Jo Davis can't get enough of Canada. She really enjoys what she sees and hears every time she's made the trip over "the pond."
Davis, a 28-year-old veteran reporter for the daily Dorset Echo which serves the Weymouth in Dorset in southwest England, was in Estevan last week as part of a five-member professional team sponsored by Rotary International. The goal of the trek was two-fold. The first was to provide educational experiences for the young professionals between the ages of 25 and 40, coupled with a vacation opportunity.
The five-week tour had already taken the small team from the U.K. to centres such as Winnipeg, Prince Albert and Regina before they arrived in Estevan.
Brian Kirkup was team leader while other team members beside Davis were Lotti Allen, Clare French and Neil Day.
Davis spent a good portion of last Wednesday afternoon with members of The Mercury, visiting with editorial staff and comparing notes as well as touring Estevan Web Printing on the city's west side where new printing presses are currently being installed.
Davis noted that unlike other daily newspapers around the globe, the publication she works with, The Echo, has enjoyed a circulation increase up to 20,000 over the past year following a revamping of the page design and policies which include shorter and brighter stories and a lot of hard news coverage.
She said she is generally assigned city council meetings and court cases and she is just one of 10 to 12 general assignment reporters on staff along with four photographers.
"There are a lot of Crown court cases in the area," she said. The comparable cases in Saskatchewan would be referred to as Court of Queen's Bench.
Davis said she was the only reporter on the visiting team, the others being a master gardener, helicopter manufacturer and a school principal, but all came from the same area and all were enjoying the hospitality afforded them by local Rotary clubs including the club in Estevan where they were dined and feted in fine style. Part of the fun was a Wednesday night barbecue. They also received guided tours of local businesses such as the power generating stations and Sherritt Mines.
"We talk to these club members about what we do, press the flesh a bit, and absorb as much Canadian culture as we can," said Davis.
The Rotary Foundation funded tour was well into its fourth week by the time the group arrived in Estevan.
This was her fifth trip to Canada. Davis said she had taken a one-year sabbatical a few years ago and ended up in Australia where she worked as a reporter for a year near Sydney and met a group of people from Winnipeg while she was in Tasmania. She said they became good friends, so she has visited them a few times, and had toured the Winnipeg Free Press operations in the process.
Davis said her professional tours have included visits to television and radio stations and newsrooms in Canada. She has experienced other forms of journalism, particularly in Canada. She also said that much like newspapers and other forms of media here, she and others in England have been armed with video cameras on occasion in expectations of adding to the company's website, but it was a failed experiment from a business point-of-view whereas the changes to the paper/print version were greeted with success, especially as it turned from an afternoon to an early morning edition.
"We usually put our paper to bed around 8o'clock each night," she said.
Like all reporters, Davis said she finds it difficult to deal with tragedies such as deaths, which often leads to interviews with grieving family members.
"We've switched from community style to more hard news formats, large photos, one big headline on front page with one large story to lead into the paper. It seems to work," she said, referring to the new style formulated with The Echo.
"We do a lot of front line reporting. We cover about half the county of Dorchester."
Davis said she arrived at a career in journalism by first completing a degree in English and then picking up post graduate studies in journalism such as law, shorthand, central government studies, newspaper styles and some more typical academic subjects.
Davis said she was using the Canadian trip as an opportunity to think about her future endeavours. She figures she's in journalism for keeps although she's been presented with some tempting offers to join public relations firms, but she's not certain she'd want to go down that path.
"As we say in the world of reporters that's selling out, isn't it?" she said with a laugh.
Davis said she appreciated the fact that while reporting was a difficult profession, it was also one that brought a great deal of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment and her visit with Canadian news gatherers was simply confirming those thoughts.
