What does an unemployed newspaper employee do?

FROM THE CLIPPINGS FILE — I’m a hoarder of papers. Clippings, reports, anything I think I or somebody else from the next century might want to look at some day.

I’ve been sorting through some of it lately. I used to clip my columns. I think I’ll run some of them in this space. Came across this one from 1978 — it seems a good place to start.

First published Feb. 22, 1978 in The Kamloops News. 

Headline: Don’t begrudge the people on UIC

By MEL ROTHENBURGER

Being on vacation this week reminds me of being unemployed. As you read this I’ll probably be driving the wife nuts by hanging around the house getting in the way and complaining about nothing to do. On the other hand, the kids, the cats and the dog will likely be driving me nuts and making me wish I had some place to go, like work.

Actually, vacations are alright, even the kind spent at home. But they do harken me back to the days when I lived off the system. I have sympathy for the Citizens Lobby for Jobs and others who want work but can’t get it.

A paid vacation is nice for awhile, but it’s not something you’d want to make a habit of. An unemployed friend of mine has been looking for work for several months now and can’t get it. A typical day is spent walking uptown to the Manpower office to check over what few openings there are. Each penny has to be tightly guarded. This friend of mine, once gregarious and generous, has become a typical cheapskate, waiting for others to buy the next round instead of chipping into the pot.

Nobody should have to wait for somebody else to buy the next round all the time.

What happens when unemployment insurance runs out? People are told to go on welfare. To the person who truly wants to contribute to society and to get ahead himself, welfare is one step from the grave.

I remember the last time I was truly unemployed. It came like a bolt from the blue, and stunned me into the realization that there’s little security in this world.

I was working, at the time, for a newspaper call the Prince George Progress. That was almost exactly 10 years ago but it stands out as one of the lowlights of my life — not working for the Progress (though there were some low points there, too) but ceasing to work for anybody.

It was my first newspaper job and I had been thrown immediately into the job of editor. It was a big responsibility and I took it seriously. I was proud of the fact that people knew me as the youngest managing editor of a newspaper in Canada. I didn’t know the meaning of a 40-hour week. I almost always worked straight through lunch, sometimes eating as I worked, sometimes not. I occasionally went next door to a steakhouse called Mr. Jake’s for a quickie dinner. After that, I usually had more work to do — a meeting to attend, or just office work.

A work week in those days varied from around 60 to 80 hours. My starting salary was $400 a month. I was married with a child. I put my life into that job, more than I put into my family, but that’s another story.

One day I was sitting at my desk trying to work my way through the usual burden of editing and administrative work that went with the job.

Everybody’s heard of Ben Ginter. He owned a majority share in the Prince George Progress. In those days, B.C. was widely known for its three most famous personages: Ginter, Gaglardi and God.

Fred Lindsay, a well-known B.C. author who wrote a column for the paper at the time, once said that “God is dead and Gaglardi isn’t doing so good. All we’ve got left is Ginter.”

Ginter’s fortune was more than $30 million at that time. Although he did not directly run the newspaper, I came to know him casually because he did try to have some contact with the news staff. I would occasionally be called upon to write a press release for him. I would be ushered into his office and, in that rasping, ineloquent voice, he would issue the orders. I flew in his jet plane, did stories on his brewery, knew firsthand some of those alleged wild parties at his huge house on the outskirts of town.

So when my phone rang and it was Ben Ginter, it was in a mildly friendly tone that he asked me about a photo spread that had run in that day’s edition.

Who, Ginter wanted to know, had been responsible for it.

I gave him the name of the photographer who had taken the pictures and the sub-editor who had designed the paper.

“I want them both fired,” Ginter ordered.

One of the photos was of a Williams Lake Stampede celebrant with a case of beer under one arm. It was not a case of Ginter’s Tartan Brewery beer. It was Carlings. The name of the beer showed up in about one square inch of the page.

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I had approved the page, had briefly considered the fact the beer in the picture wasn’t Ginter’s, and decided it should have nothing to do with the handling of the feature.

“I own that paper and I’m not going to have somebody else’s beer advertised in it for nothing,” Ginter was continuing.

“I’m ultimately responsible for everything that goes into the paper,” I shot back. “If you fire the other two, you’ll have to fire me, too.”

Ginter didn’t hesitate for one moment. “Okay, you’re fired too,” he said, hanging up.

In the days that followed, efforts by the publisher failed to convince the big boss that any one of the three of us should be kept on.

I was unemployed.

I’ve related the entire story because I had really enjoyed my job. Rigorous as it was, I found it rewarding, and I felt I was getting someplace. I felt I had a future in the newspaper industry. I felt that future was in Prince George with that particular newspaper. I felt I could provide a good life for me and for my family.

Suddenly, all I had was a new Camaro, a pile of bills and rent coming due. I had been able to save little. Two years of hard work had left me without the means to support my wife and child.

The newspaper business is such that you can’t wait around long in one town hoping something will open up. There aren’t enough newspapers for that. I had to make a quick decision. The day after I was finished work at The Progress, I had packed up all my family’s belongings into a U-Haul trailer and hit the road looking for another job.

Fortunately, I found one before I got into really desperate financial trouble, and started over.

That doesn’t happen to everybody who is out of work.

Ten years ago. But I still remember that sick feeling in my gut, that feeling that somehow I was letting people down, that fear that I might not get us out of this one.

I remember, and I don’t begrudge anyone his UIC.