Juno News - How a farm mom became one of Canada's best known independent journalists

00:00:00.000 welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show this is the Andrew Lawton show brought to you by true

00:00:08.640 north hello and welcome to you all this is Canada's most irreverent talk show the Andrew Lawton show

00:00:18.120 here on true north as we do in kind of an annual tradition part of it is for self-preservation

00:00:24.240 because you don't always have the breaking news you need to sustain a news-oriented show we like

00:00:29.400 to delve in depth with some of the cast of characters we have on throughout the year to

00:00:34.800 talk about a variety of subjects and one idea that came up just a few weeks back when I ran into my

00:00:41.700 guest for today's show at a I forget what it was it was I think it was like a VIP dinner uh not that

00:00:46.860 either her or I are VI well she's a VIP I was just kind of tagging along because I was in Calgary at

00:00:51.180 the same time it was going on but I thought you know I think her story of how she became the

00:00:57.120 institution of independent media in Canada that she is would be a fascinating one and I realized

00:01:01.920 I don't even think I've heard the full story Sheila Gunn-Reed who is the editor-in-chief of

00:01:06.720 Rebel News joins me Sheila good to talk to you thanks for coming on today yeah thanks for having

00:01:11.640 me on the show it's always a pleasure to talk to a fellow independent journalist um yeah and my story

00:01:18.060 is kind of um it's the story of Rebel News I think and so many of us at Rebel News well that and that's

00:01:25.140 what I find so interesting because just to set the stage here for a moment you and I have spoken

00:01:29.340 at great length on air and off air about the decline of legacy media the rise of independent

00:01:34.740 media and and one of the biggest differences in the two apart from the business model is the attitudes

00:01:40.740 that a lot of journalists take and I think a lot of those attitudes are shaped by their background

00:01:46.740 and generally speaking not exclusively people in independent media didn't go through that

00:01:51.540 traditional pipeline of getting a journalism degree at a liberal arts school in Toronto or Ottawa or

00:01:57.540 Vancouver and in a lot of cases there are people that have just stumbled into it I mean in my case

00:02:02.640 I my background was in politics and I started podcasting as a hobby I ended up doing a radio show and and the

00:02:09.100 rest is history in your case you skipped over the mainstream media part entirely so how did you get

00:02:15.860 I guess discovered such as the case is you know the same way I think so many of uh our people here at

00:02:23.140 Rebel News get discovered and that is just making trouble and I was making trouble online uh this takes

00:02:30.060 us all the way back to 2015 and before um and you know I'm glad you brought up that uh the attitude

00:02:38.060 attitudes of journalists are so often shaped by you know their their lived experience to use the language of

00:02:43.520 the left but you might notice from the themes of my journalism uh parents rights um the impact of

00:02:51.600 climate policy on farming gun rights um oil and gas um that that's where I come from I'm a farmer a

00:03:00.040 generational farmer uh I'm the fifth generation on the same land uh my husband works in the oil field

00:03:08.160 and I'm a mom of three kids and so those are you know that's my lived experience that's a worldview for

00:03:15.240 which I look at things and back in 2015 2014 I was just a mom with a twitter account my littlest one

00:03:22.560 wasn't in school full time yet and I had a little bit of time on my hands when she was having a nap or

00:03:28.380 when she was at uh preschool and I'm concerned about politics I think uh politics for a lot of people

00:03:36.300 it's not a partisan thing it's a dinner table thing I was you know sort of concerned about how things

00:03:41.900 were going in the world and my husband's job and and uh our farm and how you know the changing tides

00:03:49.720 of the world might affect um my life my personal life and uh it was the in the lead up to the Alberta

00:04:00.220 election in uh that would have taken place in May of 2015 and I noticed something atrocious happening

00:04:09.420 online the NDP in Alberta were just putting up radicals absolute radicals with no attempt to hide

00:04:17.380 their radical background it was right there that you could see their radical activism on their twitter

00:04:22.920 accounts on their instagram pages and the mainstream media completely not digging into any of this

00:04:29.980 they were worried about you know politicians telling other people to look in the mirror

00:04:34.880 but they weren't really concerned about these people who are just attaching their names to the ballot

00:04:38.980 um and given the political climate at the time in Alberta they were throwing out the PCs Albertans

00:04:46.900 where we were tired of the corruption of the PCs and there was a split on the right and the NDP were

00:04:53.360 poised to come up the middle which they did and we ended up with a bunch of complete and total

00:04:58.660 wackadoos um elected um elected in the province like people who had never really had a real job

00:05:05.380 were in the private sector were all of a sudden governing the province under the tutelage of Rachel

00:05:14.140 Notley and that mortified me and so that happens in May and same time Justin Trudeau was hitting the

00:05:24.320 summer barbecue season and I thought these people in the mainstream media they didn't do the job it is

00:05:33.340 their job to vet the candidates also all candidates not just the conservative ones and I thought well

00:05:40.660 they're not going to do it why can't I and so I did I again just a mom with a little bit of time on

00:05:47.500 her hands while my littlest one was at preschool and I just started going through the backgrounds of

00:05:53.440 some of Justin Trudeau's candidates because the mainstream media failed to do it in Alberta for the

00:05:58.640 NDP and I in my sorry and my attitude was the mainstream media people are not any smarter than me

00:06:05.840 they're not any more hard working why would I rely on them to do this work so I just started doing it

00:06:11.380 myself sorry to interrupt you Andrew no I'm glad you did and and when you were doing that I'm curious

00:06:17.700 did you anticipate this would become a job or was it just something you wanted to do as an interested

00:06:24.220 mom that was affected by these things that you were motivated to start talking about and tweeting

00:06:28.840 about at the time I never thought that it would become a job in fact that's not the deal my family

00:06:34.380 signed up for I was fully committed to being a stay-at-home mom I still think I am a stay-at-home mom

00:06:39.440 since I'm in my little studio under the stairs in my log cabin in the woods but that was not the deal

00:06:45.540 that my family signed up for and when I say I was a reluctant journalist I really do mean that it took

00:06:50.660 a lot of convincing on behalf of Ezra Levant but going back to my story about Justin Trudeau I was

00:06:56.760 digging down into his candidates and I found a candidate named Alaba Zreba and she was the liberal

00:07:04.680 candidate in Calgary Nose Hill she was running up against uh Michelle Rempel Michelle Rempel Garner

00:07:10.780 now and Michelle was going to win her riding anyway but I thought you know this girl has said some

00:07:16.960 wildly crazy and anti-semitic things in fact he she actually uh tweeted I think to Ezra before he was my

00:07:26.620 boss at the time and I sort of discovered it she told him to go back to Israel and he's I think he's a

00:07:32.000 third generation Albertan charming yeah and I you know all I did was screen grab what she had said

00:07:37.240 dump it onto Twitter and all of a sudden it gets picked up and what she had said was so outrageous

00:07:43.180 that the liberals were forced to turf her um the mainstream media picked up on what I was doing

00:07:49.540 but even in picking up on what I was doing they were still getting the story wrong because as you know

00:07:55.800 you should always generally reach out to the other side for comment they were writing stories about me

00:08:01.260 without ever reaching out to me about why I was doing any of it or who I was the most they ever

00:08:06.920 got about who and what I was was just what I described to myself on my Twitter account at the

00:08:12.040 time which I believe was a sweatpants supermodel um and stay-at-home mom they were reporting on me as

00:08:18.340 though I were a large sea researcher as though I were a researcher for the Conservative Party of Canada

00:08:24.500 instead of just a mom with a Twitter account fed up with the failings of the mainstream media

00:08:28.340 and doing their jobs for them so fast forward a little bit Ezra starts um he had already I think

00:08:35.860 by that time started uh Rebel News uh called Rebel Media at the time and he reaches out to me after

00:08:42.540 sort of in the summer as this stuff is all breaking and I'm making all sorts of trouble for the liberals

00:08:48.540 online and he says you know you're actually doing journalism journalism is a thing you do not a guild you join

00:08:55.280 and I'm doing this thing and I think you make a great journalist you are curious you're good at

00:09:01.660 research why don't you just make this your job and I said I I can't uh I don't want to my little my

00:09:10.060 littlest one is in school full time or is not in school full time uh sorry just no I'm not interested

00:09:17.240 I'm a farmer I'm a wife I'm a mom I'm completely fulfilled and then September rolls around and he

00:09:23.620 says look I know your excuse just went to school full time so what are you going to do now and I'm

00:09:29.240 like well I guess I guess I'm a journalist and here we are eight years later and you're in that time

00:09:35.480 you well you you have to be the longest on-air personality at Rebel apart from Ezra correct

00:09:41.140 I believe so yeah I think David Menzies and I sort of started in and around the same time but I

00:09:47.460 think I'm I'm the longest serving on-air talent outside of Ezra and just to you know take you out of

00:09:54.380 your comfort zone there you're a little hut in the woods uh on the farm you've gone to India you've gone

00:10:02.060 to Israel you've gone to I mean you've gone to where where else have you gone in the pursuit of

00:10:07.580 journalism in this journey of yours do you know I'm lucky I didn't go on that India trip I heard

00:10:12.440 it was awful when you went to I went to you know I've been to multiple UN conferences despite being

00:10:19.220 kicked out of UN conferences for asking a prickly question in uh at the UN climate change yeah that'll

00:10:25.500 do it in Morocco so I've been Morocco that was the one okay yeah I was in Marrakesh Bonn Germany uh

00:10:32.900 Katowice Poland I'm losing I'm losing track of some Israel I've been on three trips to Israel um oh

00:10:42.480 Spain I was at the climate change conference in Madrid all these crazy places that when I get there

00:10:48.420 I'm like I I can't even imagine how my life took me to these places and you know that's that's the

00:10:56.060 thing like I I look back at the last eight years and I cannot believe the opportunities they're not

00:11:03.320 just that I've been given but our other journalists at rebel news uh it it's so bizarre uh to have a boss

00:11:11.120 who who's who has this sort of faith and trust in you but also sees something in you that you really

00:11:17.020 didn't see in yourself I didn't see myself as a journalist I just saw my self as a frustrated with uh

00:11:23.820 the powers governing me stay-at-home mom and he's like actually you know that you're a journalist

00:11:28.800 and it's just weird yeah and I mean just in my case I had a very significant contrast because I

00:11:36.740 worked for for chorus slash global and near the end of that experience anything I wanted to do anything

00:11:43.660 I wanted to talk about was met with resistance like there was one story that actually I don't know

00:11:48.200 if I've ever shared where I was invited to speak at a pro-life event and I was allowed to talk about

00:11:53.160 pro-life issues of my show no one had stopped but I was barred from speaking at that event for

00:11:58.520 reasons that made no sense and you know covering certain topics became increasingly difficult and

00:12:03.660 then you go to you know being being at true north and I'm not aware I've never been told not to talk

00:12:09.500 about something every now and then a pitch that I'll put will be shot down for financial reasons but

00:12:14.400 even then it's generally okay if you think that we can get our donors to get behind this we will do

00:12:19.640 this and the donors often do and that latitude has been so tremendous and obviously latitude is

00:12:26.300 responsibility and I think organizations have an obligation to make sure that their people are

00:12:31.100 using that power responsibly but that freedom has been so tremendous and I know you've enjoyed that

00:12:37.400 as well to you know dig into stories to research these things and as a result you've been able to

00:12:43.200 find stories that the mainstream media wasn't even looking for but then will eventually copy it and follow

00:12:48.880 along with after the fact yeah it's wonderful to see the Globe and Mail run an exclusive and I was

00:12:54.420 like I reported that three days ago you guys one of those we had I can do you one better we had one

00:13:00.120 recently that I had forgotten we broke because it was two years ago so yeah but it's a pretty common

00:13:06.320 occurrence for us now in our sector you know western standard rebel true north where you know something

00:13:11.360 is breaking CBC exclusive it's like well it was breaking a few days ago when we had it

00:13:16.400 yeah you know one of those was um when we uncovered the contract Justin Trudeau funding the Wuhan

00:13:22.820 Virology Institute that's the Chinese military lab that is credibly accused of being the source

00:13:28.460 of COVID we found the contract where he had given them nine hundred thousand dollars and then like

00:13:34.980 I think we dumped that on a Friday and then by Monday it was an exclusive in the Globe and Mail and I was

00:13:40.240 like come on you guys um but but going back to your point about the latitude to do what we do you know

00:13:49.700 I I come from a free speech network my boss is one of the um I think original free speech fighters in this

00:13:57.100 country but I think allowing journalists the latitude to chase their passions especially when they are

00:14:06.820 really just generally normal people as is the case with the people we hire at rebel news

00:14:12.280 it makes are you including menzies in that category do you know what he's normal is uh is you know it's a

00:14:19.900 it's all in context fair enough but you know and he's I think the only person at the company with a

00:14:27.040 journalism degree and we don't hold it against him as we always joke but you know you can you can see

00:14:32.200 a passion in our journalists work um and we all come from different backgrounds different viewpoints

00:14:40.280 and I let as the editor-in-chief our journalists develop their beat Drea really cares deeply about

00:14:47.000 not infecting little children with the mind virus of gender ideology um Tamara it has come from being a

00:14:57.580 fight the fines recidivist for walking on a beach in Coburg to I think one of the leading medical

00:15:06.140 journalists in this country um with her coverage of povid David Menzies somehow has become the leading

00:15:13.180 women's rights journalist in this entire country I being you know somebody who likes to hold government

00:15:20.700 to account I've really made it my mission to see what they do behind closed doors with your money

00:15:26.060 through access to information filings those things I wonder at the kitchen table I'm like you know

00:15:30.460 what I now I have the means to ask those questions uh so I think it lends to the authenticity of our

00:15:37.740 company and I think it's why normal people really connect with us because I think they can see a little

00:15:43.820 bit somebody at the company reflects who they are I think the most dangerous attitude in some of the

00:15:52.060 problematic legacy media figures is this attitude that journalists are this special class of people

00:15:57.820 and and I mean I go back to what you said uh quoting Ezra a few moments ago to this effect about how

00:16:03.580 journalism is something you do not a guild you join look the charter of rights and freedoms guarantees

00:16:08.380 press freedom but it's a basically an example of freedom of expression it's not a separate category so

00:16:14.540 your press freedom as a journalist is embedded in the free expression rights that every Canadian has

00:16:20.220 and even access to information requests journalists have no special permission to do this any citizen

00:16:26.220 of Canada can do this journalists often have more skills because they have a job that lets them take

00:16:31.740 some time out of their day to do this but any citizen is allowed and I'll be the first to admit

00:16:35.980 I've had stories that have been sent to me by individual concerned citizens who filed an ATIP because

00:16:41.580 they were aware of this got the documents and said I don't feel I'm the best person to go through this

00:16:46.780 here's the document have added and I do it but I I encourage like I don't want to be to use Pierre

00:16:53.420 Polyev's infamous word I don't want to be a gatekeeper I don't want to be in this special category I want

00:16:59.340 people to be able to do this legwork themselves because one of the things that I love the most about

00:17:04.140 my career is being able to satisfy my curiosity when you walk around in the world and you see something

00:17:09.820 you say I wonder why this is that way I get the privilege of having a job that pays me to find

00:17:16.460 those answers and I love it if Canadians feel empowered to do that themselves I don't feel

00:17:21.340 they need me and that's I think what keeps me humble it and keeps true north relevant

00:17:26.780 yeah you know I think back to one of the things that really inspired me to just start ripping through

00:17:34.380 those liberal candidates back in 2015 was this clip I think was from 2010 it was at a tea party rally

00:17:43.020 and Andrew Breitbart the founder of Breitbart News was speaking and he was talking about this thing that

00:17:48.540 had happened and you know the mainstream media reported it one way until the footage from the

00:17:55.100 citizens that they had recorded at the event came out and we saw this again with Nick Sandman

00:17:59.980 um but what he said was he told everybody in the crowd to hold up their cell phones and he said

00:18:09.100 this is the sea of new media to correct the lies and that really inspired me and it remains true today

00:18:18.620 uh we we saw this again throughout the convoy some of the best journalism that came out of the convoy aside

00:18:26.300 from ours I'm just tooting our own horn there we beat CBC quite regularly and you as well um but it

00:18:32.700 was from just normal people turning on their cell phones and showing the world what the mainstream

00:18:39.500 media refused to show I'm reliably informed that Ottawa is a place just wriggling full of journalists

00:18:46.460 but they wouldn't go down and actually talk to the people of the convoy they would stand across the

00:18:50.460 street and just sort of like point at those icky people and make assumptions about those icky people

00:18:55.900 but they wouldn't walk across the street and talk to the people so that they could hear their very

00:19:00.940 thoughtful reasons for being in the convoy and I think as a reflex of that that's why Justin Trudeau is

00:19:09.420 making these attempts to control what you can say see and do on the internet is because of the success

00:19:19.660 of independent journalists and I include anybody with a twitter or a social media account as an

00:19:25.180 independent journalist depending on what they're doing that day one of the things that I find

00:19:30.220 interesting and I'll speak about this candidly because I know rebel has been very forthright about

00:19:34.380 this and Ezra has been very forthright rebel has not been without controversy you go back a few years

00:19:39.740 and you know you've had a blow up and some more highly publicized exits from from rebel news a bit but even

00:19:46.060 when rebel was treated as persona non grata by a lot of the political establishment and I'm including

00:19:52.380 conservative parties federal and provincial on this you've always managed to have distinctly positive

00:19:58.540 relationships and I remember even at a time when the conservative campaign wouldn't allow David Menzies

00:20:04.460 and other rebel reporters at their events you were right there at victory night and not being given the

00:20:09.900 bums rush out and I'm I'm wondering why that is I mean I I know that you're a lovely person but but

00:20:14.620 why have you been able to carve out these distinctly good relationships with people that didn't even want

00:20:19.900 to associate with your platform at various times yeah you know what I I think you're referring to the

00:20:25.980 troubles as we call them uh at the company there have been times where we have been struck with

00:20:32.460 controversy but I've never been involved in any of that I have always from the very beginning even

00:20:39.340 when before I was a journalist officially I just sort of focused on the work um I you know I don't chase

00:20:47.340 fame I try to be as authentic as possible um you can eat like even in you know how I dress on camera

00:20:53.740 how you'll find me on cameras how you'll find me at the farm supply store um I just I don't make things

00:21:01.500 uh a personal issue uh with especially conservative politicians I think it's my job to hold all

00:21:10.620 politicians to account on behalf of the people and I think also our treatment of Jason Kenney here in

00:21:18.140 Alberta might have uh struck a little bit of fear in the federal party because um you know we we started

00:21:27.180 off with a you know a amicable relationship with Jason Kenney although you know he's a politician

00:21:33.900 we don't we don't have to be nice to him but he was doing the right things but as soon as he started

00:21:39.740 to do something bad we did start to criticize him from the right and I think uh politicians know that my

00:21:46.700 criticism of them is in good faith I I think the arc of financial prosperity and civil liberties

00:21:57.020 bends towards conservatism and you know when I start criticizing conservative politicians for not

00:22:04.380 being conservative enough I think it makes the hair on the back of the necks of conservative

00:22:09.580 politicians stand up and also I think it lends to my background look I am stereotypically Albertan

00:22:17.660 I'm like your stereotypical conservative Alberta rural mom when I'm mad at you you're doing something

00:22:26.060 that will ruffle the base and because of that I think politicians take me a little bit seriously

00:22:31.820 I mean like they know it's coming from my criticism is in good faith it's not because I don't like

00:22:36.780 them I don't actually care about them all that much I care about the people that they represent

00:22:42.780 yeah and I've talked about this with Derek Fildebrandt in the past the politicians hate it

00:22:47.500 even if they think we agree with them on most things because all their talking points are oriented

00:22:52.780 to protecting against attacks from the left so all of their talking points all their media lines are to

00:22:58.700 defend you know sometimes a conservative policy on the grounds that the CBC is going to attack them

00:23:04.700 on so you know why did you cut funding to x program and they say well actually no we've reallocated and

00:23:09.820 we've increased and then if we come up and say well wait why aren't you cutting funding to that program

00:23:15.580 they're really boxed in and I think that the answer to that is that it's not about finding the right

00:23:20.380 talking points it's about doing the right thing it's about being authentic and being grounded and

00:23:25.100 during covid that was something we saw uh conservative liberal ndp politicians all just

00:23:29.820 completely screw the pooch on so I go back to what you said at the very beginning which I wanted to

00:23:35.580 revisit about how partisanship is or about politics is not partisanship to most people it's about the

00:23:41.580 kitchen table because that point I think was lost on so many until covid came up and politicians were

00:23:48.540 literally regulating your kitchen tables they were literally regulating who you could have at it how many

00:23:53.980 people could be there and people that had never had a party membership in their lives people that may

00:23:59.260 never have voted in their lives all of a sudden found themselves having to get engaged and I'm curious

00:24:04.700 what that has looked like in your coverage now that you have this new wave of people that are paying

00:24:11.100 attention to political reporting that might not understand political institutions or might not have immersed

00:24:17.420 themselves in this world before how does that if it has changed the way that you cover issues

00:24:24.140 I'm not sure that it has uh because I I approach this from a non-partisan world view I mean I am

00:24:33.260 conservative I lead with my chin I'm not like the CBC uh you know but small c conservative small c

00:24:39.900 conservative uh you know I I'm I'm not like the CBC in that I try to hide my political biases from the

00:24:48.700 viewer I want everybody to know the world view that I'm reporting on things from I just think that's

00:24:56.380 honest and I think it's an insult to the viewer if you don't do that because they'll figure it out pretty

00:25:01.020 darn fast um but I think um my reporting has been I think probably from the very beginning um that

00:25:11.100 and this is more so now than ever especially since covid the world is really not breaking down on

00:25:17.740 political parties but rather the people who want to be left alone and the people who won't leave them

00:25:24.540 alone and I advocate for the people who want to be left alone um and and I want everybody to just be

00:25:31.740 able to live lives in the way that they they want to and I know we saw a surge in uh viewership over

00:25:39.820 covid and a lot of those people were people who would be on the traditional left but they wanted to

00:25:48.140 be left alone and they realized that they had to have a reckoning with their own ideology and a lot of

00:25:53.820 them had only ever watched us through the lens of what the left was showing them or they had heard

00:26:01.820 about rebel news but they just heard that we were just these right-wing goblins coming to tear apart

00:26:08.300 health care and use our ar-15s everywhere but once they started watching us they realized that we

00:26:14.620 actually thought a lot of the same things that they did about the state of the world in that moment

00:26:20.860 they had heard that we were shills for the conservative party but once they started watching

00:26:25.500 us they realized boy they're really giving it to jason kenney and andrew sheer today um we've got a lot

00:26:33.260 of as i as i like to call them baby conservatives um that need to sort of that they're figuring out

00:26:40.380 where they are in the world and uh you know i i'm happy to be able to um i don't know provide some

00:26:47.740 clarity about um you know what their politicians are doing with their sorts of with their money

00:26:53.580 i had this really crazy experience i was covering a protest a covet protest in calgary and this lady

00:27:02.060 comes up to me and she goes sheila i hated your guts you were so mean to rachel notley you were so mean

00:27:09.820 to her but then my union forced me out because i was unvaccinated and you guys were the only ones

00:27:18.060 talking about us and i thought okay those are exactly the people i want to reach every single

00:27:23.420 day not p not dyed in the wool conservatives of course that we report news for them too but it's

00:27:28.300 those people too who feel destabilized by their own ideology they need a soft place to land

00:27:34.940 the thing about baby conservatives you and i have used well you've used the term in in

00:27:38.620 conversations we've had i won't say about whom but the one thing i find interesting and how i would

00:27:43.180 sort of characterize it is they're people that have identified a problem something they think

00:27:48.300 is fundamentally wrong but they haven't gone through the process necessarily of understanding why

00:27:53.820 and it makes for sometimes some inconsistent applications and and you'll get these very

00:27:58.380 emotional attachments for example someone will say well i don't like government controlling x but

00:28:03.340 they'll defend you know public universal government run health care because right they're just

00:28:07.420 thinking of the outcomes they're not thinking of that underlying belief system and and that's

00:28:11.900 where i think consistency and longevity are very important parts of this and you know through the

00:28:18.060 covid world we saw a lot of people really have to rock to their core their their ideological

00:28:23.420 foundations because you know people that had been so trusting and deferential to the state

00:28:28.540 now had a government doing things that that even if you and i were to have spoken about a couple of

00:28:33.180 years ago people would have said all right they're they're just conspiracy theory i would have probably

00:28:37.100 said that in some i would have yeah i would i would have for sure so let me ask you because you're you're

00:28:42.780 doing what you do for rural alberta and and that in itself defies the conventional wisdom that you know

00:28:47.900 everything needs to be in big cities but but i'm just curious has it been a struggle for you just from

00:28:52.700 things like rural internet to getting to places doing what you do from where you are oh boy andrew i can

00:29:02.460 point to one of the greatest moments of my working career and that was when starlink arrived on my

00:29:09.180 doorstep because i live so rurally i look i don't have landlines to my house i can't get fiber optic

00:29:16.620 internet and just the advancement of starlink internet has really changed how i work it's allowed

00:29:25.900 me to live stream when that was something that was completely impossible just a few short years ago

00:29:32.300 i i mean it is difficult to get to anywhere from from where i am if i need a jug of milk look i've got

00:29:37.660 a 45 minute round trip i live you know an hour from town an hour and a bit from the airport uh flights

00:29:44.780 from edmonton are not easy they have to connect through toronto there's always onerous layovers

00:29:51.020 um but for me i've always lived here so the inconvenience of living really is just

00:29:57.260 a life whereas if you were to like pluck some ryerson grad in a city like there and say you're

00:30:02.700 now the reporter that would be like just a huge culture shock yeah yeah they would uh you can't say

00:30:07.820 ryerson i oh yeah that's a hate crime sorry i didn't mean to say ryerson my bad

00:30:12.140 um okay and let me just we're running out of time here but i wanted to ask a fun question

00:30:17.180 anyone who follows you on social media will know what i'm talking about people that don't you may

00:30:20.780 have to give some context what is the deal with the pickles oh you know i am people may not know and

00:30:29.980 sometimes people send them to me for reviews before they buy them themselves but i am a connoisseur

00:30:35.500 of fine pickles you will find me if you're looking for me at the farm supply store or the pickles

00:30:41.500 lock pickle aisle of your local grocery store i think this year i may they sell pickles at the

00:30:47.580 farm supply store yes they do uh they do they do um just your farm supply store or all farm supply

00:30:55.340 stores because i mean any store that you go to should probably stock pickles it's true i think it might be

00:31:00.460 more of a rural alberta okay because um you know we have our stores kind of have to double up but uh

00:31:06.220 like this year for example i think i made 18 dozen uh jars of pickles um i just i love pickles i don't

00:31:15.340 know what it is i'm just pickles and beef jerky are uh two of my favorite now you've had you've had like

00:31:23.820 dill beef jerky before i'm assuming yes yes and i people people send me care packages of pickles and

00:31:31.900 and uh pickled beef jerky when i'm at events guaranteed someone will show up with one of

00:31:37.980 those pickles in a bag saying she'll you got a long day you gotta fuel yourself to make it through the

00:31:43.420 day and i appreciate it so much um and uh yeah like i said i i always try to look out for my friends

00:31:49.820 and if i can give people a bit of a smile i try to so when i scroll through facebook uh every now

00:31:54.700 and then you know just like the idle scrolling i'll see something pickle related and i'll be like

00:31:58.620 oh i have to stop and share that with sheila and then i scroll up i'm like oh that was sheila who

00:32:03.740 shared that that was sheila's post i can't share it with sheila because she was the reason it's in

00:32:07.580 my timeline in the first place so i i think only once have i come across like a pickle meme that

00:32:12.380 didn't originate from you and then i i sent it your way so i i do enjoy pickles i i will say

00:32:18.380 oftentimes the quality is subpar so maybe you need to like open up like a little pickle sub stack and

00:32:23.180 you just review like a pickle a week or something i would love to do that i could do a pickle review

00:32:28.140 tick tock every single day um i've got a lot of like standards uh crunch whiff you know like

00:32:37.820 vinegariness saltiness there are a lot of um categories by which you could judge okay this is

00:32:43.580 what you this is what you should do this summer and if i need to get ezra on board i will do it

00:32:47.980 you should do like a really over-the-top dramatic pickle connoisseur show even just one episode but

00:32:55.900 do it like the style of the wine shows like that really snotty saccharine over-the-top snobbiness do

00:33:02.460 that and we'll we'll call it like you know tickle your pickle by rebel news with sheila gun reed i

00:33:06.940 don't know whatever you want to call it but i will watch that i would love to do that i would love to

00:33:11.900 do that i've already described like the whiff of a pickle as a freshly laundered is that like the

00:33:16.780 spin-off to that al pacino movie the scent of a woman it's the the whiff of a pickle

00:33:24.300 oh boy well last time you and i were talking about pickles uh david menzies just walked by and then

00:33:29.580 was very menzoid like so uh it's good that we can do it in a bit more of a mature adult way well this

00:33:34.380 was an absolute delight you do a tremendous work over at rebel news and you've always been a delight to

00:33:39.820 work with anytime i've been on the road and we've been at the same event and i i'm so glad i and and

00:33:44.780 my viewers and listeners got the chance to learn a little bit more about how this sheila gun reed

00:33:49.340 came to be plucked from the farm life which she still holds and i think that's probably very

00:33:53.820 important to your success sheila gun reed editor-in-chief at rebel news thank you so much

00:33:58.620 and merry christmas to you thank you andrew you too and same to uh everybody who works at true north you

00:34:04.540 guys do incredible work and uh canada is a freer place because of the journalism that you do well

00:34:10.380 you're very kind i always say we're all colleagues and not come i mean we're competitors too but i

00:34:14.140 think we're colleagues in the broader sense so i appreciate that very much that does it for us

00:34:18.700 for today we will be back next time with more of canada's most irreverent talk show thank you god

00:34:24.140 bless and good day to you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by

00:34:29.580 donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - December 21, 2023

How a farm mom became one of Canada's best known independent journalists

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