online covering esports stories. Rosser went back to school at the age of 25 to the Journalism Program at Mohawk College, “It’s kind of weird going back to school when you’re like, six years older than everyone else.” But he had found his niche. 

Rosser landed a job with Vista Radio straight out of college without even graduating the program, thanks to his mentor Marie Cassidy. It proved incredibly difficult at first, being cut off from the rest of the world, but it had its advantages as well, “When you’re a reporter working in a small community, it’s one of the best learning experiences ever because you become kind of a part of the community.” He continued his career with Vista Radio for several years, taking placement wherever they needed him. Now, Rosser works as a Communications and Stakeholder Manager at Member of Parliament for Perth-Wellington, John Nater. It was an opportunity presented to him thanks to circumstance, and he can envision himself working within parliament for many years to come.

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Student Interview

From small beginnings to finding what he truly loves, Chris Arndt can inspire us all to achieve our dreams. By babyjournalist

 There is nothing short of drive buried deep within Chris Arndt’s work ethic. Coming from a home that had less money than your average neighbour, this Hamilton local prides himself in reaching the goals he sets before him. “Every year, I'll give myself a goal, reach it and then set a goal far higher than the last one” he said. Arndt successfully made the Dean’s list and continues to excel through the Journalism program here at Mohawk College.

 It wasn’t always Journalism being the path he wanted to take though. After begrudgingly studying classics at Brock University for two years, he did not find his love for videography until doing pre-media at Niagara College. Luckily for him, a professor recognized his natural writing ability, and recommended journalism. Studying at Mohawk College allowed for him to stay at his family home while attending school.

 As well as focusing on his studies, he has had the opportunity to work within the program as The Newsroom Assistant. This job gave him several avenues to pursue such as making video tutorials. It also allowed for him to dive deeper into what he really wanted to do for a career, “It seems like each person who enters the job gets to make it their own” he said.

From there, Arndt has begun to build his own company with a fellow peer called “Hammer and Lens”, incorporating a tribute to Hamilton, as well as allowing for the videographer aspect to be clear. As with any new company, their contacts are slim, but they did stumble upon an amazing opportunity when filming some content for the Christmas Market in The Cotton Factory. After previously being introduced, the organizer of the event approached them afterwards. “The same guy walks up to us and is like, how would you like to film a really cool band from the Netherlands tonight?” Arndt recalled, “We weren’t about to say no.” It was a stepping stone towards the connections they needed. And in this line of work, as Arndt said, “Connections create content.”

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