This is not a column I would have ever expected to write, but I'm very touched I was asked to do so.
As many of you are aware, I'm leaving BarrieToday and the amazing Village Media family to give another passion a try.
I have long been fascinated with municipal politics and an opportunity came up — I was too deeply compelled by it to turn it down.
There was no ‘pros and cons’ list. There are no pros to leaving a company I love and an industry I defend. There is simply what I feel and what I want to attempt.
This was a very emotional decision for me. Not only is it something new and unknown — that is scary enough — but I took a longer road to get to full-time journalism than many others and I worked extremely hard to do so.
That included long hours in a warehouse where I would get home at 5 or 6 a.m., get my daughters ready for school, and then try to write whatever freelance assignments I had been given or I could find.
That went on for many years as I tried to get a full-time gig and get out of the warehouse, which didn’t happen until BarrieToday came to town in 2015.
After three years of freelancing for this amazing company and being given amazing opportunities to tell the stories of our city, they eventually brought me on full-time, just in time for the birth of my youngest daughter, which happened mere weeks later.
This is not an easy job — and I’m not referring to the recent wave of anti-media, anti-everything tweeters.
It's your family eating while you type in the other room and tears hit your keyboard as you try to compassionately convey that we lost eight people in one day during the COVID tragedy at the Roberta Place long-term care home. It's about being affected so deeply that you connect with victims' family members to tell their personal story and to ensure they weren’t just a number.
It's talking to a wife with kids whose husband took his own life just days before and trying to hold it together while she details the last time she saw him. It's also telling the story of someone who lost their loved one under the most tragic circumstances, but is fed up with the silence of suicide — both of you agree that someone may read that article and get the help they so desperately need.
It's being on holidays when you get a call that they found the six missing young people and you’re asked to come back to work and to be involved in one of the hardest stories you’ll ever write. Stories that needed to be told with compassion, grace and patience.
It's asking someone if they have anywhere to go while their destroyed home is behind them an hour after a tornado hits. It's also about inspiring stories of an entire community coming together to take care of each other.
It's sitting in Milligan’s Pond with someone who is homeless, who is out of options and just wants someone to hear them. It's sitting and listening — full stop. It's all you can do because the crisis is out of hand and their stories need to be told.
It's also about people with guns and buildings on fire at any hour, because those events don’t have a calendar or punch clock. And it's also rolling your eyes to your wife at who knows what hour, but secretly knowing you enjoy the rush of getting the story first to the community, because that's just part of the job.
But it's also the most rewarding job I can imagine.
I moved here in 2008 because I love this city. Over the last 15 years, I have learned so much about the good and bad of Barrie, and I still love it. I want to know more and I feel like learning how our city’s politics work from another point of view will help do that.
There will be detractors and criticism for my decision, but as a reporter I am more than used to that. I've had stories published at 8 a.m. where I am a “Liberal shill,” but by 4 p.m., I am a “Conservative hack” for writing the same story. This has happened more than once.
I don’t care about the “right” and I don’t care about the “left.” I care about Barrie and I want to know so much more.
I will miss this job more than you can imagine.
I will miss my editor’s playful disdain for the Maple Leafs and cannot wait to see his face when "we" win the Stanley Cup in 2024.
I will miss Village Media because, of the many companies I have worked for in the last 30 years, they are the best. Bar none.
I will miss being part of the best news team in the city and know those who are still here will continue to do the right thing.
I have been with them since pretty close to Day 1, the longest-serving BarrieToday member. They gave me a chance to make a better life for myself and my family, and to live a dream I have had since I was a teenager, which was to be a journalist.
Thank you to anyone who has ever trusted me with their story. I take pride in that trust.
I also thank those sources who kept me informed and knew I would keep their names private. I believe reporters get those types of reliable sources when they are completely trusted. That isn’t lost on me.
Local journalism is important, because local stories are and always will be crucial to the community.
It's been a fun and educational journey, learning about the city and telling stories.
Shawn Gibson has been reporting for BarrieToday since its earliest days. Today marks his last day.
