When I was given a school assignment to interview a mentor, someone who works in my desired field, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew that this would be my chance to interview a reporter, someone new in journalism, or a person who’s starting from the bottom and working their way up.

Little did I know that a small connection I had in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from an old colleague, would lead to an interview with Paul Samyn, Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press. Having the same first name as Samyn’s daughter helped me get my foot in the door, as he told my friend, “Anything for a fellow Grace.”

I grew up in Winnipeg, reading the Free Press, which as a kid meant solely looking at the comics. It was delivered to our door weekly, a tradition of sorts. My parents are avid readers and knew exactly who I was referencing when I said the name Paul Samyn.

Samyn started off his education with a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Manitoba with a major in History and a minor in Political Science. “I’m not sure necessarily when I started university that journalism was the desired path, but it was something that was on my radar screen to a degree,” Samyn shares. After his Bachelor’s, he moved on to Red River College for a diploma in Journalism.

Post graduation, he was led straight to the Free Press in 1988. “I finished school on Friday, started Monday at the Free Press and never looked back,” he says. Samyn started in the business department for approximately two years, then ventured into feature writing. He moved to news, covering politics and the law courts at the Manitoba Legislature Building from 1993–1997. From then until 2007, he was in Ottawa for the Parliamentary Bureau, and returned to Winnipeg to be a City Editor.

He has now been the 15th Editor of the Free Press since 2012.

When asked about the favourite stories he’s written over his 38-year career, three came to mind. His first notable story was being dispatched to London, England, in 1977 for Diana, Princess of Wales’ funeral. “It was such a remarkable time from a celebrity standpoint. Diana was, the only counterpart I can think of today is Taylor Swift, but it’s different because it was tied to the royal family. You’re watching something front and centre that the world is watching.”

From his piece on September 2, 1977, “Manitobans honouring princess,” Samyn reported on the AIDS fundraisers around Winnipeg, in honour of Diana, and the work she did with AIDS patients, as well as her humanitarian mission to ban landmines.

Later, on April 12, 1999, Samyn reported on the Tirana, Albania Kosovo War, in his piece, “Kosovars rally troops to fight back.” He touches on the Kosovar refugees and the active events happening in the war zones.

His third notable piece was covering the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City. In his piece from September 13, 2001, “From numbness to anger,” Samyn reported on the “the apocalypse of explosions and fireballs that claimed the World Trade Centre,” as written in his article.

With such an array of different but heavy topics, Samyn explains that he approaches these hard pieces as going into the job knowing what you’re up against, much like physicians, firefighters, or paramedics. “You know what you’re getting into, and if you remember what you’re supposed to do, even though you’re close to something, there’s some distance,” Samyn says.

As noted previously, Samyn has had a wide variety of topics and positions as a journalist. Samyn explains that as a writer, you need to be able to know a bunch of small details about many different topics. “You may be at the court[house] in the morning, but if it’s a [Winnipeg] Jets playoff run and there’s a [White Out Street] Party that you’re covering in the evening, you need to be conversant in all sorts of things,” Samyn says.

Samyn says that he once had to interview a Nobel Prize winner in physics, not ever taking a physics class himself. “You have to make sure that you’re not wearing blinders and that your radar screen is going to be as broad as possible.” He emphasizes that it’s essential to be versatile in journalism; plans are rarely made in this rapidly evolving field. News changes within the minute, hour, day, week, and month. Journalists have to be able to adapt.

“You have to be able to think on your feet,” Samyn says. “You’ve covered murder, you’ve covered manhunts, you’ve covered elections, you’ve covered explosions, you’ve covered plane crashes.” After you have covered that first kind of event, you become more knowledgeable on each subject.

When broaching the topic of AI, both Samyn and I expressed the headache of such a tool. The Winnipeg Free Press has made it clear to their readers that any use of AI will always be overseen by a set of human eyes before it is approved. They’ve used this resource to help transcribe articles into an audio version for the visually impaired. As smart as AI claims to be, the Free Press team still had to make sure all the pronunciations of names, places, and people are done correctly.

“There’s a fear there, but there’s also an opportunity, assuming that the public recognizes the threats when it comes to information,” Samyn states. Readers know that they can trust the Free Press to produce AI-free articles that are written, edited, and published by real people.

“My job is to make sure I was never the last editor,”

In this ever-changing world, he and his team have had to ensure that they not only have a presence on the printed side, but the digital. His goal is “to make sure [what] our people read in the newspaper gives them value, while also trying to build value on the digital side … because at some point, the Free Press will not be running the press every day.”

When it comes to the evolving newsroom, the Free Press has shown that women have a place in news, and not just to write for the women’s column. When Samyn started in ’88, there were no females on the management team or in any form of leadership roles. “[Grace Anne Paizen], our Sports Editor, she’s the first woman to hold that role at our newspaper.” Piazen has ensured that the newspaper has an equal amount of coverage regarding women’s sports. Whether that’s women’s professional hockey, professional soccer, or Canadian women on the field, rink, pitch, or at the Olympics, their success is put in print. “There’s more recognition of excellence among female athletes,” Samyn says.

Other female lead roles at the Free Press include Wendy Sawatsky, Associate Editor Digital News, Stacey Thidrickson, Associate Editor News, and Jill Wilson, Arts and Life Editor. Samyn says, “If you take me out of the equation, there are four females reporting to me and three men. Add me to the mix, we’re fifty-fifty.”

As a last piece of advice from a long-reigning journalist to a newly aspiring one, he stated that there has to be a passion, a mission, a drive to keep writing. “Journalism matters. If you care about community, if you are passionate about the truth, if you want to make a difference, if you want to tell stories that lead to positive change, and if that always is what’s driving you, then you will have success,” Samyn says.

There is no passion without success and no success without passion. Not only does this relate to journalists, but all walks of life. I believe that my passion for writing has driven me each day to do better, write better, and be better. When we notice the decline in newsrooms, newspapers being shut down, and journalists being laid off, it’s important to remember that journalism does matter, it will forever have a place in our lives.