I survived Journalism Summer Camp and all I got was a photo of Josh Johnson

I wasn’t going to write today’s newsletter because I knew my brain would be a mushy mix of information overload and fatigue in the best possible way.

But I’m also ridiculous, so here I am, reeling from a week of Journalism Summer Camp^TM.

For those of you who opened last week’s newsletter, you know I spent it in our nation’s glorious capital, full of “Very Important People” who are doing “Very Important Things” and “Ignoring The Rest of Canada.”

During Journalism Summer Camp^TM I spent the first several days at Future of Good, where we laid out a practical, optimistic plan about the year ahead, and I have to admit, amongst all the existential fear in the non-profit sector, I feel better about our direction than I have since I got here about three years ago.

We’re gonna do some cool things for y’all.

The weekend was spent at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference (full disclosure: I’m on the board) and helped organize our annual awards conference (spoiler: I did not win an award.)

About 300 nervous journalists, worried they’re about to be replaced by generative AI, came for reassurance as we stare into the dark of a democratic abyss. How do we ensure the absolute insanity that is happening to our American colleagues doesn’t happen to us? How do we keep the human in the loop of some really awesome AI tools and keep our ethics intact? How the heck are we going to get paid as the world’s first trillionaire and his billionaire counterparts systemically decimate our model to hoard cash for themselves?

Amongst more existential fear, we didn’t find all the solutions, but we found ways to help bridge over the abyss. We came away more connected to each other and more willing to collaborate, which is a needed shift in newsroom culture that I’ve written about a lot.

We also laughed. Journalists are a dark-humour breed, and I have an obnoxious laugh that I like to impose on rooms, er, share. After the conference, some of the CAJ board gathered at a local pub in Little Italy, where we caught the final 8.8 seconds of the Knicks game and cheered.

Since one of the ways I cope with the state of the world is through humour, I watch several local and international satirical shows. One of them is The Daily Show, where I discovered Josh Johnson, and that migrated to his standup.

When I found he was coming to Winnipeg earlier this year, I immediately bought tickets. The show happened to coincide with Journalism Summer Camp^TM, but I knew that if I took an early plane home on Sunday, I could catch his show that night.

So I had to laugh when I walked to my gate in Ottawa airport on Sunday to find him and his entourage of performers just chillin’ as they waited for the same plane to Winnipeg. I walked over, looked at the entourage, said “Go Knicks” to the dancer who was wearing her team’s hat, then turned to Johnson and said, “Hey, I’m coming to see you tonight.”

To my surprise, everyone in his entourage cheered like I had won an award. He was kind and gracious and let me take his photo (usually a journalistic no-no, but I wasn’t interviewing him, so I got to geek out a little) and then I left him alone like a good Canadian so I could post the photo everywhere I know and send it to all my colleagues and friends.

The show – appropriately titled Comedy Band Camp –  was a delightful collaboration of himself, another stand-up comic, a world-champion beatboxer and a team of dancers. And it was very, very funny.

All this rambling to say: it once again became apparent to me that connection – from deliberate get-togethers or coincidental run-ins at an airport – is the key to solving so many of our problems.

I hope you take this summer to connect and laugh.