Meet up with Shannon Waters, our new B.C. politics and ecosystem reporter

When Shannon Waters first joined the press gallery at the B.C. legislature, the choice on no matter if or not to keep on the Web site C dam task was looming big. Shannon was there as a reporter for BC Now, a daily political publication, and she remembers getting blown away by extensive-time Narwhal reporter Sarah Cox’s operate.

“Her capacity to look at these substantial advanced reports, which, at the time, I generally just felt like I was drowning in, and lower by means of that to inform stories about what was definitely heading on was outstanding,” Shannon suggests. “That was my original intro and I have been adhering to The Narwhal ever due to the fact!” 

Speedy forward extra than 6 yrs later on, Shannon joins The Narwhal as our initially-ever B.C. politics and setting reporter. And get this, Sarah will be her editor in the new gig. 

“After decades of admiring their work, I’m excited to get the job done with Sarah and the whole Narwhal staff,” Shannon suggests.

I sat down with Shannon to get to know her superior and hear a lot more about what introduced her The Narwhal’s expanding pod. 

What’s your favourite animal? 

That’s quick, it’s an octopus. I have one particular tattooed on my arm. I just assume it is genuinely neat that we have a creature on this world as intelligent as an octopus. It’s the closest factor to alien lifetime that we have at any time arrive across but it’s ideal listed here on the planet with us. And I assume that is very great. 

What is the detail about journalism that will get you thrilled to start off your get the job done day?

I get thrilled about doing the job as a journalist for the reason that each and every day is a little bit various. I like acquiring the possibility to find out new things on a typical basis, partly since I get bored truly effortlessly. 

My beloved point about becoming a reporter is you under no circumstances truly know specifically how your day is gonna go and you are normally acquiring to speak to exciting folks. As a reward, I also truly like to generate, and I constantly have.

Your initial job was at a radio station in Prince George, B.C. How did this early expertise shape you?

I believe it definitely honed my feeling of journalism currently being section of the local community and a community provider. We coated all forms of items. I was on the school board defeat when I 1st received there and then I was masking city hall a very little afterwards on. I did a weekend shift. I coated crime stories.

Occasionally you’d commence out the day masking 1 story and then by the finish of the day, you’d be undertaking one thing else. I was also in Prince George in 2017, for the wildfires, and the town turned a hub for individuals who were being displaced from all throughout B.C. That was a actually rigorous, eye-opening experience about what communities can do for persons when they are put to the examination. So yet again, understanding matters, and that range and having to produce about them for a living.

You are a self-described political nerd. Wherever does that appear from? 

I’m fascinated by politics since it touches every part of our life, and there is not truly any way to get away from it. I take into account myself a bit cynical about our political systems but even if you really don’t like them, or really do not think in them, or don’t want anything at all to do with them, you cannot genuinely get absent from politics. I come across it interesting to look at what is heading on in the political sphere, what form of guidelines are preferred at the minute? Which ones are remaining turned down? How is that discussion going? How did it get started off? Where by may well it go? And politics is also about persons. 

I like currently being a person who can with any luck , try out and enable folks fully grasp why politics matters, what they can do to check out and have an affect on the change that they may well want to see and how the politics in their area or the policies being enacted by politicians impacts them and the folks close to them. It is not a thing that all people finds interesting. A good deal of people’s eyes glaze in excess of when you explain to them you’re a political or a legislative reporter. But I really get pleasure from the work. And it is a person of those points that feels like, well, somebody should be executing it. And so for now, at the very least, that any individual can be me.

It is an election year in B.C. What are you most psyched about?

I’m searching forward to viewing what occurs. We’re genuinely in a quite attention-grabbing room in B.C. correct now. If you were being speaking to me a yr ago about the election, I would almost certainly have sounded a bit more bored, simply because it appeared like a lot much more of a foregone summary — you know, the NDP ended up going to most likely earn a the greater part and we’d have form of extra of the identical. But now you have this definitely exciting churn in the political landscape with the emergence of the B.C. Conservatives as a genuine contender of a social gathering in accordance to the polling that we’ve been seeing. Meanwhile B.C. United, which is the really properly-founded B.C. Liberal party renamed, has form of had the wheels come off. 

So, I’m actually intrigued to see what comes about on the marketing campaign path as you have these parties trying to court docket voters, what form of strategies they are likely to set forward. I’m also actually curious what it implies for the Green Bash. B.C. has not experienced a great deal of elections where by we’ve had so lots of functions competing for seats in the legislature and I consider that’s heading to make for a extremely fascinating and possibly quite remarkable marketing campaign.

What form of tales do you hope to convey to extra of?

I am thrilled about acquiring extra in depth. I have been executing day by day information for about 7 a long time now, including covering elections. I have really savored carrying out that and I feel like when you’re a day by day information reporter you also have all these thoughts about prospective stories that need a closer search or more time to percolate. So I’m genuinely looking forward to searching at the news landscape and observing what’s missing. With the election, I’m also enthusiastic to glance back and feel: what was the federal government declaring about this certain plan in the final election? What have they completed on it during the interim? And what are they expressing now? 

I believe one particular of the greatest items I discovered as BC Today’s reporter and later Politics Today’s editor-in-chief is finding the stories in the minutia and the nuts and bolts of what goes on in the legislature. There’s a list that has been setting up in my head for a lengthy time of all of these tales that I’ve required to get a nearer look at above the years and I’m energized to get begun. 

What are 3 matters people might not know about you?

I could try to eat peanut butter toast and drink espresso every single working day of my existence and die happy. Developing up I required to be a maritime biologist and examine both sharks or cephalopods. I am the major phrase nerd, which can be a excellent matter for a person who writes for a living, but is from time to time a battle. I am nevertheless striving to use the word “absquatulate” in a story someday!