麻豆传媒AV

It's about to be a busy weekend here in the Irrigation Capital of Saskatchewan.

In just two hours time, the opening ceremonies of the 4th annual Prairie Festival take place at 4 p.m. over at the grounds of the Outlook & District Heritage Museum. What will follow is a weekend of pure enjoyment, featuring live entertainment, kids' games, outdoor markets, a car show, and food trucks galore that will surely satisfy at least one of people's culinary demands.

It's a busy weekend for me, but it's also a blast.

This is what my job looks like when that late spring/early summertime hits. Community events and local happenings that beg to be photographed and documented, and published both online and in print in order for local history to be captured in the moment.

However, I also pay close attention to what happens elsewhere in the province, especially when it affects somewhere very close to my heart.

Wildfires are raging not just in northern Saskatchewan, but also in our neighbours' backyards out in Alberta and Manitoba. Here at home, flames are pulverizing the northeast part of the province, and getting dangerously close to a beloved community that goes back to my childhood - Candle Lake.

Luckily, an emergency order was made official yesterday by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and the battle against the flames is being bolstered by additional efforts as I type this.

Thank you, firefighters and emergency personnel, whether you're from Saskatchewan or places as far away as Nova Scotia, PEI, and even New Zealand and Australia. When fire threatens many, the efforts to snuff it out indeed reach global levels.

I sat down and watched the press conference on Thursday afternoon with Scott Moe and emergency services leaders on the state of these wildfires raging in the north. As far as the topic at hand was concerned, it all came off as pretty standard to me; more services being deployed, more workers being sent to sites, more being done in general.

Thumbs up to that. Not perfectly handled, but that's bureaucratic red tape for you.

But I had an issue with some of the questioning by media that were in the room.

Well, one particular reporter.

This media representative who was provided an opportunity to ask a question on the topic at hand claimed that she was asking "on behalf of my national colleagues" and proceeded to swerve the entire subject and the tone of the room and instead asked about the street drug fentanyl and the latest reactions to all the nonstop tariff talk coming from the American side of the border. To his credit, Moe answered her question, likely because he knew full well that not answering would've resulted in some targeted bad press, even if it would've been plain common sense to keep the discussion on the wildfires.

Where do I begin here? Well, let's start with that tone of the room.

Too many parts of the northern half of our province are literally going up in flames. In response, a media scrum is quickly organized where the premier and emergency personnel provide crucial details that people are looking for and the direction in which this problem is being handled. As a reporter, your job in that room is to ask questions that dig deeper on the issue at hand and to provide a clearer, better and more in-depth understanding of the wildfires and how it'll impact communities.

THAT'S your job in that moment. THAT'S your direction. THAT'S your assignment.

This wasn't the day to ask about the latest baby tantrum from Captain Orange about tariffs or about whatever drug some people believe needs to be "done safely" in some overcrowded Saskatoon venue where staff need vacation days because there are too many people coming in to do such drugs "safely".

As far as the "on behalf of my national colleagues" explanation, that's very simple: Don't do your competitor's job for them. Someone from The Canadian Press or anyone associated with Bell Media (eyeroll) wants comment from Premier Moe on this subject or that one? Give them the media phone number or email address.

You're not there to do anyone else's job for them, and the only thing being accomplished by doing so is spotlighting yourself as someone who chooses to stray from the topic at hand, which can lose you a lot of supporters who are already questioning the impact of news journalists too much these days.

So please, fellow journalists, take my advice. When our province is burning and you're invited to a quickly-thrown-together media scrum in order to get the news out about what leaders are doing on an hourly basis, do us all a favour and read the room. Ask deeper questions about the topic at hand. Ask about measures that are being taken to combat these flames that are eating communities and forcing people to flee and find temporary shelter. Ask about how the efforts to fight these fires are being aided by other provinces, other countries, and more.

DO NOT ask about the boring, repetitive topic that a president who can't even enter our country legally keeps yapping his gums about.

DO NOT ask about a street drug that has nothing remotely at all to do with the situation being discussed on this day at this very hour.

And personally, DO NOT agree to ask about said topics by another news organization who's "just looking for someone to do us a favour". Tell them to do their own jobs and find quotes themselves.

In short:

Our province is burning.
Do your job.
Read the damn room.

Signed,

Award-Winning 18-Year News Veteran.

For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.