The most gratifying part of running Canada Free Press is when one of our intern students makes it to "j school". When one of them is accepted, it's a bigger adrenalin rush than when one of our cover stories or columnists makes it to the big time on Rush Limbaugh Radio, Drudge, NewsMax.com or WorldNetDaily, the giants of our business. When one of our students is accepted to Ryerson, it's even better than hearing from an american television network that Teresa Heinz-Kerry personally thinks the editors of CFP are "crazy", as actually happened during the last presidential race.
When teacher antoinette Camuti first approached CFP about taking students from the ongoing co-op program at Humberside Collegiate, we were initially reluctant. Running a business that often sees you having to hit the ground running, we worried about having to take time out to coach the students.
as things turned out, the students taught CFP a thing or two. We learned from Humberside co-op student Dasha Kotova what it is like attending classes in Moscow one semester and in Toronto the next. Some students like Robin Pierro juggle their books with two part-time jobs without complaint. In today's increasing single parent population, some of our students are forced to rotate lifestyles between divorced parents.
Indeed, we've never had a student who couldn't teach us something. In the end, the students conduct much of the necessary research for our stories and make a busy office easier to run.
after finding success with the Humberside co-op students, we ventured out to take on students from universities and business schools, and discovered the same success with them.
Having grown fond of them during long months of working together, it's always sad when the students come to the end of their internship. We try to mitigate the sting of farewells over traditional sendoff lunches with them at the fabulous Elm Street Donatello's.
So many students come through CFP, that it's sometimes difficult for the editors to remember all their names.
We got a name break with alex Rubin, on staff for the summer from King's University, learning Internet journalism. alex followed on the heels of Japanese business student, Noriyuki "Nori" Sato.
Young Rubin, who now contributes to our cover stories, is proving to be a quick study and is destined to make a name for himself in the writing field.
Celebrations followed the acceptance of our first two students to Ryerson three years ago.
Would-be journalism students are finding that it is not easy being accepted into Ryerson's journalism classes. So you can imagine my joy when I had a chance encounter with former CFP co-op student Cindy Moustakis, who told me she would be returning to Ryerson for her second year come September.
Then there's co-op student Caitlin Low, who only said her goodbyes to us last May.
"It's Caitlin here and I know it's a bit late, but I would like to announce that I got accepted to Ryerson for journalism and will be attending in the fall," Caitlin wrote CFP yesterday. "I was also accepted to Carleton, Dalhousie and University of Toronto (Carleton and Dalhousie for journalism as well)."
"I would like to thank everyone, Judi, Brian, Kiko (office canine mascot), and Justin for all the support and the chance to write. It was a blast and I owe a lot to CFP."
Caitlin's enthusiastic letter brought tears to the editor's eyes. In the frenetic rush of running an independent daily website, she, more than any other student, sometimes had to hold the fort down on her own.
Caitlin's letter coincided with one from Robin Pierro, one of our two most recent Humberside co-op students. In her letter Robin, who associate editor arthur Weinreb described as "the fastest two-finger typist" he'd ever seen, asked for the "privilege" of filing a news article to CFP.
antoinette Camuti, who came to us for a favour, ended doing us the biggest favour of all.
Meanwhile, the Dashas, Robins, Caitlins, Cindys, the Noris and the alexs make CFP a better place to be.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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