Kim Bolan, Award-Winning Investigative Reporter, Vancouver Sun

Kara Barten: How and why did you become involved in online journalism?

KB: I have been at my daily newspaper for 25 years and really began to enjoy the immediacy of filing stories to the web from out in the field. So I have been pretty enthusiastic about it for the last three or four years. Then about 18 months ago, I really committed to doing a blog full-time and it has just exploded in local popularity.

The blog has evolved (the readers force that in a way) and it is now a forum on gang and organized crime with actual gang members posting, community members responding and police officers and others piping in as well. It now has a monthly viewership of over 200,000 ... which for Canada is good.

KBA: What are your daily duties as an online journalist, and how do they compare to those of other media?

KB: I still primarily consider myself an old-fashioned print reporter, so I file to the newspaper as well. If I have a big exclusive or an investigative piece, I still prefer to break that in the newspaper or very late at night on the web.

But for evolving daily beat stories, I post all through the day and I get instant feedback and information from readers, which I love. When I write that final version for the paper, it is often better than what I would have had without constant input from sources watching online.

KBA: What are the most rewarding aspects of your experience as an online journalist?

KB: As I said, I love the instant hit. I love being able to shape news coverage in my city throughout the day, which I can. If I pick a quirky angle on a story I am covering, I'll find that I can basically influence all the other media to pick up that angle.

I love the fact that my blog has become a place where people go to find out what's happening with the city's gang problem. I try to give a voice to marginalized people caught in the conflict through the blog. Our gang task force has told me that sometimes when they arrest gangsters, the gang members comment how they read the blog or they pass on messages they think police will tell me. It is bizarre sometimes, but interesting.

As for negative ... my workload has gone up by at least 30 percent without any increase in pay so far. The web is a beast you have to feed. The readers of my blog make demands on my time and I treat it as a bit of a community service ... answering questions I am asked even if they involve some research. So time management is an issue. I have continued to blog on vacation, for example, so you never really get a break. But this will hopefully all level out over time.

I have also had a lot of threats posted against me on the blog and never know how seriously to take them. That has been a bit of an issue, but I generally let people say what they want even when they are very critical.

KBA: Are your colleagues predominantly male or female?

KB: It's a real mix in my newsroom. Probably more men have embraced online journalism at my place, but no one uses the web as much as I do.

KBA: As an online journalist, how do you work with your colleagues each day?

KB: Sometimes I work in the newsroom. But my preference ... even in pre-online days ... was always to go out in the field as much as possible. That's where the stories are. I research, I investigate, I interview and I am able to file everything remotely. I love that. I love being able to describe to readers what it is like in a high-profile court case or out at a murder scene and I include details on-line that I would never have room for in the paper, which is more formal anyway.

KBA: How do you differentiate 'real' (professional) journalists who are reporting their stories online, from those nonprofessionals who are able put up anything online and call it news?

KB: That's a hard one. I think the thing I look for is original research or reporting. There are so many sites where people just steal other people's work and sometimes put strange twists on it, which can be dangerous. If someone is doing original research and writing their own stories and their sources are apparent, they are a journalist even if they exist only in the on-line world. I did link up to some sites to give them exposure, but found that was a bit risky as I did not want to be responsible for what they posted.

I am on the site of a major Canadian newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, which is part of the biggest media company in Canada, CanWest Global. So it's easy to see I am official. If anything, I was more worried that my company would try to control the often rowdy back and forth on my blog, which is really the essence of it, but they have not. Things that we would not allow to be said on the Sun site are OK on the blog. I want the voices to be authentic, even when they are raunchy and obnoxious.

KBA: What challenges do currently feel you face as an online journalist, and do you foresee any in the future?

KB: I don't like it when my work is stolen by other media. There used to be standards where people wouldn't publish or broadcast something unless they had verified it themselves. Now I see information that comes from my sources or knowledge being used by other media without any of their own work, or without credit or attribution. That bugs me and I think it is dangerous for liability purposes.

Workload, as I mentioned, is still a problem. There also is not a lot of defamation precedent in Canada for online comments. I think there may end up being some guinea pig test cases where people try to sue for what someone posts about them (not the blog author, but the readers.) I fear I may end up as a test case. Defamation and libel laws in Canada are stricter than in the U.S.

KBA: Do you face any legal or ethical issues?

KB: I have been sent a few lawyers' letters over things people have posted to the blog, but have no suits yet. So far in Canada there have not been many test cases related to online defamation or libel. I hope I am not the first local guinea pig test case, but I may be.

I have had a few ethical dilemmas, mostly from learning the identity of anonymous blog posters and then feeling compromised. I have had information vital to criminal investigations posted and sent to me and I took it off the blog as I didn't want police to attempt to get a warrant for IP addresses. Some of that stuff is stressful. It is a bit like posting your notes or tapes of interviews with confidential sources sometimes. I let people post direct ... so I go back afterward and take down stuff that might get us into trouble.

KBA: What are the most difficult challenges you face regarding the balance between your family and your career?

KB: In some ways, the online world allows me to sneak off to a kids' game before the end of the normal work day as I have the technology to work from anywhere. Unfortunately too often, I am filing from social events long after work hours. Or I am off meeting contacts late at night after they post some desperate message to me on the blog.

It is addicting. I have a hard time sometimes NOT checking the blog commentary. But I force myself to stay away from it for at least some blocks of time.

KBA: Do you have any advice for women who desire to be successful in the field as well as raise a family?

KB: Just go for it. It is fun. It is interesting. It is surprisingly easy to build an audience. I think I could take my blog private and make it the basis of a solely online career if I chose to do so. Though I still like being at a daily newspaper for now.

KBA: Statistics show that it is hard to keep women in higher paying and powerful positions in this profession. Many women resign in order to spend more time with their families. How do you feel about this?

KB: I have always incorporated my family into my work and vice versa. I don't think that many people can achieve that successfully. I am not always saying I have done so, but I think my now teenage sons are well-adjusted and very well informed. I do have some police security related to continuing threats, but that mostly started as the result of my coverage of a terrorism case in Canada about which I wrote my book Loss of Faith: How the Air India Bombers Got Away with Murder.

KBA: What do you believe is the future of online journalism?

KB: I believe it is the future and I never would have said that five years ago. Newspapers are becoming a thing of the past and if news organizations are to survive, they must move forward and embrace this technology and medium.

KBA: Would you like to share any final words of advice for women aspiring toward careers dealing with journalism or communications?

KB: For me, journalism is much more than a job. It is a passion. Through reporting, you have the ability to change your community and your country. It is powerful and it is wonderful. I always report about the dark corners of society that many people don't want to peer into, but it has been a very rewarding, albeit stressful at times, career.

Interviewee: Kim Bolan
Kim Bolan was raised in Courtenay on Vancouver Island, Canada. Her passion for journalism materialized at a very young age. By age 10, she had already decided her passion would someday become her career. During her teens, Bolan began writing news stories for her local paper. She also filed to a daily newspaper in Victoria (about three hours away), in which she had to type the story and send it on a bus to get there. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Victoria in British Columbia and then received her Masters of Journalism from the University of Western Ontario. Throughout her college career, Bolan took up odd jobs to put herself through school, but remained active in reporting by continuing to work part-time at one newspaper or another. While working toward her Master’s degree, she did some reporting for the London Free Press in Ontario writing business features and neighborhood news. She also worked as the only staff member on Sundays for a radio station. Here she would work 12-hour shifts, covering the weather, sports broadcasts, and going out to cover the news. Her passion was noticed by The Vancouver Sun in 1984, where she started right out of journalism school and still works today covering women’s issues, education, social services and terrorism. Her career at the Sun has allowed her to travel to places such as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Europe, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua on assignment. She has covered many wars in many countries. Today, Bolan covers gangs and organized crime. Though her stories are still printed in the newspaper, she also publishes her stories in a blog, The Real Scoop (associated with the Sun). Throughout her career she has been a finalist or won more than twenty-five awards. In 1999, she won the Courage in Journalism Award presented by the International Women’s Media Foundation. Soon after, in 2000, Bolan was awarded the Press Freedom Award by the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom (National Press Club) for continuing to pursue the investigation after her life was threatened and she was placed under police protection. In 2006 threats were made against her life as well, while she continued coverage of her Air India story, for which PEN Canada (an independent, non-profit organization committed to defending freedom of expression and peaceable expression of such opinion) presented her with the Paul Kidd Courage Prize. She received the 2009 Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada by the Canada Library Association, and was a finalist for the 2009 Online Journalism Awards for her popular blog. Currently, Bolan lives in Vancouver balancing the role of investigative reporter and mother. She has two sons, ages 13 and 18. She values the harmony between her personal life and career, and enjoys working near all of her family.

Interviewer: Kara Barten
Kara Barten was raised in West Liberty, Iowa. As a child she always knew she would someday become a Hawkeye, and entered The University of Iowa in 2007.

Barten entered her college career with an open major, unsure of what liberal arts route to take. Second semester of her sophomore year she decided to pursue a degree in English, with minors in Spanish and Mass Communication. Barten plans to use her degree to get a job in personal relations. She has hopes to excise her skills through work with non-profit organizations. Gender and Mass Media has been one of Barten’s first mass communication courses at Iowa. It has provided her an insight into the challenges and rewards she may encounter as a woman in the field of journalism.