This story first appeared in The Vancouver Sun, June 24 , 2017 with credit to Michael Bernard– Postmedia Content Works.
When award-winning CBC investigative journalist Diana Swain was thinking about what she would tell graduating students at the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s convocation ceremony Friday, she hit on the idea of “disinterested advice”: advice untainted by someone’s self- interest.
Concerned that she offer the best advice in the few minutes she had, she did the modern-day thing: she put a request out on Twitter. A while later, she checked her phone to find numerous tweets, largely impartial and objective, from people she had never met.
“The responses fell into themes,” she said in an interview. “One of the most common, expressed in different ways, was, ‘Be patient. Try to let life unravel in front of you. Don’t try to manage every moment. It’s a concept she has struggled with in her own career as a hard- driving journalist.
“I don’t enjoy wasting time,” she said. “If nothing, I am not patient. And that has been something I have worked at my whole life, so it is kind of funny to see that is the advice that people are giving because it’s true.”
“Be patient. Let your career unfold and enjoy the ride a bit. Don’t make it so much hard work that you only reflect on what is wonderful about it when it is over.” Swain, who graduated from the BCIT broadcast journalism program exactly 30 years ago this year, was a young woman in a hurry.
She immersed herself in her craft while going through the two-year diploma program, working for a weekly magazine in the Fraser Val- ley community of Chilliwack for 10 months, as a reporter at both the community newspaper The Chilliwack Progress and the local radio station CHWK, as well as at another station in Kamloops. She got her first TV job reading the news for CKPG-TV in Prince George.
She moved quickly through numerous opportunities: co- anchor of the evening newscast at Winnipeg’s CKND –TV, and then reporting for CBC’s CBWT in the same city. She was promoted to national CBC reporter after being recognized for her coverage on the devastating 1997 Manitoba flood. She won the first of three Gemini Awards for Best News Anchor while she was anchoring CBC’s 24 Hours. After a series of increasingly higher-profile jobs at CBC, including substituting for Peter Mansbridge on The National, she moved in 2010 to the CBC’s investigative unit. Last year, after receiving numerous other awards, she began hosting a new TV pro- gram called The Investigators with Diana Swain.
Swain, whose alma mater has bestowed on her an Honorary Doctorate of Technology and an earlier BCIT award for her contributions to her industry, still believes there is much value in starting one’s career in a smaller community. But she also noted that experiencing different places in Canada — both large and small — is critically important to the development of any career.
“I also think it is imperative for journalists to see the country they are reporting on. You are being asked by people in good faith to report on what has happened and to provide context. And that context is always going to be thin if you have no reference point. And so if you have only ever lived in Vancouver, my advice would be ‘move away.’
In her convocation address Friday, she also offered students advice on how to perceive them- selves and their education.
“Put aside any insecurity you may have about whether you are ready. You are prepared, and you have a running start. BCIT is an even bigger, and better institution than when I attended here. Its reputation is even stronger, more widely-known, and more admired.”