[Parker-L] [PBD 12-02-01] Parker's Last Column

[Parker Donham]

 2 December 2001
Halifax Daily News
Parker Donham


By Parker Donham


	The first bad moment came Friday afternoon, when the three o'clock
news reported that "former journalist" Parker Donham would be the new
spokesperson for the Sydney Tar Ponds Cleanup Agency. 

	<I> Former journalist. <N> Ouch. 

	At age nine, I crammed enough onion skin and carbon paper into my
mother's Royal typewriter to create ten copies of the Pines Lane <I>
Neighborhood Knocker. <N> It sold for 10 cents and lasted four issues.
Over the next 45 years, I never considered any other career. 

	I was blessed to write for the upstart Daily News, where editors Doug
MacKay and Bill Turpin sent young keeners into the street to duke it
out with the Chronicle-Herald. Halifax was probably the only city of
its size in North America with such fierce newspaper competition, and
the struggle made both papers better.

	I got to broadcast half a dozen leadership conventions and election
nights with Jim Nunn, who does politics on live TV better than anyone
at any level. It is, as Nunn told me Wednesday night, in a
kind-hearted attempt to dissuade me from crossing over, "the most fun
you can have with your clothes on."

	I witnessed the integrity of community newspaper editors and
publishers like Rick Cluett of the Port Hawkesbury <I> Reporter <N>
and the three MacDonalds of the Inverness <N> Oran <N> -- Rankin,
Frank, and Eleanor. Whatever their own views, they withstood the heat
from readers and advertisers over mine, because they know freedom of
the press needs regular exercise.

	I got paid to stick up for the underdog. I got to spar with the
sharpest old curmudgeon in the province. I did it all as a freelance,
choosing my own topics and taking afternoon naps whenever I pleased. 
As the editor tells Sally Fields in <I> Absence of Malice, <N>
"Tuesdays are different from Mondays, and once in a while, you nail
the bad guys."

	Suddenly I find myself a <I> former <N> journalist, having, as CBC's
Canada Now put it, "retired" from journalism to take a government P.R.
job. This is known in the trade as "crossing over to the dark side,"
or more bluntly, "selling out."

	"Why did you do it?" asked David Redwood, the Daily News reporter
assigned to write my professional obit. Redwood is unfailingly polite,
but the question carried a hint of reproach.

	Here is my answer.	

	It hasn't been much fun since the CBC turned its back on local and
regional programming, and the Daily News fell into the clutches of
Canada's all-pervasive media monopoly. The Atlantic Provinces have
dropped off the national media radar, except as exemplars of what's
wrong with the welfare state. Freelance rates are often lower now than
they were 10 or 15 years ago.

	The $240,000 libel judgement against lawyers Anne Derrick and Burnley
Jones for speaking an obvious truth deepened my discouragement, as did
the complacent response of the legal and media communities. It would
take me ten years' worth of columns to earn $240,000, and I voice
obvious truths at least as flagrantly as Derrick and Jones.

	Over the last year, I helped an old friend move a call centre from
San Francisco to North Sydney. The people on the project were
well-motivated, smart, and fun. They valued my work -- an increasingly
rare experience for journalists. 

	Today, 50 people are working at jobs they enjoy in a mall property
that had stood vacant for nine years. From Day One, they have
outperformed their San Francisco counterparts. It's a nice feeling to
have helped.

	Six months ago, I began asking friends for advice on how to change
careers. With two neighbours, a community organizer and an
environmental engineer, I formed a partnership called the Kempt Head
Institute. We began to do consulting while musing that our skills made
us perfect for the Tar Ponds cleanup project.

	Two weeks ago, a friend let me know Phonse Jessome was leaving his
job as lead communicator for the Tar Ponds project for personal
reasons. Jessome is as smart and energetic a reporter as you'll find.
It's symptomatic that he can't find a steady home in journalism. 

	Jessome threw himself into the Tar Ponds assignment. Suddenly, amidst
all the anger, frustration, and mistrust, there began to emerge a
sense the province wants to get on with this job.

	I grilled friends who worked on the file for hours on end. I met with
Bob Fowler, the career civil servant in charge of the Tar Ponds
Agency, and took an instant liking to him. Jessome gave me a tour of
the extensive work already underway -- the capping of the old Sydney
dump and the diversion of streams that once carried pollutants off the
site.

	I've written about the coke ovens and the tar ponds since the early
eighties. I passionately want them cleaned up. Cape Breton has no more
urgent or important task. The tar ponds are a 700,000-tonne anchor,
dragging the island down. 

	One of the hardest parts of getting the job done will be persuading
people who have grown cynical and mistrustful. After 1,500 columns and
900 political panels, why wouldn't I want to help?

	<I> Copyright (C) 2001 by Parker Donham <N>. All rights reserved. <N>


-- 
  Parker Donham
  8190 Kempt Head Road, Kempt Head, Nova Scotia, B1X-1R8
  Phone: (902) 674-2953;  Halifax: (902) 423-7714