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Media Club of Ottawa      quil-pen  
Formerly the Canadian Women's Press Club                             

the Media Club of Ottawa presents monthly programs of significance
to professionals in all branches of the communications field. 
Our program offers a stimulating variety of speakers.


Alexandra_Pope              
Qais-Ghanem                                  Katelin Belliveau Bruce-MacGregor
Alexandra-Pope - speaker                                        Qais-Ghanem -                                                               Amira Eghawaby - speaker                                                   Dani-Elle Dube - award winner                                                     Katelin Belliveau - award winner                                                         Bruce-MacGregor - speaker


History-------------------- ------------- --Events----------- -----------The Galley---------- -------Awards ----------Subscribe------- -----------Books--------

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June 2021
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COVID-19 restrictions


Our program has been switched  to
publication of articles by our scheduled speakers on their topic

Publication date:
Tuesday June 29, 2021

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JOIN

Whether you’re a neophyte or a seasoned communications specialist, the Media Club of Ottawa offers numerous benefits:  interesting speakers, workshops and articles on a range of communications topics, networking opportunities, and encouragement for professional development.

Read Previous Articles:

May 2021
Barbara Florio Graham
April 2021
Matt Wood
March 2021
BAICO Publishing


December 2020
Frances Itani
November-2020

October-2020

September 2020

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News Capsule 2019-2020

Our Projects: Thanks to our student  volunteers, the Media Club of Ottawa has recently undertaken a number of projects.
Last year's Melba Lent Woelflé Award winner volunteered to help with our Club’s website even though she has returned to her home in New Brunswick. From that location she has worked with our webmaster doing this virtually. In addition, three students from the Interactive Media Management program at Algonquin College are helping to redesign and modernize our website.


Lorraine Lafreniere, CEO, Coaching Association of Canada, was one of those interviewed on CBC radio’s The Current on June 28, 2021,  as part of a story about sexual abuse in high school sports. A former Media Club of Ottawa member, she was club president in 1999-2001.
 

Susan Korah
In addition to her regular freelance writing assignments Susan Korah participated in a project aimed at helping spread the word about important health information to some of the world’s most vulnerable people during the COVID-19 pandemic. In conjunction with her friend, Swedish journalist Nuri Kino who initiated the project, Susan helped produce a u-tube video designed for the benefit of refugees, migrant workers and other marginalized people who haven’t mastered the language of their country of residence and therefore have limited or no access to important health information during the COVID-19 crisis. The video has also been shared with associations, government departments and individuals working with new Canadians.

June Coxon
An article about Susan Korah's project appeared in the June issue of Sandy Hill’s community paper,  A similar one, highlighting opera singer Maria Knapik, featured in the video, was printed in the September issue of
Vistas, the Alta Vistas’ community paper. Both articles were by June Coxon

Courtney Tower's  column In the April 2021 issue of the community newspaper Vistas featured June Coxon.

Dawn Monroe

Dawn now has well over 3,000  mini biographies on her Famous Canadian website. She was scheduled to speak to club members in June 2020 about creating that website,  but was unable to do so because of COVID-19 restrictions. Instead, she wrote about it for us. You wil  be able  read her report in the near future.

Jagjeet Sharma
Local freelance writer, radio host, and poet. Jagjeet Sharma, published her third book of poetry this year, called Raindrops. As with her other books, proceeds from sales of this book go to the University of Ottawa’s Heart Institute:

Susan Korah
An article Susan Korah wrote for online newspaper New Canadian Media, was the second most widely read item on their  website in 2020, earning her an unexpected cash award. Her article, entitled Child Marriage Serious Issue in Canada, Not Exclusive to Immigrants appeared in the October 2020 issue. To read it google newcanadianmedia.ca

Shail Verma
Club member Shailendra “Shail” Verma was recently featured in the National Arts Entrepreneur’s Legacy newsletter, noting his commitment and support for the arts.

Susan Hallett

continues to contribute to each issue of Taste and Travel magazine. Her article in the April-June issue. One a print magazine, it is now only online. You can find Susan’s article at Celebrating_With_Canada’s_ First__T&T_Nations_issue40_pdf

Shirley Van Dusen 

A bit of late news: In February 2020 Shirley Van Dusen received two honorary diplomas. One was from the Ottawa School of Art where she taught for a number of years, the other from the City of Ottawa.











While COVID restrictions are in 

                  June Coxon speaks to us, virtually, in writing
 
           Honouring Col. George Ham
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by  June Coxon

Since it was in June 1904 that  the Canadian Women’s Press Club was founded, here’s a look back at a story about the man who inspired the club.

Canadian Pacific Railway publicist, Colonel George Ham was a special friend of Canadian Women’s Press Club (CWPC) members. In fact the club likely would not have existed without him.

The story began in 1904 when Ottawa journalist Margaret “Miggsy” Graham, while working briefly in Montreal for the Montreal Star, burst into George Ham’s office asking why he didn’t offer female journalists the same free transportation on a CPR train as he offered male journalists when covering events for their newspapers. Ham responded by saying if she could find 12 women journalists he would offer them the same thing. She found 16 women journalists, Ham kept his promise and in June 1904 he travelled with them via a CPR train to and from the St. Louis World Fair.

During that trip Ham suggested they form a club and the Canadian Women’s Press Club was born, naming Kathleen “Kit” Coleman the first president and George Ham an honorary member. His account of this is in his autobiography, Reminiscences of a Raconteur:


The Canadian Women’s Press Club

by George Ham

One fine day in June 1904, a handsome and fashionably dressed young lady came into my office at C.P.R. headquarters, and started cyclonically to tell me that while the C.P.R. had taken men to all the excursions to fairs and other things, women had altogether been if only ignored and she demonstratively demanded to know why poor downtrodden females should thus be so shabbily treated. When she had finished her harangue “I guess from lack of a further supply of breath,” I politely motioned her to a seat and calmly said: “Sit down Miggsy, sit down and keep cool,” which she did.

She was Margaret Graham, a writer for the Press, and a champion of women’s rights “which I had already sagaciously surmised.

When quietness was restored, she explained that her mission was to persuade the C.P.R. to take a bunch “I don’t think she used the word bunch” of women to the St. Louis World Fair, to which I had recently accompanied a party of newspaper men. Miggsy’s idea appealed to me, and we arranged for a party of sixteen “sweet sixteen, though some of them didn’t think they were,” to visit St.Louis.

The trip was a huge success in every way,and not only was the fair taken in, but a visit was paid to Chicago, where the party was entertained by the well-known Jane Adams, at Hull House. On the way home, by a happy inspiration, a woman’s Pressure Club was formed with Kit, of the Toronto Mail, as president,and somehow or other”guess for lack of better material” l was made honorary president, and have been the only male member of a female Press Club in the world ever since........

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Plaque-CWPC_Ham

Memorial Plaque
Following George Ham’s death on April 16, 1926 at age 79, Ottawa branch members were among the many CWPC newspaper women who travelled across Canada from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, gathering at Montreal’s Windsor train station to unveil a plaque in his memory (his book says he was honorary club president). The plaque, engraved with a likeness of Ham, was presented to CPR president Edward Beatty by CWPC president May S. Glendennan on October 27, 1927. It says in part, “This tablet is erected by the Canadian Women’s Press Club in grateful recognition of his services as their founder and friend. He was a gallant gentleman and great of heart.”

Another
group of CWPC journalists had gathered in Whitby five months earlier for the dedication of a porch donated by club members that was built on to St. John’s (Anglican) church where Ham was buried in the adjacent graveyard.

Windsor Station
Windsor Station has not served as a train station since 1996, when the CPR moved its head office from Montreal to Calgary, Alberta after selling the building to Cadillac Fairview. But correspondence with CPRs manager, Heritage Services and Operations, Adam Meeks and with Tenant Relations Co-ordinator, Fairview Corporation Limited, Susan Voeung, and Anne Hu who is replacing Susan while she’s on maternity leave, confirmed that the plaque honouring Ham is still affixed to a wall at Windsor Station. It is located in the concourse next to the security desk and since the station has been designated an historic site that’s where it will likely remain.

The photo of the plaque was taken for us by Susan Voeung.


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IN THE NEWS.....NEWS....NEWS >>>>>>>

HEADLINES

- Apple Daily’s Closure Days Away

- Why Is The CBC Letting Canada: A People’s History Die?

- How One Journalist’s Life Changed After He Dared
To Tell The Truth

- Hong Kong Tabloid To Print Last Edition

- Khashoggi’s Killer Trained In U.S.: Report
 
- Canadian Media Outlets Sign Licensing Deal With Google

- Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Prints Final Issue.

- Belarus Journalist And Girlfriend Put Under House Arrest


Daily’s Closure Days Away is the headline of a story by Tyrone Siu and Jessie Pang. The subhead - Crackdown On Pro-democracy Newspaper. The pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily looked set to close for good by Saturday following police raids and the arrest of executives - a move that critics say undermines the city’s status as a free and open society as Beijing tightens life’s grip. Ottawa Citizen, June 23, 2021, page NP4.

Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Paper May Close Permanently After Police Raids reads the headline of the same article. The Globe and Mail, June 23, 2921, page A1.

Why Is The CBC Letting Canada: A People’s History Die? asks the headline of an Opinion Piece by Joe Martin, Kealy Wilkinson and Susan Reisler. ..... A country that does not know its history cannot understand who it’s people were, who they now are and where they are going. We ignore history at our peril. And yet we are ignoring it. ..... When we wrestle with difficult questions about our national identity and future this Canada Day, Canada’s public broadcaster should be at the forefront of the discussion. To do so, it would only be responsible for the CBC to announce the rerelease of Canada: A People’s History. The Globe and Mail, June 23, 2021, page A 11.

How One Journalist’s Life Changed After He Dared To Tell The Truth is the headline of a two-page spread by Anthony Feinstein. The subhead - For nearly 25-years, Paraguayan Reporter Candido Figueredo Ruiz Was A Marked Man, Threatened By Smugglers And Drug Dealers For His Relentless Coverage Of Corruption In His Country. For 24 years and eight months, Candido Figueredo Ruiz was marked for death. To thwart the bullets of his eager assassins, the Paraguayan journalist lived surrounded by seven heavily armed guards. The Globe and Mail, June 23, 2021, pages A10-11.

Hong Kong Tabloid To Print Last Edition. That’s the headline on an article by Sharon Abratique and Jessie Pang. The subhead - Closing Seen As An End Of Era For Media Freedom. Hong Kong’s most vocal pro-democracy newspaper said it will print its last edition on Thursday after a stormy year in which it was raided by police and its tycoon owner and other staff were arrested under a new national security law. Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2021, page NP4.

-Khashoggi’s Killer Trained In U.S.: Report is the headline. Four Saudi’s who participated in the 2018 killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the United States the previous year under a contract approved by the State Department, the New York Times reported. Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2021, page NP4.

Canadian Media Outlets Sign Licensing Deal With Google reads the headline of an item by Andrew Willis. Google Canada is partnering with eight publishers, including The Globe and Mail, in a licensing agreement that will see the firm pay for news content as part of parent Alphabet Inc.’s US$1-billion global commitment to media companies. The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2021, page A1.

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Prints Final Issue. That’s the headline of an article by Sharon Abratique. The subhead - Critics Say Shutdown Of Popular Pro-democracy Tabloid Marks The End Of Media Freedom In the Chinese-ruled City. Hong Kong’s most vocal pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, printed its last edition on Thursday after a stormy year in which its tycoon owner and other staff were arrested under a new national national security law, and its assets were frozen. The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2021, page A3.

Belarus Journalist And Girlfriend Put Under House Arrest reads the headline. The dissident Belarusian journalist and his Russian girlfriend who were arrested after being pulled off a flight have been transferred from jail to house arrest - a move the exiled opposition leader said Friday was positive, but still left them “hostages.” The Globe and Mail, June 26, 2021, page A9.




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Media Club of Ottawa
 Executive  2020-21
President,  June Coxon
Secretary-Treasurer. Iris ten Holder


            




Board of Directors:
June Coxon, 
Iris ten Holder,
Helen Bednarek Van Eyk


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A R C H I V E S

A record of meetings held in previous years
 

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