The Mouse Click Heard Around The World

Look, here's the thing. I want to see Gene Simmons. Hopefully, I'll also bump into Ms. Shannon Tweed. I like the Simmons-Tweed family. They're actually interesting on their reality show, Family Jewels. And think what fun it would be to have KISS play the K-Rock Centre.

KISS is pulling a wicked publicity stunt. They're having fans from around North America vote to see where they'll play as part of their Demand It promotion. (I suspect they've already decided and this is genius marketing, but who cares. I love battles. The only thing I love more than battles is winning battles).

Kingston, Ont. was No. 1 for the first few days.

In fact, my K-Rock 105.7 cohost Darryl Kornicky and I were the first two people in Canada to vote for KISS.

And then came along Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now we're sitting in second. Second stinks. No one remembers who came second. Unless, of course, you're talking about the 1988 Men's Figure Skating Championships at the Calgary Olympics. That was when Canada's Brian Orser was beat by America's Brian Boitano. (I have some weird figure skating knowledge. Don't ask).

We have been plugging the crapola out of this KISS event. We want them to come to town. It's pretty simple.

So, on Wednesday, April 15, we're holding THE MOUSE CLICK HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.

Just after 8 a.m., Kornicky and I will announce on K-Rock 105.7 when to vote and in one second, we're going to add thousands of votes to our tally.

Go to our website, www.krock1057.ca now and register or click on the button on my page so that tomorrow, you'll be ready to click and go.

Listen tomorrow morning. Sometime after 8 a.m., we're going to launch the mouse attack.

Good night, Kingston!

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Hi. My name is Sarah Crosbie and I am unemployed ...

OK, after a month and a half, I can finally come out and say it: I have no job. I am unemployed. I am a free agent.
I was laid off.

For more than eight years, I worked at The Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada's oldest continually published daily newspaper) as a weekend reporter, a copy editor, investigative reporter, music columnist, and features editor. I covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City with my good friend and Whig photographer Jennifer Pritchett. We were there, in the Big Apple, to tell the story of Kingstonians affected by the attacks. One year later, we both returned to the big city to see how Kingstonians' lives had changed and to see if we could track down how some of the local charitable donations had been spent there.
I spent one weekend in Ottawa hunting down Avril Lavigne at the Juno Awards where her debut Let Go was nominated for a bucket-load of trophies in 2003. I watched Gord Downie pick a piece of fluff out of his star on Canada's Walk of Fame and call it "belly button" fuzz 2002.
I got my butt stuck in a soap box derby car when I was a young reporter. I'd gone down the hill at the charity race and when I reached the bottom, I was stuck. There were volunteers at the race who had walkie talkies at the top and bottom of the hill. The conversation went something like this: "Smoky, this is Bluebird. We've got a problem. The Whig reporter is stuck in the car."
"The Whig reporter is stuck in the car? What's the problem?"
"She's wedged herself in the vehicle. You got tools?"
"We'll look for a saw. She's really stuck, huh? Man."
Yeah, that was fun. I had a big butt, I can not lie.
I was once nominated for a National Newspaper Award, Canada's top newspaper honour for an investigative piece on disgraced choirmaster John Gallienne.
I also followed the rise of Kingston's Ryan Malcolm from unknown bar singer to the first Canadian Idol. Every week for an entire summer in 2003, I went back and forth to the John Bassett Theatre in Toronto where I documented his rise on the pop singing show. The issue where we ran not one, not two, not three but four massive features on him (The News Story, The Colour Reaction Story, The Look Back Column, The Evolution of a Person Story) the day after he won – that paper sold out. It was the best story – documenting a guy achieving his dream, with the support of his city behind him.
My idea, Cool Kids, was published last spring - a special magazine dedicated to the amazing high school students in this area.
Every week, I edited The Whig's entertainment magazine The Ticket.
I worked on that magazine every week. Forty pages, every week. All year. I have a son, but The Ticket was my baby. Now it has new (and capable) parents, but she was mine to make for you, the readers.
I've worked with incredible editors – and I married one of the best.
The highlight of my time there was when the paper was alive and screaming with energy, big (sometimes sensational) headlines (but you do want people to stop at the box, look at the paper and then buy it, right? Of course) and colourful, meaningful, important, well-written stories. It was around 2002-05 and I was a reporter, writing everything and anything and then an editor. Noreen Rasbach (now an editor at The Globe in Toronto) was the editor and Rob Tripp (now the police reporter at The Whig) was the city editor. It was a good time to be a reporter at The Whig. Every year, we went to the National Newspaper Awards and dominated the Ontario Newspaper Awards. We did kooky stories (like my piece on a Big Beaver attraction wanting to move into the area) and investigative pieces on sex offenders and health care.
That was then.
Now, I do kooky things like laundry and investigate where cheese is on sale.
One week, I went nuts buying cases of water at Food Basics for $2 each.
The next week, they were on sale at No Frills for $1.88 each.
"I lost money!" I screamed at my husband. "I should have waited!"
"Baby," he said. "It's 12 cents."
Oh, yeah. Right.
In December, I was one of 600 Sun Media employees who lost their jobs.
And I'm heartbroken to no longer be at The Whig, but what really hurts is worrying about the future of the paper. What role does local news have in an world (and economy) dictated by the Internet? Yes, it's hard for a newspaper to compete with websites on things like celebrity gossip. People magazine can report on an issue the second it happens on its website, but newspapers can't give out the information until the next day in its issue, unless the paper has a sophisticated website going, but most local papers haven't perfected (or figured out, really) how to balance the news in their pages and on their websites at the same time. But websites and national chains and the big dailies can't give local readers important local stories (the ongoing halfway house battle in Kingston, Queen's University's struggle with Homecoming, Kingston General Hospital's restructuring efforts) ... and without a local paper, who will review Kingston's theatre productions? Who will tell you about the new restaurants in town? Who will profile the up-and-coming bands that are dying for attention?
Local news is critical to a city. A local newspaper bands citizens together. It tells us about local boys heading off to the Olympics, Good Samaritans who stopped a thief in our city, how our tax money is being spent and how our OHL team is doing. (Well, I can also tell you that – the Frontenacs aren't doing well, but who am I to judge? Some days, I don't shower.)
It's an interesting time to watch newspapers and see who survives (and thrives even?) and how they do it. It would a great time to be a sociologist working in media studies because mass media is changing every second.
Will I ever be a newspaper girl again? I don't know.
Being laid off gives you a lot of time to think, (which gives you an excuse to not do the dishes), and I've realized that life is short and the career I thought I'd have forever didn't even get me to age 32.
There have been some highs and many, many lows being laid off (I haven't slept through the night in six weeks, however I have ripped arms from going to the gym so often) but that's for another time. Something a journalist would call The Followup Story.

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