Missioning with the Star, from breadlines to Beirut
Sherry McKenna and Lulu Abu Dahi are in my thoughts today as I call it quits after 43 years in journalism, most of them here at the Star.
They haunt me still, after a lifetime as a reporter, copy editor, national editor, foreign correspondent, columnist and editorial writer.
Back in 1982, a recession cost Sherry’s husband his job and forced the family to rely on the Scott Mission in downtown Toronto for a bag of groceries. It was a refuge, McKenna said, “for people who don’t have anything.” As a newly-minted editorial writer, the Star’s institutional voice, I wrote an angry screed decrying the need for food banks in a city as rich as ours.
Hours later, a generous Star reader offered Sherry’s husband a new job. And I learned something about the Star family. It stretches far beyond our offices at One Yonge St. — and it has always identified with working people.
Years later, as the Star’s Middle East correspondent I came across a child broken by war. It was 1990 and Lulu Abu Dahi was a Palestinian girl who had just started school during the uprising against Israeli occupation. She ran into a riot one day on the way to the candy store and was cut down by a soldier’s “rubber bullet” that shattered her skull, and her life.
She was left unable to talk, walk or hold up her head. If you hugged her and whispered “I love you, baby” in Arabic, her dark eyes might register a faint flicker of understanding. Her suffering epitomized the senselessness of the conflict.
Giving a voice to people such as Sherry and Lulu is a big part of the Star’s vocation in its reporting, commentary and editorial advocacy.
Cruelly intractable as the world’s problems can be, the Star was founded in the hope that what cannot be turned fully to good, to paraphrase Thomas More, may at least be made as little evil as possible. How? By empowering people with the information they need to make sense of politics, society and the world around them, and to make better choices.
The Star’s viewpoint as “a paper for the people,” articulated by Joseph Atkinson more than a century ago, is Canadian, liberal and reformist, dedicated to social justice, civil liberties, civic engagement and the rights of working people. To this day, its journalists carry that mission forward.
They are supported by the Torstar chair, John Honderich, and owners who champion a robust journalism that serves democracy and public debate, and has stood the test of time.
Newspapers struggle for readers, these days. But look around. Scour the Internet and social media. Rummage Reddit, visit VICE, delve through Drudge. You will be hard-pressed to find a more focused, trustworthy source of information than this newspaper.
The media trade has changed since I started out at the Gazette in Montreal banging away on an old Underwood typewriter back in the days of lead type and carbon paper. Today, it’s all about smart- phones, tablets and social media. Like everyone else, I’ve morphed into a digital news provider. But I never did learn to type. I still pound out editorials with one finger. Guess which one.
And as the tech world has churned, the real one has turned.
When I got my start on the police desk, Canada was coming of age under Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who faced down Front de Libération du Québec terrorism, negotiated constitutional independence from Britain, defeated a Quebec secession bid and made us an officially bilingual nation. Now, Justin Trudeau has arrived, along with generational change.
Across those years we’ve seen the end of the Cold War, with its arms race and proxy wars. We’ve witnessed the birth of the Internet. Shared the horror of 9/11, and genocides. Felt the new world disorder. Been threatened by global warming.
We’ve also seen the rise of the 1per cent, and elections in which the Star was the only major paper not to endorse the parties and policies of the 1 per cent. There are times when being an editorial writer is its own reward.
Covering much of this I’ve been shot at in Central America, was arrested by the Syrians, caught flak from the White House during the Iraq War, saw my kids tear-gassed and had to bribe my way into Beirut during the civil war there. It’s been a blast. Beirut especially.
And missioning through it all, I’ve been inspired by the Star’s passion and purpose to tell the stories that matter, and make the case for change. It has been a privilege. And so, as we used to end our reports back in the day: —30—
The Star was founded in the hope that what cannot be turned fully to good, to paraphrase Thomas More, may at least be made as little evil as possible