Transcript - Pull Quotes Episode 7: Inori Roy Gabe Oatley 0:11 Hello, I'm Gabe Oatley, the co-host of Pull Quotes. Rahaf Farawi 0:15 And I'm Rahaf Farawi, the other half of Pull Quotes, the podcast where we take you behind the scenes of Canada's top long form stories. Gabe Oatley 0:23 Rahaf, your voice sounds different today. Are you ill? Rahaf Farawi 0:27 Well, other than the fact that I've almost completely lost my voice. I think I'm okay. I'm okay. Gabe Oatley 0:33 Okay, so you are ill and you have lost your voice, but you're okay? Rahaf Farawi 0:34 Yes, exactly. [Laughs]. Gabe Oatley 0:35 Excellent [laughs]. Okay, well, in addition to the big news that you have lost your voice, the other hot goss on the podcast today is that it is the final episode of our season. Rahaf Farawi 0:50 Yeah, it is. I can't believe it. Gabe Oatley 0:53 How are you feeling about it? Do you feel sad? Rahaf Farawi 0:55 Yeah, actually, I think I do. How do you feel? Gabe Oatley 1:00 I am also sad. Yeah, I mean, I've loved getting a chance to work with you and the other members of our pod squad. And you know, we've just gotten a chance to like, interview such thoughtful and insightful journalists. Rahaf Farawi 1:16 Agreed. But to be fair, we still have a special surprise coming up for listeners. So folks should stay tuned and find out what that surprise is. But before that, Gabe, who did you chat with this week? Gabe Oatley 1:31 Yeah, this week, we've got Inori Roy on the podcast. Inori is an associate editor at The Local and she does a lot of long-form, feature work with a big focus on labor and the environment and education. And she's published in spots like The Toronto Star, The Narwhal and CBC. Rahaf Farawi 1:49 Cool. What did you chat about? Gabe Oatley 1:52 We talked about her investigation that she published in September in The Local called “Somebody's gonna get hurt.” In the story, she looks at the declining rates of health and safety [inspections] in Ontario over the past decade. And she talks about her process for tracking down journalist-shy sources and in particular, investigators didn't really want to talk to her for this story for obvious reasons. And she talks about all the different avenues she tried and what ultimately worked. So [it’s] a helpful, helpful bit of context for folks who are struggling to find sources for features that they might be working on. And she also talked about how it was ultimately sleuthing through Ontario's open data portal that sparked the idea for the story. Rahaf Farawi 2:46 Wow. Okay, well, what a great way to kind of end off the season. I'm looking forward to hearing it. Gabe Oatley 2:52 Awesome. Let's play it. [Upbeat music] Alright, Inori. Hello, welcome. So great to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much for joining. Inori Roy 3:08 Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Gabe Oatley 3:12 So Inori, to get things started, can you tell us about Mark Dennis, who is the main character in your piece? And what happened to him such that he would be featured in a story like this? Inori Roy 3:25 Yes, absolutely. So Mark Dennis was a transportation worker at the University of Guelph. He used to transport things around campus, it could be something small like, mail, it could be something massive, like a lab fridge. And he'd been working there for you know, for decades and decades, he'd been a loyal employee. And over the course of his time at the University of Guelph, in his job, he noticed that he was him and his team were assigned tasks relating to transport that, you know, they didn't have the capacity to do. Like, they were expected to transport things that were incredibly heavy up several sets of stairs, or across sort of construction-riddled campuses. And basically, they weren't given the right equipment, and sometimes the right training to be able to do the job that they were expected to. And so on multiple occasions, he tried bringing that up very gently to his manager. And [he] had been told, you know, ‘oh, it's, you know, we've made commitments, it's going to be okay, we always get it done. That's because you guys are such great employees.’ And so over the course of the past few years, you know, he had noticed that sort of start to increase. And it came to a head when they received a new shipment of trucks that they were supposed to use and the trucks that didn't have manuals that came along with them. And so there was a new system of hydraulic tailgates that they had to operate without any formal training or a manual to go by. And when he was operating the truck's tailgate one day to transport soil across campus. This skid of soil that he was, he was expected to transport, threatened to topple on to him when he was moving it. And so he fell, he jumped off of the tailgate of his truck and on the landing, broke his leg. And that led to, you know, having to having to take several, several months off work and having to take some serious medication. And unfortunately, a few months later, he actually passed away of a medication— a complication related to the medication that he was taking. He died of a bleeding ulcer because of the medication that he was on. Gabe Oatley 5:21 It's such a, it's such a tragic story. I mean, nobody should die because of the work that they're doing at their workplace. And your story shows that inspections at industrial workplaces in Ontario fell nearly 30% in the last decade. [It’s] a situation, which I think you've suggested in your piece, could be creating the conditions for more injuries, like the one that Mark experienced, I think it's a super important story. And I'm just curious, like, where you came up with the idea for a piece like this? Inori Roy 5:58 Of course. So this was actually the result of the practice that I enjoy the most when it comes to story development, which is that I just opened up the provincial open data portal, and I just started looking through the datasets that they had available to see what was interesting. So this was like five months before I pitched the story out. It was it was in December of 2020. And I was looking through and I found these sort of separately maintained datasets regarding workplace inspections, workplace health and safety orders, rates of injuries and rates of deaths. And so I put all of that together, and just did like very simple math to see what the trends were over time. And these datasets went back quite a way. And so you know, looking at the trends together, I realized that, you know, we were seeing an increase in injuries and a decrease in inspections and orders. And those are things, you know, seemed to have a little bit to do with each other. And so from there, the story really started to build up and I was able to get more information and even further back data from the province. And it started to put together this picture of a workplace health and safety culture that was really being eroded and in which inspections were just falling really quickly, and injuries were going up really severely. And that work workers were essentially being really the responsibilities that the Province has to workers, especially in the industrial sector, those responsibilities weren't being met. Gabe Oatley 7:23 That I mean, I think that's just so fascinating that like, you were literally just looking at the Open Data Portal and at different data sets. Like had you gotten a tip off that this had, you know, these inspections had been going down? Or was it literally just like, you know, you could have looked at like traffic light data, and instead you decided to look at like, inspection data? Inori Roy 7:47 Yeah, it's really just, it was really just looking at the data because I hadn't received a tip off. I, I just, you know, I'm interested in labor reporting, I'm relatively early in my career, but labor is something I care very deeply about and wanted to do more reporting on. So in the place where you can filter your datasets, I just clicked on the sort of labor subcategory and something beautiful came out of that one move. Gabe Oatley 8:13 Wow, cool. And okay, so you do this like data mashup, you start to see an interesting trend. Where did you go from there in terms of your reporting? And sort of like, where did pitching this story fit in? Was it initially like, “Okay, I've found this thing, I'm going to pitch it right away?” Or did you do some more legwork before you pitched it? Inori Roy 8:35 So yeah, so it's actually, I kind of kept this in my back pocket for a little bit before even starting to work on it, because I came upon it at a time when I did have a few other projects on the go. And so it just, it just sort of sat in the back of my head as a promise that I would never run out of a story because I would always have this sort of backup story on the go. And so yeah, I had it in mind, and then I heard from the editors at The Local that their upcoming issue was going to be on the theme of labor. And so from there I realized that this was the perfect moment. And so I started developing the story at that point, when I knew I had somewhere to pitch it to. And at that point, I, you know, started to speak to primarily union folks, those were first people that I reached out to. And [I] just started to do more research on the like, incredible labor reporting that some other folks, especially the Toronto Star has done, in terms of labor, legislation and regulation, and the past few years. And so from there, I started to get a sense of, ‘Okay, so we sort of have these figures in mind. We know that they exist, but we haven't actually covered this particular dataset — ever.’ You know, there's been, there's been so much data collected and it's not being used. And so from there, I was able to find the human angle because, you know, I was fortunate that a lot of people wanted to talk about the issue of health and safety inspections. And while it was difficult at first to get people who were personally impacted had lived experience because, you know, people feel a sense of vulnerability when they speak about their working conditions. And so nobody really wanted to talk, knowing that their employer would probably be unhappy with them if they spoke publicly. But then coming to Mark Dennis's story and getting to hear from his union leader that, you know, this series of events that happened. And then getting to speak to his family who was so open and caring and really wanted the story told — these factors like, they really helped move the process along. Gabe Oatley 10:28 Hmm. And was it through the union that you learned about Mark Dennis and his story in the first place? Inori Roy 10:36 Yeah, that's right. So the former president of that particular Union at the time, Janice — she was very good friends with Mark. And so she — Mark’s story was at first mentioned to me sort of slightly off-handedly, by a person from the union saying that they, you know, they “might have someone in mind, but they needed to check with the family first.” And then they connected me with Janice, who was a good friend of the family, and who told me about the story in greater depth. And then I was connected with Mark's family. And so there were a number of people who had sort of been struck by the the magnitude of an incident like that, and the way that, you know, something as seemingly innocuous as having a bad feeling about the lack of training you've been given, could eventually turn into experiencing it so severely firsthand and could lead to someone's death. And so there are a lot of people who, who, you know, mentioned it in passing before we came to a point where we realized that we all wanted to share. Like the story, they wanted it to be shared. And I really wanted to spotlight it. And it came to be at the forefront of this piece. Gabe Oatley 11:38 Interesting. Yeah, I was curious about sort of your focus on Mark's story for this piece. I feel like there's been some really great labor coverage of workplace health and safety issues in other sorts of workplaces. I'm thinking about Sara Mojtehedzadeh’s reporting for The Star covering situations at Fiera Foods, which is an industrial bakery, or at Amazon, for instance. And I was curious, because, you know, Mark worked at the University of Guelph, where I think most people would just think about students and teachers. And I thought it was really interesting to see, yeah, a worker in that environment who works in a less visible part of that institution. And, you know, some of the challenges that they might have in terms of workplace health and safety issues. And I guess I'm curious, in terms of what you were keen to highlight in the story, why, why Mark felt like, sort of a good character. Or like, a central person to, like, focus on for a piece like this? Inori Roy 12:50 Yeah, that's an excellent question, because it's something that I haven't really spoken about with many people. But really, part of the reason that Mark’s story moved me so much was because you sort of start to realize when you hear about a situation like that, that people like Mark are everywhere. And jobs, like the job that Mark was doing, are everywhere. In the months after I started working on the story, I would just walk around this, you know — I'd be like going grocery shopping and I'd see a window cleaner. Or, even just, like, someone who was like doing maintenance and I would see that, you know, someone who was like drilling into the concrete wasn't wearing a protective mask, [and that] you know, they were inhaling the dust coming off the concrete. Or I remember one time I was seeing a person who's cleaning a first-floor window and who had gotten like, their, their harness, had gotten sort of, slightly tangled, and they were just dangling there for for a few minutes, just trying to figure out how they were going to get down. And just seeing these situations where, things that we might take for granted on a day-to-day basis actually have so much to do with workers' health and safety. You start to see it all around you. And that was one of the things I really wanted to impress upon, is that when we think about industry, we think massive machines, manufacturing that could tear your limbs off and you know, people getting their hands stuck in machines, and, you know, really intense and extreme workplaces. Which are of course something that we need to be concerned about. And the places where health and safety, like, absolutely should be at the forefront. But it's also you know about “We're using this new truck but we have no idea how to operate it.” And “We're lifting like 400-pound loads but we don't have the right sorts of equipment and we haven't been given the right training.” And one sort of, one incident of seeing something you know, falling towards you and being like “Okay, what am I going to do to get out of the situation?” [It] could lose you your leg, your work, your life, ultimately. And that was really, that was really a part of it is that I think it is so crucial to talk about people who are vulnerable in the most intense ways and Sara [Mojtehedzadeh] has done a really good job with that. She's one of the, in my opinion, she's one of the best journalists out there in the country today. And but I think that it's also, we don't really get opportunities to see how it affects every one of us in a different way. And I think that that's something we need to start thinking about more is that, you know, when we talk about a lack of inspections and orders and health and safety, it could impact like our family members, it could impact people sort of across the spectrum. And we need to be thinking about it in a more compassionate, holistic and equitable way than we are right now. Gabe Oatley 15:37 Yeah, and in addition to Mark's brother, you also quote one former Ontario health and safety inspector in the piece. You give him a pseudonym, given that all health and safety inspectors sign NDAs and obviously, he was reticent to speak with you publicly for that reason. I'm curious how you found that source. And sort of more broadly, what approaches you use in finding sources who are industry insiders, who may really not — might want to talk to you, but might feel like they really cannot talk to you? Inori Roy 16:16 Yeah, that was a, it was a struggle to some degree to find folks who are internal to the industry. I actually, you know, there was someone who I had spoken to, for a previous story who sort of mentioned in passing, that they were part of the health— ah, not health and safety, that particular person who sort of I first tried to contact was an environment inspector. And so I sort of started by, it started there. I was like, “Okay, I know this person. They trust me. Maybe I can ask them if they have any connections relating to the health and safety inspector world.” And, you know, from inspectors in particular, they— there's a sense that they, you know, have to have not loyalty, maybe, but like, there's a sense of obligation and duty and responsibility in their jobs. And it's something that people take incredibly seriously. And so there was a lot of, there, I had to cover ground in terms of the way that I talked about potentially criticizing the Ministry of Labor. And, you know, who does that criticism fall towards? To what degree is the health and safety inspector, a person who is responsible versus a person versus a person who is subject to the system? You know, like, where does that accountability fall? These are all questions that I had to very delicately figure out while trying to find my way to the source. So eventually, the first person that I had asked, eventually, it was just like, “You know what, no. I can't help you, we have like, we have a duty to maintain to the Province and speaking to journalists goes against that.” And so there was a lot of that sort of pushback. And then I spoke to another person who initially was comfortable speaking and then later deferred to their union. And so there were a lot of folks, there was a lot of back-and-forth. There were folks who just, you know, eventually just decided they weren't comfortable with taking the conversation any further. So I was despairing quite a lot as to whether I would ever be able to get to the point of where I had an inspector on the record. And then this, this particular inspector, was the result of, I'm not going to speak to detailed because I don't want to reveal who it was. But they are a person who, in their, in their capacity as a former inspector— like, they'd recently come off with a job. But like, as a person who was a former inspector, they had also advocated for better accountability within their job. And they had sort of, they had experience with bringing truth to light as to the realities of their job. And it was through a number of sort of, a number of people recommending this person. And I sensed that this person was enthusiastic enough about holding their workplace and their former employer accountable, that they would be willing to sort of take the risk that comes with speaking to a journalist. And so it very much like, it was a matter of having spoken to… I mean, there were so many people that I spoke to for the story who weren't on the record. And there was so much that like, I wanted to say, but that I couldn't really say. But those, all of those folks I spoke to… I feel like at some point, I started speaking to interviewees who would tell me like, “Oh, yes, I like I've heard from five other people that you're asking these questions and that you're like, around, and looking into this.” And so I started speaking to people who sort of all had a network with one another. And so it was through that network that I was able to find someone who was willing to take that risk. And I'm really appreciative that they were. Gabe Oatley 19:46 And I'm curious, like, for the most part when you were trying to track down those inspectors like, was that you know, searching on LinkedIn like, former employer, you know, Ministry of what's its health and safety inspector job title? Or like, was that going through other sources? Like what were sort of like your key methods for tracking those folks down? Inori Roy 20:06 Yeah, I definitely tried the LinkedIn part. It didn't work very well. But I definitely tried LinkedIn. I tried, Indeed, because sometimes they have like job reviews, like from, from former employees. And so I tried that. But ultimately, it was the folks who it was like, going through other sources. It was going through sources who were, you know, sort of— union or union adjacent, or who had, you know, some amount of like— they like, they had a vested interest. And they were sort of either advocating, or were friends with people who are advocating or had, you know, reached out to their more vocal advocates around them. And so like, through those sort of, main voices, I could get to the people who weren't necessarily at the forefront of the public conversation, but who were very much fueling those conversations privately. So yeah, it was very much through having people connect me with, with other voices in the industries. Gabe Oatley 21:05 Switching gears a bit, I want to talk about how your peace dealt with the political decisions that led to these reductions in inspections. In your store, you write: “The problem isn't partisan. Both liberal and conservative, provincial governments have pushed forward legislation and cuts that erode workers existing health and safety protections.” I was interested— with that, you weren't pointing the finger at any one government in particular. I mean, you were explicitly not doing that. Yet, in this piece, like, you have this great graph that shows a really precipitous decline in inspections, starting in 2008-2009. And that would have been under Dalton McGuinty’s government. And I guess I'm just curious, like, why you didn't go there in the story? Inori Roy 21:54 Yeah, it was really interesting, because I, I think you can…I think the reason that I didn't want to sort of, dive too far into the history of this is because I think you could like, pretty easily make an argument to take it back several, several decades. Like, you could go, you could go back, like to the 50s. Like, you could go really, really far back and trace this back to, you know, more fundamental questions about like, how do we see? Like, what role do we see workers and laborers and people in jobs that are taken for granted? Like, how do we see them playing a role in our society? Like, what value do we ascribe to them? How much of a political say do they have in terms of shaping priorities? And so, it felt a bit difficult, honestly, to find a place to stop. And so there was a risk, I think, with this piece— especially because it's already quite long. And I'm always sort of, I always get kind of nervous about, you know, when would a reader stop reading? Are they going to get to the end of the piece? Where is it going to drag on for them? And so I thought that, you know, we were talking about all of these current issues. We're talking specifically about the last couple of, say, the last decade, maybe the last decade and a half specifically. And I didn't want to run the risk of turning it into like a patchwork history of labor realities. Because I think any amount of sort of historical digging that you do, that doesn't sort of follow a very specific thread— that doesn't really hone in on specific instances, will end up just being like a patchwork of like, “This is what this government did. And this is what this government did. And then we did this. And then we did this.” Without a sort of, strong through line without a like, really sort of narrow down and focused in perspective. And then I think, like, if you were to have a focused perspective of “Here's what x government did to erode workers rights.” Like, that would be a piece on its own, right? That's a whole feature in itself. And so yeah, there was really a question of whether that should be like a deeper section in the piece. And I always, I like to confer with my editors on that. And so for this particular piece, I think that the priority was really finding the on-the-ground voices, the contemporary voices, like incidents and experiences that had happened quite recently and grounding it in the present because of the knowledge that like any sort of digging into the past would unearth this whole other feature that you know, can't live inside this, this more intimate feature. Gabe Oatley 24:38 Totally. Yeah, what you're saying there makes me think of something that one smart professor said in my first year of journalism school, essentially talking about how journalism can be thought of as like, in like stalagmites or stalactites in a cave I could never remember which but essentially those like a hangy things that you know, mineral deposits create these cool little like, cave icicles. And basically there's this idea that like, with each story, you're like adding a little bit to the icicle. And another story is going to come, that's going to build on top of what you have have done. Ultimately such that we're getting more and more understanding of that issue. And I really appreciate the point you're making that, like, you can't do the whole cave icicle by yourself. Yeah, you're building on what others have written — what Sarah and others have written — and like, other folks are gonna write, you know, other pieces based on what you've done. Inori Roy 25:36 That's a really great way to put it. I really, I like that a lot. I think that it's a really lovely way to visualize what we hope happens. And I think that, you know, there is a problem of like, lack of access to historical context. I think that's something that really strikes me in the way that that reporting takes place. And so I do really value reporting that puts that historical context in. But I think, also that there's a sense almost that you don't want to… I don't want to do an injustice to that particular part of the story, right? And so it's very much like someone else, or even like me, at a later stage, like someone else could do a much better job of really diving into that crux of it. And so, yeah, it's been a, it's been an interesting journey in learning to like, really pick what you want your story to be about, and then not just trying to do everything all at once. Gabe Oatley 26:33 Totally. One of the things that you mentioned in terms of like, your approach to writing is that, yeah, you take really seriously like, the importance of having folks with lived experience in your stories. And that really comes through with, sort of Mark as the central character and the voice of Jim, his brother. I'm curious what your process was for engaging with Jim in the lead up to publication. I know, like journalism professors and industry traditionalists are, like, horrified by the idea that you might show quotes or that you would show an entire entire story. Like, some some folks I think are like, yeah, truly horrified by that idea. I think some, maybe younger journalists are like, maybe that's actually an ethical practice that I want to put in place. I'm curious what your relationship looked like with Jim in the lead up to publication and afterward, in terms of any sort of follow up or ongoing communication you've had with him? Inori Roy 27:40 Yeah. Um, so I was very, I have to start off by saying, I was really lucky, because Jim is truly like, was so giving during this entire process. And it's not something that I really expected actually. And I think that has a lot to do with just the fact that like, I don't really interact with folks like Mark and Jim on a day-to-day basis. Like sort of older men in like the trades, or who are in like the labor world or in the industrial world. Like I sort of, it felt like Jim and I existed in two different worlds. And so I was going into the reporting process, you know, I had a lot of questions about how he would feel about speaking so publicly on this. And you know, we’re a small publication, and so would he want, would he want, me to tell the story or, or would he want someone even, you know, bigger to tell the story? Someone who had a much bigger platform than we do? Or, you know, we never met each other in person, which is something that I still feel a little bad about. It was because it was during, you know, it was during the summer, but like, COVID rates weren't great. And so we did all of our interviews over the phone. You know, we spoke often in the evenings after he'd come back from work. And so he would tell me, like, “I'm sitting here on the couch next to my wife.” And I'd hear his wife in the background. She was lovely as well. And so there's, it was so interesting to be able to develop a camaraderie with him in terms of his, how open he was, how enthusiastic he was, and how like, willing he was to be really vulnerable about his relationship and about the impact that this experience had had on him. And so I never had to show him quotes. He never asked for that. I think if he had [asked for] them I wouldn’t have. I would have said no. I think that showing quotes is something that's very, very tricky. I try — I almost never, I would say I never do it. I can't remember the last time I had to. I can understand cases where people feel the need to ask. I can understand journalists who feel like they are willing to do it. I don't have any sort of judgment towards that. Personally, I didn't have to do it in this case, because Jim was really, really trusting and very kind. And, yeah, we had, we sort of had these initial calls, where we're just like, feeling out the process and what it would be like. But right from the start, he was incredibly open and vocal. And as it went, you know, we sort of, we started having calls where he would just tell me about his relationship with Mark and things that they had done. Like, there would be entire sort of half hour, or one hour calls that like, from which nothing that he said could be included in the piece. Not because it wasn't valuable. It was incredibly valuable, but just because of like, word count, right? And so like, there were these entire conversations that were just for, for background and to be able to get a sense of him and Mark's relationship. And who Mark was as a person. And there was something really difficult about trying to write about Mark, but knowing that I could never speak to him. That was really hard. There's a while where I grappled with whether he should even be the main character because he couldn't speak for himself. And so all I had was what Jim could remember of Mark's conversations. Luckily, he remember them very well from what I understand, because I would sort of confirm with Mark's daughter as well, like, “Do you remember the conversation going this way?” And she would say, sort of verbatim, the same thing that that Jim said, and you know, they would have a really nice sort of collective memory, because they all spent so much time together. And so I grappled with that question of whether I'm even doing accurate storytelling by not by including, you know, the words of someone who can't speak to me and can't tell me himself. But Jim was the ideal person to sort of be that surrogate voice because he was so open and honest and like, reliable— like you could you could confirm that the things he said were true and had happened, and was just, yeah, really generous in every way. And so I think that it's rare that you find a source like that. And I think the story would have been completely different if he hadn't been so open. But I also know that that's, you know, sometimes sources aren't like that. Sometimes they do really worry about the story that's being told about a family member. And they do ask to see quotes. And I think that's a question that a lot of people grapple with. And yeah, I think that it's an ongoing conversation that we need to have as an industry. Gabe Oatley 32:16 Inori, this was a blast. Thanks so much for making the time to tell me about the story. I super appreciate it. Inori Roy 32:23 It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. Gabe Oatley 32:31 All right, and that is your episode of the podcast for this week and the last episode of Pull Quotes for this season. The podcast is published by the Review of Journalism at X University. Our show hosts are Rahaf Farawi and me, Gabe Oatley. Our podcast team also includes Andrew Oliphant and Annika Forman. Technical audio support for this pod is provided by Angela Glover and web support is by Lindsay Hanna. Our executive producer is Sonya Fatah and music is by Harrison Amer. Thanks so much for listening and see you soon.