Dear Tyee reader,
Happy holidays, dear reader!
Reporter Chris Cheung here, writing in disbelief that a new year and a new decade will soon be upon us.
What did I get up to in 2019?
A very, very wide variety of things.
I reported on a rowdy Maxime Bernier rally in Surrey, the most media-unfriendly event I’ve attended to date.
To photograph Greta Thunberg, I had to fight the aggressive fans who somehow snuck into a media-only area.
They say today’s journalists need to know how to do everything, so that’s why I was ready to Photoshop Andrew Scheer’s face onto the body of conservative hero Cincinnatus for the cover image of a popular series we ran.
And in an act of participatory journalism, I used Vancouver’s oldest public washroom — 96 years in service — while wondering why the city today has offloaded the responsibility of providing them to a multinational. This was not for personal amusement but for a story on the right to pee.
Next year will mark five years since my first Tyee byline.
I was doing my journalism school internship then, and I remember wondering how a publication like this could exist. Publishing daily? Online only? With no paywall? And longform writing is welcome?
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My beat is on urban issues, but I don’t document the rubberstamping of projects and policies.
I joined The Tyee part-time in 2016 and full-time in 2018. I like writing about the shaping of places, what that process says about people, and how class and culture collide in the process.
For example…
I uncovered the history of the two decrepit SROs that were just seized by the City of Vancouver; it turns out, they were fancy places when they opened on Hastings in the 1910s.
I interviewed a man who throws a toy into the branches of a tree in the Downtown Eastside, a nod to innocence, for every overdose death in the community.
I argued a hyped condo tower on False Creek, designed by a starchitect now working on a Mars colony for NASA, is just another one of history’s skyscrapers built for ego and profit, despite how good for the city the developer says it is.
I traced how bubble tea — once a treat for young, homesick immigrants — has been elevated to the level of cocktails as Chinese entrepreneurs open dozens of fancy shops, flexing cultural power in North America.
I like being able to connect the dots about my city.
I can’t think of any other local publication that would allow me the freedom to do so in the style that our readers and I enjoy. I mean, who’d give their reporter the space to write about old toilets?
It’s old news that our industry is in trouble…
… but it still is a shock when layoffs are announced. Just last month a few of my friends heard they’d be losing their jobs at another local news outlet. I think about the trust and repertoire of knowledge they’ve built, and how their readers are losing out.
Paying for news is more than just getting the stories. You’re also investing in a smarter society.
So I thank our editors for trusting us to chase the scoops we believe are important, and I thank you for your readership.
If you value the stories we publish, if you feel they add to your understanding of the place you live in and introduce you to voices you wouldn’t otherwise hear from, please consider signing up for a recurring monthly contribution. We can’t do it without you. | 