PART FOUR: LIFE AS A BROADCASTER --- MORE OF THE SAME GAME

I started work as a news announcer/reporter at CFBV in Smithers, British Columbia, Canada on May 19, 1986. The day before this, it had been above 70 degrees Fahrenheit in my hometown, Mission, which is about 500 miles or 800 kilometres south of Smithers. When I arrived in Smithers, the temperature was about 27 degrees Fahrenheit and it was precipitating mixed snow and rain. I add this only to put a little more human interest in this story. If one could say that chilly weather is a bad omen of things to come, my brief career as a broadcaster started out in an ominous way.

The possible listenership for my radio station and its repeaters was about thirty thousand (30,000) persons. On my first day, I was to give the noon news with a sports summary and the weather. I opened up the microphone and I had a severe case of mike-anxiety. I froze. I did not and could not say anything for about one minute or one minute and a half! Even just one second is a long time for dead air. I was paralyzed. I finally did speak and gave my newscast. After that, I did fine. I was told beforehand and afterward by professionals that mike-anxiety is quite common. I got over it.

My station had a local news person give live newscasts on Mondays through Fridays from six a.m. to five p.m. with just headlines read by the local news person at six p.m. The newscasts were given hourly only. Outside of these hours, my station relied on a radio station from the Vancouver area and its news talent.

The typical schedule for a day was preparing and giving four to five newscasts and then the rest of the day was spent conducting in-station or phone interviews. A standard shift was eight hours long, but there were frequently night meetings, such as town council meetings, to attend. These meetings lasted about two hours from seven thirty p.m. to nine thirty p.m. After this, the reporter had to return to the radio station to write up reports on what was said. The area that my radio station serviced was quite large and so it could take up to one hour and a half one way to reach some of the towns in my station's listening area.

The rule for writing local stories was to provide one original and one rewrite for every minor story and one original and two rewrites for more important stories. Actualities, which are the statements made by the newsmakers, had to be recorded on cassettes and the story had to be written around it or to it. Major local stories required the originating reporter of that story to do a voiced report, as well. When I arrived at the Smithers radio station I suggested that all actualities be typed out in full. All my station's reporters did this almost faithfully.

The desking or announcing shift demanded that the announcer rewrote every story from the newswire service printer as was humanly possible before going to air with it. Of Course, some fast-breaking news stories came over the wire just a minute or two before broadcast time and, as a result, it was impossible to do a rewrite. Some phone interviews were done by the desker. Police checks, weather checks, and monitoring of the competition were also part of the desker's responsibility.

Either way one looks at it, the news job was a busy one. I, just as everyone else on the team, did not slack off. We were were industrious on our jobs just as most people are on any job.

While I was being hired for this news position over the phone, I was informed that CFBV did not have a News Director. The News Director of the station had gone to another station. I was asked if I would be interested in becoming News Director. I asked what the pay would be for the position and was told that it was one thousand dollars ($1,000) per month for the news position. I said that I did not want to be News Director and have the added responsibility for just $1,000 per month. They agreed to hire me as a novice news man and not as the News Director. I did not feel that I had enough experience in radio to be a News Director: I had not had a job in radio up to that point. I also felt that I should be paid more, if I were hired as the News Director. Moreover, I knew that there would be a few news people, who would be working at the station, who would have more experience, and who would be annoyed at being passed over for the position of News Director. I did not want to start my job with any feelings of animosity.

I had been working at the station for about two weeks, when the Programme Director, the Assistant Station Manager, and the Station Manager started to make demands on me concerning the operations of the newsroom. I promptly told them that I was not the News Director and that the job should fall to someone with more authority and seniority and that that person should be either the most experienced newsperson in the station or the Programme Director. This shocked them and they said very little in response. I proceeded to work in harmony as best I could with my fellow newspersons, but there seemed to be some friction between us. I managed to glean from each of them that they had been told that I had been hired as the News Director. I assured them all that I was not the News Director and that I felt that someone with more experience at the news job should be the candidate for the news directorship. About one week later, the Programme Director called me into his office and asked me to be the News Director. I said that I would accept the position, if I was paid twelve hundred ($1,200) dollars per month. This was refused by the Station Manager a few days later. I refused the offer of the title.

I must make it clear at this point that I cleared only about $810 per month in wages. About twice, I received small profit-sharing cheques. I was the only one not to receive a third profit-sharing cheque because the Station Manager decided that he did not like me.

On my first day on the job at CFBV and long before this news directorship fiasco, the Station Manager, (Theodore) Al Colison, called me into his office for a friendly conversation. He told me that his ex-wife's brother was Stuart, one of the carpenters at the Eaton's Pacific Centre, and that this Stuart, whom I knew and whose name is the same as mine, had told him everything about me with regards to my time at that store. He laughed as he told me this. I distrusted the Station Manager from that moment on. I was more than a little fearful that Eaton's would tamper with my new-found career.

Up to this point, I had felt that my life had been a part in a soap opera. It did not get better.

I fell 'in deep attraction' for the receptionist at CFBV. Any time that I asked her out or talked to her, she would scream at me: she literally screamed at me; she did not just raise her voice. I gave up on going out with her after the first four months of working at CFBV: I still had hopes for the two of us, but I knew that I could not rescue anything from a fire that I had not started and I knew that I could not put out the fire of destruction that had been started against any chance of a relationship between us. For the record, I only asked her out three times in the ten months, during which I worked at CFBV.

Please, understand that the CFBV radio station building was about as big as a small-town, one-room schoolhouse and so everything, that was said, was almost certain to become common knowledge among the staff in one way or another. Add to this fact that I have a peculiar ability to hear farther away than is normal and I can read lips quite well. I overheard that the receptionist actually liked me a lot. In fact, some people around the little town of Smithers of 4,800 persons actually found the time to talk about the receptionist's love interests, which included me. Almost no one in the town knew what I looked like as I was a radio announcer/reporter not a TV announcer/reporter, so therefore I was able to overhear quite a lot without being detected. I also overheard that the receptionist had been living with the previous News Director of CFBV and that he had suddenly got a job with another radio station and had left her without much more than a 'goodbye'.

In about June or July 1987, Eaton's started to phone the radio station about me and my supposed prospects within the Eaton's company. Sharon Turton and one other manager from Eaton's phoned about me, but never once was this information communicated to me, nor was I ever given a message to speak to or to phone Eaton's or any of its personnel. I knew that I was being extorted from again.

This type of extortion was ridiculous because it did not actually involve the wrenching of money from me as I did not have any money, but it involved a wrenching of my life and my freedom from me. Eaton's wanted to control me by making me look gay or too shy to be useful on the job in order to bleed me of ideas. They wanted to drive me into the ground as one might squash an insect. So far, I have proven that I am a little stronger than an insect. The problem for Eaton's at this point was that they would suffer grave embarrassment, if I got a girlfriend and if I became successful at another career. Eaton's had to make certain that I did not succeed at a career outside Eaton's because they had phoned too many other companies about wanting to hire me for some type of management position.

About the end of the summer of 1987 and after a few calls from Eaton's concerning my supposed employment possibilities with Eaton's and the existence of a young, female manager, who liked me, the receptionist at CFBV began living with one of her former boyfriends. The receptionist was made to believe that I was a high-risk possibility for romance. Eaton's played my romantic possibilities against each other.

Without my knowledge, it was decided that there would be a Hallowe'en party near the end of October 1987 and that the young manager from Eaton's was to attend. I was to be forced to make a choice between the receptionist and the young manager. I am not sure whether or not my future career possibilities were linked to the two women, but they might have been. In other words, if I had chosen the Eaton's manager, I might have been forced to take a position with Eaton's and, if I had chosen the CFBV receptionist, then my future as a broadcaster would have been sealed. This might not have been an issue at all. Eaton's might have sunk their claws into me and not have hired me. At any rate, I was planning on attending the weekend party, but I got a severe head cold and decided not to go. I passed the Eaton's manager on her way out of Smithers on the Monday after the party weekend. She had not contacted me. This was the Eaton's game. I recognized her immediately and I contacted hotels in the area and one was not fully honest with me: the personnel appeared to have something to hide. I knew that I had found the hotel where the manager had stayed, but I could not prove it. The manager had driven 500 miles or 800 kilometres for one weekend to see the phantom that chance had made me become. I felt empty to the pit of my stomach. I even had the dry wrenches, but I could not eject anything from my body. I knew that I would never be able to date anyone in that small town. I was the laughingstock of the radio station and lost the staff's respect. I also became the laughingstock of the town. Eaton's decided that I would have to wait until April 1988 to join their management team. I had no contact with anyone about this nor was I able to tell anyone right away that I did not want to work at Eaton's ever again as I could not prove any of my suspicions.

Eventually, I was able to talk to some of the radio station staff about my aversion to Eaton's, but these conversations only brought about more anger from the receptionist and mixed feelings from the rest of the staff. I was between a rock and a harder place. I knew that my days at the radio station were numbered.

In late summer 1987, a Vancouver news radio station, CKNW, decided that it liked my read on the reports that I had sent them and they sent scouts to Smithers to listen to me. I did not know about this until after they had come and gone. The other young broadcasters at the station found out about this possibility for me and some became jealous. One DJ flashed his bare bottom while I was giving the five-o'clock news. A fellow newsman blew cigar smoke at me at the same time. I choked, gagged, and laughed during my delivery. I was not hired because of their envious acts.

At about this time, I became increasingly aware that there was great rift between the female staff of the radio station and the Station Manager. I overheard and witnessed part scenarios that strongly indicated that the Station Manager was extorting sexual favours from most of the female staff by telling them that he would dismiss them, if they did not comply with his sexual wants. This threat would be real to any woman anywhere, but it was even greater in a small town with few employment opportunities. One boyfriend of a female staff member struck a deal with the Station Manager for having sexually assaulted his girlfriend on the job. Those two got a payoff and, in return, they promised to keep their silence about the Station Manager's untoward behaviour. I tried to get their co-operation mid-stream, so that I could stop the Station Manager from harming other woman including the receptionist, but they struck their foolish deal and ignored their promise to me. I was not able to do a thing. The Station Manager was a pariah to society as far as I was concerned. I could not go to the police with mere supposition. This problem was further amplified by the fact that I was a rookie news reporter. The police would wonder, if I were just trying to cause a commotion or just trying to make a name for myself.

One day in January 1988, I was in the video rental shop in Smithers and the receptionist came in with (interim?) 'boyfriend' and his friend. I overheard the two men making fun of me and saying how that I could have the receptionist as my girlfriend, if I just played it right. I did not say anything, but I knew that I would never ever succeed in the town of Smithers. I was afraid that I would never succeed in this life. The receptionist looked at me as if she thought that I was a model fresh from the pages of GQ Magazine. We did not communicate, but I did overhear part of her conversation with the mature, female, shop clerk. The gist of the conversation was that the receptionist liked me a lot and that she had to wait for Eaton's to tell her when she could date me or I would never be hired by Eaton's. The clerk said that she could not understand that and thought that the receptionist should end her relationship with her present boyfriend and take up with me, anyway. The shop clerk voiced her concern that Eaton's might never hire me. The receptionist remained stubborn in her stance and the clerk understood her even less.

In Early 1988, I sent out demos to three Los Angeles radio stations and few radio stations in British Columbia, my province. A News Director form and Okanagan radio station phoned me and said that he wanted to fly me down for an interview, but he said that he thought that he wanted to hire me, anyway. He said that he liked to meet people before he hired them. A week later, I did not receive the expected callback from him and so I called him. Within that week, Eaton's had purchased that station, dismissed nearly all the staff, and I lost the chance at that job. The News Director, to whom I had spoken, was forthcoming with all this information.

Two incidents form my news job stand out. These incidents might have infuriated some authorities against me, although they should not have. Judges and police officers have even told me that there were severe and strange reactions to my conduct, which I was told was blameless in these matters. In the first incident, I managed to get a callback from a (federal) Member of Parliament, Jim Fulton, the New Democratic Party MP for the Skeena Riding (Skeena electoral district). He heavily criticized Bill Vander Zalm, the Premier of British Columbia at that time and he criticized the provincial cabinet. He said that there was a large amount of in-fighting in Vander Zalm's cabinet. I had had Jim Fulton's permission to record our conversation and I phoned my reports to CKNW in Vancouver. These reports became national stories because they involved a federal politician commenting harshly on a province's politics. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that Jim Fulton had lost his temper with Canadian Prime Minister, who was Brian Mulroney at the time, and Jim Fulton had directed the f-word at the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister banned Jim Fulton from parliament until he had apologized, which he eventually did. It is considered taboo for a federal politician to comment on or criticize provincial politics. Jim Fulton was likely chastised for the comments that he had made to me by the Prime Minister. In the second incident, I was covering a trial, that involved botulism and that was being held at the Smithers Provincial Courthouse. The plaintiff was Caucasian and the defendant was Native. The Native was being accused of selling tainted smoked salmon to the Caucasian. No mention was made of a time limit being suggested for the consumption of the salmon. I mentioned this omission in my report. It is a reporter's right and responsibility to report the facts of a situation as they exist and to report any omissions or the absence of an important fact. The judge did not see my point of view and ordered me banned from the court. He felt that I was leading the outcome of the case and said that he would try to find some law proving my guilt and would have me sued. I had this message relayed to me and was not told directly. Of course, the judge could not find any guilt in what I had done. I was not in the wrong and was eventually allowed back into the courtroom SOMETIMES! I believe that I was allowed into the courtroom about two or three times after that incident.

Also in early 1988, the Station Manager was out one day as he doubled as the Sales Manager for the station and he phoned me on the newsroom phone line. He asked me to convey some trivial, useless piece of information to the receptionist immediately. He told me that I had to go to her in person and not phone her on her phone. I did so promptly and she informed me that she already knew what I had told her. She thought that the Station Manager was being strange, too. This was the only time that the receptionist did not get angry with me. She did confront the Station Manager about the matter when he came back in.

In mid-March 1988, I decided that I needed to talk to the receptionist about my dilemma with Eaton's. I wanted to fix my problem and move on. I thought that it would be best if I talked to the receptionist outside the radio station. One Friday after my shift, I went to the receptionist's 'boyfriend's' house and knocked on the door. I knew that her 'boyfriend' was off logging for a while. I had overheard this tidbit of information. When the receptionist opened the door, I told her very calmly and nicely that I just wanted to talk to her about my problem with Eaton's, ask her what she knew about it, and said that was all, about which I wanted to speak to her. She did not listen. She attacked me by hitting me. I blocked her blows and she chased me from the yard yelling the f-word at me. She called the police on me, but decided not to file charges against me. While I was in the back of the police car, I told the police officer about my complaint and problems with Eaton's: I told him that I thought that I was being subjected to extortion by Eaton's. The police officer told me that the police would investigate my complaint. I was wrongfully dismissed from my news job on the following Monday by the Station Manager. He merely asked me for my key to the radio station door and asked me to clear out my drawer. He also said that he had told me to stay away from the receptionist when in fact, he had never told me that and had said just the opposite! The Programme Director and the receptionist were sorry as was everyone at the station.

The police were going to tell me about my case, but they were misled into thinking that some other official would tell me. They refrained from informing and my case moved into court without me being told anything about it. The police were then not allowed to talk to me about my case as this would have constituted contempt of court. I was shut out from my case.