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HOLLAND
COLLEGE • March 2003
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INSIDE |
SUPPORT
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from Island newspapers helps ensure quality training By Tara Hencher Class of '03 It's a marriage that works. Since the early ‘90s, The Guardian newspaper in Charlottetown has been publishing the work of Holland College Journalism program students, and managing editor Gary MacDougall says helping out with The Surveyor is good for both students and the Guardian. "When our current publisher, Don Brander, and myself were approached (with the idea for the Surveyor), we just thought, ‘Hey, we should be doing this,'" said MacDougall. "It's good for the community. We're helping out the college and helping out the students." The Journal-Pioneer in Summerside also publishes an annual edition of the Surveyor that features magazine-length articles written by graduating students. Both newspapers offer annual bursaries to deserving students in the program. The newspapers, as well as the Eastern Graphic and the West Prince Graphic, also welcome on-the-job training students each year. "We're sort of first cousins, we're in the same game," MacDougall said. "A lot of students come through here, even to just drop off things for The Surveyor. And lately, we've been having four OJT students around here." MacDougall said Holland College has a good reputation and that he runs into many Holland College grads at different newspapers in the region. The Island newspapers also employ a number of Holland College grads. "I think the (students) who are serious about the program and the industry tend to have good grounding," MacDougall said. "I've seen a lot of terrific ones." And producing a newspaper is something which helps the students get the grounding they need. Although MacDougall has seen some terrific journalists come out of the journalism program, he's also seen some who maybe were not cut out for the business and he feels that's only natural. "I've often joked that I'm 53 and I don't know what I want to do with my life," he said. "I don't know how the heck someone that's 18, 19, whatever (does)." But while students are learning in the program, they can count on support from the Guardian. "We feel an obligation just because of the profession we're in, printing newspapers and journalism, and we think there's an obligation on any successful journalistic operation to do whatever it can to help the up and coming journalists that the college is training," MacDougall says. "We've had nothing but cooperation from Holland College and I'd like to think they get a lot of cooperation from us. I think it's win-win for the both of us." |
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