Posts with the Michelle Lang tag

Barris Beat

Plea for the profession!

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Prior to Remembrance Day 2019, Catherine Lang remembers her niece, journalist Michelle Lang. Vancouver Sun.

I didn’t recognize her immediately. I should have. But, back in 2013, while attending an annual general meeting of The Writers’ Union of Canada in Ottawa, a woman approached me and she asked if we could share a coffee and some conversation. Since most of the AGMs I attend are often about reflection, I naturally agreed. That’s when I realized who this woman was.

“I’m Catherine Lang,” she said, “the aunt of Michelle Lang, the Canadian journalist killed in the Afghanistan War.”

My expressions of condolence were heartfelt and Catherine was generous in her gratitude of them. But she had greater expectations from our chat than just my recognizing the loss of her adult niece. (more…)

Barris Beat

Not only journalists die

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Calgary Herald (Postmedia) reporter Michelle Lang in Afghanistan.

I’ve never worked in a war zone, the way some from Canada have. I’ve never pursued the crime beat so seriously as to encounter violence face-to-face. I’ve never been physically assaulted while carrying out my work as a journalist. The closest I’ve come to confrontation occurred back in the 1980s, when an oil company representative trying to keep the physical and media lid on a drilling-rig blowout in the Alberta oil patch, told me to remove myself from their property.

“Leave,” the company spokesman said, “or I’ll have you arrested!” (more…)