It would take dozens of articles to capture the highlights and lowlights of my entire 10-year run at the Daily News so I’ve decided to focus on just a few memories, including some of my favorite stories that I covered, my video review column, and my time covering sports.
Without question, the most contentious and stressful story for me (and everyone in Prince Rupert at the time) was the pulp mill crisis of the late 90s. “Oh, baby!” as Bob Cole would have put it.
Skeena Cellulose was the single largest employer in Rupert and probably the Northwest, with operations in Carnaby, Terrace, and Smithers. Nearly 700 people worked at the pulp mill alone and they made very good money. Everyone in Rupert wanted the mill to survive, especially with the fishing industry starting its slow slide.
Our MLA, Dan Miller, was also deputy premier and had a very personal hand in efforts to save the mill. He also got very personal about it, handing me one of the most famous headlines of the time.
Negotiations weren’t going well between the province and the banks that essentially owned the mill. I don’t recall exactly what it was the bank reps said that set Miller off but, one morning, he stormed into the Daily News and demanded a private audience with me. I remember everyone glancing over as I led him into the collating room for our talk.
A fuming Miller told me, with a who do they think they are tone that the banks just didn’t get it. And then he uttered the phrase, which would become that day’s headline, not just in our paper but in most of the big papers across the province and the country.
“The banks don’t know money. I know money!”
Even as he continued to speak and I continued to scribble, I knew those words were going to be at the top of my story. I also knew that, when I called the bank reps for a comment, they would not be impressed.
After we were done and we came out of the collating room, staff did their best to pretend that they hadn’t been trying to hear what was being said and appear to have been going about their business. Miller strode out the back door, undoubtedly headed to tell others, likely the PPWC reps, his thoughts. Miller had worked at the mill before getting into politics and had not so long before been hailed as a hero for saving the mill at a huge party at the Civic Centre (not sure which incarnation of the mill being saved that was – there were a few).
Anyway, it turned out that the banks did know money, and they weren’t happy with Miller suggesting otherwise. At the end of it all, though, the mill survived another threat of closure. Life went on, although my coverage of it strained relations with some of the guys who worked there.
Like with any divisive story, anything other than complete pandering was considered betrayal. I received many calls each week telling me that I got parts of the story wrong. I got confidential documents that were mysteriously dropped through the mail slot, my very own “Deep Throat” trying to tip the scales of my articles in the union’s favor. Of course, both sides accused me of favoritism but, with both sides making those accusations, I figured that I was doing it right.
At the end of the day, there was plenty of blame to spread around. The local union was always up for a fight, going as far as to bring in lawyers from New York to represent them. The banks were, well, banks, and Miller’s words would haunt him to his final days in politics. Oh, and then there was the “Concerned Citizens of Prince Rupert,” who posted full-page anonymous ads in the paper urging the union to comply. Everyone knew it was a cartel of local businessmen, likely the same guys who got me fired from my brief CFTK radio show stint for not fawning over the latest savior in another chapter of the mill-needs-to-be-saved.
After the mill crisis was resolved and life carried on, I wrote a skit on it for a Harbour Theatre show at the Sons of Norway Hall. In it, I joked about the greed of the banks, Miller’s bluster, the union’s surliness, and its propensity to “borrow” things from work, which got big laughs, even from union die-hards.
In the final scene of my skit, the banks and union reps come out of a restaurant, looking satisfied. They are approached by contractors, businesses that supplied operations but got the shit end off the stick, a small percentage of what they were owed. The bank rep and union rep brush by the begging contractors and toss some coins onto the ground for them to scramble for. As the lights go down, the Rolling Stones’ “You can’t always get what you want” plays.
There was a table of mill union guys, friends of mine, at the show. After the show, they approached me and said the ending was an interesting surprise since the skit had mostly been played for laughs. They admitted that, after being so focused on the “us vs them” nature of the crisis, the scene gave them pause for thought on the smaller players involved that had little say.
I appreciated the praise, as much as any I have ever received. Because making people think, making them see a picture differently and reconsider their thoughts, is all any writer can ask for.
NEXT: Sports reporting like no other!