A Budding Journalist's World

My final project about Tar Sands is here.

Well after Halloween, all the witches of the city gather in Charme et Sortilège’s boutique, located in a small and dark alley of Montreal. Charme et Sortilège is a cozy shop packed with everything a witch might need to accomplish her rituals. From magical herbs to brooms, the perfect magician can’t miss his monthly stop to this warm spot.

Marie Renée Patry heads the project. She is known as a comedian in Quebec, but she has also been a witch for 25 years. Nearly six years ago, she had the idea of opening a witchcraft shop. She felt she’d been entrusted with a “mission of help and of faith healing” her former disciple Martin Bilodeau said. “When she asked me, it took me six months to think about it, but then decided to join this adventure”. Martin became the co-owner of Charme et Sortilège one year ago. In his daily life, he works as a psychologist. But at nightfall, he becomes a powerful shaman. “For me, magic is above all a frame of mind” he explained.

“It was not an easy undertaking” Charme et Sortilège’s manager Valérie Degagne confessed. “It was really hard to find suppliers” she added. The greatest part of the little shop’s goods comes from the U.S.A. “We had to find big firms to provide us some products we cannot find in our country, such as minerals or rare incense. Kheops International is our main supplier ” Valerie explains. But Canadian artisans also provide the boutique, and this could explain the high prices.

“The other obstacle was a financial one” Martin Bilodeau said. The shop strongly suffered from the financial crisis. The revenues, which were used to reach $150 000 to 200 000 per year, decreased considerably. The shop was close to go bust. Nevertheless, after a hard struggle during the past two years, Charme et Sortilège is getting over the crisis, according to the shop manager. But if they could hire a new part-time employee, the shop isn’t crowded. “ I love this place, but the prices are too high ” said Mary, one of their clients. Obviously, it’s expensive to become a witch.

However, the aim of the shop is first and foremost a gathering place for the witches’ community. Marie Renée Patry first created this place because she could feel the need of the pagan society to have a meeting point. “That’s the reason why we organize a lot of events and lessons” Martin added. Lessons priced from $45 to $55. As a result, the courses, which take place in the shop’s basement, are not full. Most of the time, six or seven persons attend the lessons. But it’s quite enough to give professors a good income. Divination readings at the cost of $60 per hour seem to have a lot of success, as well as special magic meetings, which are not so expensive.

Although the $45 price may appear quite high, customers seem to be satisfied. And for good reason, because when an upset client enters in the shop asking how to get rid of ghosts, the shop assistant has always the best and the most expensive solution.

What is Charmes et Sortilèges

PS : my video is about 25 sec, because I have not enough space on my blog, and I can’t buy it. But I can send the longer version.

To conclude, I’m quite impressed by the Figaro project. Firstly, I thought that the RC project was more interesting, more constructed, but when I started to analyze them, I have to say that the Figaro is amazing. I mean, it’s a French media, and our medias have a lot of problem to face, especially with the rise of those new multimedia. Usually, French media are really bad with those projects and with multimedia tools, but there, I can see a real improvement. The Figaro project is much more a complete file about a subject than a project. I’m disappointed by the RC project, I wanted to use it for my final project, but I guess I will have to do more research because this project is really poor.

1. My topic is about tar sands. But because it’s a very newsworthy subject, all medias are speaking about it. So I need a special angle.
2. My story will be about a guy who went to Alberta to protest against tar sands. I want to explain his trip, his ideas, why he did that … He is a greenpeace militant.
3. I can’t name him for now, because I’m not sure I will speak with him particularly, as Greepeace proposed me to speak with other militants. I will also speak with a spokesperson who will explain me more basic stuff about tar sands.
4. I will use a google map to show where are located the main tar sands’ exploitation. I’m not sure of what tool I will use, I wanted to use Google Map, but I need to find something to point an entire area and not just a little point. Besides, I thought Google Earth should be more effective.
5. To illustrate the interviewee story, I will post some videos that are available on Greenpeace website. I had the authorization to use them.
6. I also think to do a slideshow with the interviewee voice as a sound. Photos are also availables on Greenpeace website.
7. First, I wanted to plot a graph. But I changed my mind, I think it will be useless, because the story is really about how a militant of Greenpeace could change the world, especially before Copenhague. So photos and videos are more usefull.

The Festival du Monde Arabe (FMA) opened its door the 30 October in Montreal for its 10^th Edition. This year, the artistic productions will be about the theme « Memoires Croisées », for a real meeting between arabic and quebec culture.

The Hanging Gardens of Furat Qaddouri, 5 November 2009

 Joseph Nakhlé, who is the President of the Centre Canadien pour l’échange culturel, explained the origin of the Festival : « The FMA has been created because it met the need of every human being who belongs to two divergent and opponent cultures ». The FMA originates from the experience of any immigrant arriving in a country with a different culture.

 According to Joseph Nakhlé, who is also the Director of the Festival, the mission of the FMA is to create an intercultural meeting’s spot. To his mind, the Festival is not a tool to promote arabic culture, or a mean to encourage integration among arabic people. Open-mindness is the key word.

  Interview de Joseph Nakhlé

Moreover, the 83% of FMA’s public is Quebecker. Yet, the Festival underwent hard times, with two major crisis. In 2007, the FMA suffered from a drop of 76% of its Quebecker public. But the Director asserted that in 2009 things are getting back to normal.

This year, under the direction of Sean Dagher and Fadi Akiki, the FMA proposes the show « Je me souviens » (I remember), which is an unique experience of the fusion of Quebec’s jig and Middle East’s dabké for an extraordinary meeting of the two cultures.

Quebec could be an example for the other countries. For Joseph Nakhlé, Quebec is today the only country where a real cultural exchange could happen. This statement is at the core of the “Espace Quebec-Monde Arabe” project launched by the Centre Canadien pour l’échange culturel.

Interview Joseph Nakhlé 2

The city of Salem, Massachusetts, is the Halloween capital of the world. People come from around the country and oversea to see the Witches’ City. The city is above all known for the hysteria of the witch burnings which happened nearly 300 years ago.

But that hasn’t always been the case. “ Salem has been popular since 1978. Everybody is coming to Salem for Halloween, but it’s more like a Carnival”, the mother of the Witches Cottage’s owner, Pauline Jean said. “Halloween is the best day of the years for us, and for all the restaurants and shops of Salem” she added. To enter a shop, people had to queue more than twenty minutes. And all the parkings of the City, which increased their prices to $20 for all the day, were full by 10 o’clock in the morning.

The web is in a huge part responsible of this popularity, according to Salem Police. As a consequence Haunted Happenings have grown “exponentially over the last five, six years,” said Salem Capt. Brian Gilligan to the Salem Gazette.

According to Police Chief Paul Tucker, over 100, 000 people take to the streets in costumes throughout the day on Saturday, for the biggest Halloween party on the planet. “It was generally a well-behaved crowd,” said Mayor Kim Driscoll to the Salem News.

An old witch staid sat at the bottom of this tree all the day to see the Halloween Carnival

The streets were crowded of pointy hats and frightening zombies. On Saturday, Essex street seemed to be Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley. Besides, along the street, plenty of real witchcraft shops proposed to customer tarot readings and spell-casting. And while you are strolling around the streets, suddenly, a couple of puritans turns up in the street and accuse a poor woman of witchcraft. You can follow the arrested witch to the Town Hall and attend her trial. The show, called “Cry Innocent”, is a reconstitution of Bridget Bishop’s famous trial.

A puritan women being accused of witchcraft in the streets of Salem

But most of the city’s witch-related attractions, while unmistakably amusing, are more fair’s attractions than museums. You can find haunted houses, witches’ cottage and dungeon, but you’ll pay for an entertaining show and not for history.

However, not far from the crowded streets, a strange ceremony is happening. To see the real witches of Salem, you should have been to Gallows Hill Park, where the 1692 witches were hung. There, hundreds of people gathered for Samhain Magick Circle. Samhain is the name of Halloween for the pagans. In that particular day, they celebrate the New Year. By chanting and dancing to the rhythm of drums, they honor ancestor and loved one who have gone. Everybody holds hands to do a circle dancing and pass trough an arch which symbolize the New Year. As the ceremony is finished, the assistance begin the “ Commemorative Candlelight Walk ” to the City of Salem’s Witchcraft Memorial.

As you can read, real witches still exist in Salem, and they always make sure that the city is protected and blessed in that night of Samhain.

A witche leant back on a shop frontdoor the morning after Halloween

1. et 2. : documents perdus en class parce que bug de l’ordinateur.

3. Bombardier :

sold Bombardier Recreational Products, snowmobile division, in 2003, because of a restructuring plan and because of a net loss.

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=fe3a1bf472c4f33375672c40c339ff62&csvc=bl&cform=searchForm&_fmtstr=FULL&docnum=1&_startdoc=1&wchp=dGLzVzz-zSkAA&_md5=832fc6dc84a38f88d9230304877aaadc

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. B01

Basically, this graph deals with juvenile delinquency. We have a series of crime, like homicide, sexual assault, drugs and weapons possession … This graph allows us to understand rapidly which are the main trends in juvenile delinquency, that it to say, essentially theft. The second thing is that we can see the progression of each crime among youth during three years. For example, we see that the thefts decreased between 2004/2005 and 2005/2006, but stagnated between 2005/2006 and 2006/2007. That is also the case for common assaults and weapons possessions. The sexual assaults decreased, but the possession of drugs nearly edged up to 1, 000 cases. I think this graph is interesting because he goes against all preconceived notions which state that juvenile delinquency is growing. It’s not the case when we see the statistics. But, this graph is also newsworthy because the juvenile delinquency is always a big problem today. Actually, those statistics help us to figure out what kind of crime young people usually commit.

Ecole polytechnique de Montreal, le 6 décembre 1989

This article about Guns and Youth crime is really interesting for two things. On the first hand, it shows that youth crime is a serious debate in our society. We know that Canadian people are shell-shocked by weapon possession among young people; “the killing of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique in December 1989, and the shooting spree at Dawson College in September 2006”, is always in Canadian minds. My graph shows that weapon possessions are stagnating from 2004 until today. This article is written in 2008. So the journalist should have check statistics, and write about those figures, to explain that this problem is not really increasing. Yet, my graph doesn’t show the guns possession figures among weapons possessions. Therefore, on the second hand, this article proves that every graph has to be explained and put into perspective by other data. Indeed, we well see that the weapon possessions cases are not growing, but we have to precise that this figure is really high, for example by comparing it with the weapons possessions cases among adults.

The second article about Youth crime prevention in Ottawa suffers from a lack of figures. Indeed, the journalist doesn’t put it into context. We want to learn why Ottawa spent such a sum to prevent youth crime. This article let us think that juvenile crime is a society issue because it’s growing. This is the perfect example of the perception of a problem built by media. This other article about Youth crime and flawed statistics is a better example of this statement. To go further about this idea, click there.

However, this report shows us that a graph should never be the only source of a story. Here, we have a report issued by police divisions in British Columbia. If it’s a little bit old, we can see that to explain a problem entirely, we need a lot of figures, of graphs, of data, definitions and info. For example, with my graph, we see that juvenile delinquency is not growing, but I should have compared it with maybe other countries’ figures, or with policeman interviews etc to put into prospectives the figures I have found.

My first example will be the Campaign Finance graphic issued by the New York Times during 2008 campaign. This article shows us the financial data of 2008 campaign.

We can see receipts and expenses of each candidate. The graph is really comprehensive and detailed, and there is a lot of figures presented. The good thing is that when we open the page, firstly we see a very simple and clear table. But the big problem is that we don’t know what mean the figure. We have to click on it to see more details. And I’d have done it differently. Instead of putting the total receipts on the first page, I’d have put the total spent. I think it’s more newsworthy.

When we click on a candidate name to see more details, we open a map. Here again, it’s very understandable. We can easliy distinguish what areas made the better receipts. The little application at the bottom of the map shows us the chronology of the receipts. The flash is really well done, but I think it is useless for the common audience. I mean it can be very useful for an expert or people keen on campaign finances, but for common readers, it’s too much.

And then, when we click on “details”, next to the map, we have access to the exacts amounts. It’s very well presented. And the little graph near each amount enables us to see who did the best figure.

To sum up, we can say that this graph is very well documented, it shows a lot of interesting figures, but may be too much. And the lack of written explanation lead the common reader to be quickly lost among a lot of figures.

I don’t know which tool is used here, and the NYT doesn’tanswer my questions. But I guess the tool the journalist used is really complete, because it allows to make maps, tables and graphs.

The second article I want to comment is “The Hole in Manhattan” issued by the Washington Post. The journalist want to show us how many towers have been built meanwhile the project to rebuilt the World Trade Center have to face a lot of obstacles.

The graph is really well done, because we can see the progression of other buildings in the world, and we can click on some dates to see how the World Trade Center project progresses. And I find the theme deeply newsworthy.

But I consider that the graphs are not necessary. We have a lot of data about other towers we didn’t even know, and what really interest us, that is to say the World Trade Center, is finally poorly documented.

The good point is that there is a little presentation and a little soundslide to situate the issue. Contrary to the first example, here, we really know what we are talking about, and why. The data are really easy to interpret, for common people as for experts.

To sum up we can say that this graph have a really good presentation, it’s not too elaborate, and accessible to everyone. The problem is, to my point of view, that the graph is useless. A little text saying may be how many towers have been built during the elaboration of the project would have been sufficient, whereas a graph showing only the progression of the World Trade Center project would have been more interesting.

Concerning the tools used by the journalists, it’s written at the bottom of the graph that the sources are Skyscraperpage, but I don’t know if they only took their data there, or if they used the website to plot a graph. Anyway they didn’t use only this website, and I guess that for the presentation they used something like Adobe flash player.