Hazel Postma and Pat Cooper talk to TriCities Community Television (Nancy Furness) about their book, "Cereal Killer and Other Tales from the Newsroom", which they co-authored and recently published. Pat and Hazel have known each other for 35 years and are both retired journalists with much experience working as editors of local newspapers.

The idea of co-authoring a book came about during the COVID 19 pandemic. After discussing whether to write a romance or a mystery, they decided to write a novel based on their experiences in the newsroom. They each worked on specific vignettes and then edited each other’s stories to create a seamless work. Due to COVID, all the stories were shared and edited via the internet or phone conversations. Stories span from humorous, to political to the more serious.

A favourite vignette includes a time when the ‘Now’ chain of newspapers were started on a low budget. Pat recalls how, to save money, staff created their own ‘no nonsense’, good news horoscope. Hazel shares a story about a slow time in the summer, where in the lead-up to the Summer Games, each reporter was assigned to take up a sport they had never done before. Hazel took up fly-fishing, and paint-balling where she discovered she had formidable sniping skills.

Pat and Hazel talk about the special camaraderie that exists especially in smaller, community newsrooms. Part of the book was an homage to community newspapers. Both lament the decline in local reporting including Op Eds and letters to the Editor, and loss of connection with City Councils, local school programs, and infrastructure; we lose the community ‘watch-dog’. In the TriCities we are fortunate to still have some local coverage. Competing news sources raises the standard of reporting by holding each other accountable and presenting different perspectives.

Pat and Hazel are in discussion about working together on a future project. Hazel recounts the online publishing process, including how they handled formatting, covers, and spine of the book. The book is available on Amazon where it is printed on demand. You can go to Amazon.ca to get it.

Both Pat and Hazel have extensive careers as journalists in print media and bring their vast array of knowledge and experiences together to tell an intriguing tale of journalism from behind the scenes.