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Sunday, June 13,1999 Oakville Beaver Weekend 11 Weekend Focus An Oakville Beaver Feature To advertise in this section call 845-3824 Fax:845-5516 Beaver editor celebrates 25 years of community journalism By Karen Alton SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Norm Alexander has not always had printer's ink coursing through his veins, just for the past 25 years. As a student majoring in history his goal was a career as an 'archivist' preserv­ ing history in dank catacombs. After four intense years of higher education, howev­ er, and visits to some stuffy provincial and federal archives, the Hamilton native decided to rethink his future. 'To work in the archives I would have needed a Masters degree and also a Ph.D." The long-serving editor-in-chief of the Oakville Beaver was reviewing his own history one morning last week in his Speers Road Office. 'Td already been at school for a long time." So the summer after his graduation from the University of Waterloo, young Norm was in a quandary. In the mean­ time he was helping his Oakville cousin, a teacher, paint the old Pollard Bearings building on the South Service Road - now the home of Kerr Cadillac. Alexander has a deep background in this town, though he currendy lives in Dundas with his wife Nancy (also a journalist), and two chil­ dren. "I said to my cousin as we painted, 'You know, I have no clue what I should do with my life'," he recalled. "You've always enjoyed writing, why don't you try journalism?" his cousin reportedly replied. "A bell went off in my head," the edi­ tor laughed, "a light flashed. I thought, yeah, why not?" Sheridan College had a direct-entry journalism program for degree holders, the perfect fit for a kid with an inquisitive mind and an aptitude for English. Alexander, who enjoys gardening and golf in his spare time, claims to have "no particular" role models or inspirations for his newspaper career. He was the first in his family to enter the fourth estate. "I was always a writer and a reader," he allowed. "As a kid, I loved to write stories. When other kids would say I can't think of anything to write about - 1 never had that problem." He credits the outstanding English teachers at Memorial Public School for giving him a solid grounding in English composition and Canadian literature. It was 1974 when Norm, fresh out of college, began reporting for the Mississauga News, a weekly, on educa­ tion and business, some features, and gen- O U R PA T IO IS N O W O P E N ! L o o k fo r O u r 2 For 1 Patio Pizza A d , C lip It O u t, B rin g It In IL FORNELLO 9 0 5 .3 3 8 .5 2 3 3 Norm Alexander eral reporting. He was then offered the opportunity to join the Oakville Beaver in February of1975 covering Town Hall. "It was a chance to get into hard news," he explained. The Beaver and the News were both part of Inland Publishing at that time (now owned by Metroland Publishing in the Torstar group). Inland was then controlled by the Eatons and Bassetts. "The Inland papers were progres­ sive," Alexander said, "using processed colour, long before the big Toronto dailies. The company was young and interesting and I thought Oakville was the place to be." He was not wrong. The paper grew with the town. There were wild, boom times in the mid-to-late 1970s and a series of editors before Norm got the call. "We once put out a 102-page tabloid on a Wednesday when we were still located on Church Street," he said. The Beaver would eventually grow to three papers a week, under his leadership, Wednesday, Friday, and the Weekend, plus a special edi­ tion, the Oakville North News, for residents north of the QEW on Fridays. Reporting the news has been, in his own words, "a matter of com­ mon sense and some kind of good taste." With all the changes over the past quarter century, that has remained constant. "Change is often foisted upon you," he said philosophically. "You can either reject it or embrace it, or just go with the flow." When he began writing copy in the '70s, a typewriter was the tool of choice. He has since gone through four generations of computer upgrades at the Beaver. "Journalism had stayed pretty much the same for decades," he noted, "stories were written on type­ writers, and the newspapers were put together in a composing room, but the process really started to transform in the 1980s. Suddenly, the pages were all being put togeth­ er on the editor's desk using sophis­ ticated software. The photography is all digital now, no chemicals. It's all very quick and clean." The good thing is the editor has more control over the end product, he said."The downside is all the pro­ duction work that used to done by other people in the composing room is done by the editors at their desks now. You're strapped to your desk more." The key to managing this extra work load? Organization and dis­ cipline. "If you haven't got it, you are going to be in big trouble. The volume of information coming in by e-mail and fax, the ever expand­ ing number of events and issues that have to be covered, requires serious juggling. If you're not organized, you can get buried fast" The editor follows a simple axiom: when something comes in you either act on it yourself, dele­ gate, file, or trash it. There is no time to dither. "I feel lucky because I found my niche early. A lot of people go from pillar to post before they find something they really enjoy," he said. "I am curious by nature. I always want to know why things are happening. That's just who I itam. $T 7?57 7 '* + DRI. From \ J f nee? CARS From / / Includes new shoes or pads, repack wheel bearings, resurface drums & rotors and inspect entire system. Metallic pads included. M ust p resent coupon. E xpires June 19/99. 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