Kid reporter inspires me in Toronto

Nine year old reporter Brennan LaBrie started his own newspaper
This youngster renews my passion for journalism and my job
By Kris Scheuer

I have been a reporter and editor for 11 years and I love journalism.
But I have to say I have good and bad days like everyone else when it comes to feeling inspired.
My focus in on Toronto politics, people and news but I just had to tell you about nine-year-old Brennan LaBrie who lives in Port Townsend near Seattle in Seattle in Washington State.
It was a joy on Sept. 5 to come across a posting on the National Public Radio site about LaBrie’s hand written, self-published paper The Spruce St. Weekly.
I read the story by Ned Wharton about this young journalist LaBrie who interviews people, writes their stories and includes a section called This Day in History, plus fun facts and a hand drawn comic strip. He photocopies his weekly 2-page paper and sells it for a quarter to over 100 subscribers.
But it is watching the You Tube Video of LaBrie talking in his own words about why he enjoys being a reporter that really made me smile.

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Words of the day

By Kris Scheuer

Words are how I earn a living. That’s because I’ve been a published reporter and journalist for eleven years now. And I am always looking to improve on my writing style by adding new words to my written and oral vocabulary. While I try to focus on words in everyday usage, sometimes I pick words that aren’t practical as regular lingo but draw my attention nonetheless.
Here are my trio of words for the day.

This looks like a fun word  – pugnacious. It’s and adjective that means readily disposed to fight or belligerent. Perhaps you know someone that this describes? Happily, I don’t.
Paramour is a noun meaning a married person’s lover.
And putrescent an adjective meaning becoming putrid as in a state of decomposition. With Toronto in its 12th day of a garbage strike some of the temporary and legal neighbourhood dumps are surely housing bags of putrescent, organic waste.