Hi, I’m Heidi. I grew up in Copper Cliff and have lived here in Greater Sudbury pretty much my whole life. It’s home. I’ve been working as a journalist for Sudbury.com and its predecessors (Northern Life newspaper and NorthernLife.ca) since 2004.
I love my job. I enjoy the rush of sharing breaking news that gets everybody talking. I’ve covered many historic events, including this pandemic and the one-year Vale-Steelworkers strike of 2009-2010.
I’ve interviewed my share of celebrities, which is always exciting. I’ve ridden in a helicopter, visited the SNOLAB deep underground and even had a childhood experience featured in a Stuart McLean story. Lots of fun stuff, but lots of hard work as well.
Getting into journalism when I did — right before social media became a behemoth and when the internet was still in its adolescence — means that my job has evolved greatly over the years, going from mostly a focus on print to entirely digital.
A big shift for all of us in the newsroom came this spring when our former print product, Northern Life, ceased publication and its digital sibling, Sudbury.com, was purchased by Sault Ste. Marie-based Village Media.
While I do quite a bit of reporting (I currently cover arts/lifestyle and education, but also pitch in on other topics as needed), a large part of my day for some years now has been spent working in the background, with editing and content management for Sudbury.com.
Because I’ve been around in the news biz for so long, many of you have gotten to know me to some extent over the years, either in person or through my writing.
So I thought I’d bring you through that behind-the-scenes work that goes into bringing you Sudbury.com every day.
I’m the first person in the newsroom every morning.
Putting on a bit of classical music on my cellphone, I start out with my early-morning tasks: checking my email and Twitter feed, and seeing if there are any breaking news stories that need to be immediately posted on the website.
I then go through our Village Media sister sites and other news sites across the region to see if there are any stories there we might like to share on Sudbury.com, and flag any stories we should probably work on ourselves that day.
I also check our Canadian Press feed for stories that might have some resonance for our Sudbury.com readers.
I eat some oatmeal for breakfast, and by that point, community editor Mark Gentili has usually come in, and while Mark eats his breakfast (pistachio nuts and fruit) at his desk, we have a brief story meeting.
We discuss breaking news, the content we have from reporters and freelancers in our copy folder, what’s happening that day, as well as items we can share from CP and Village Media sister sites.
From there, we’ll use our super-high-tech whiteboard and markers to plan out our day. Between myself, Mark and a few other staff members, we edit and time news items that will run all morning, day and night (5 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays).
If you could see our newsroom whiteboard, it’s also crowded with not only our daily web schedule, but a list of court cases we’re following, Ontario COVID case records, our Sudbury.com record pageview stats, and the reporters’ weekend rotation schedule.
Another large undertaking for us at Sudbury.com is dealing with the comments both on our actual website and on Facebook. Mark does a lot of the moderation himself — he’s just written a column on the process — but I do it when he’s away or on the weekends I’m working.
After (and in between) working on all that behind-the-scenes stuff I just mentioned, I research and write stories.
The way we do that has changed to some extent in 2020 due to (you guessed it) the pandemic. I’ve mostly been doing interviews over the phone and through Zoom calls, and having people submit photos.
I can count the number of press conferences and other news events I’ve been to in person since March on one hand.
Other signs of the pandemic in the newsroom: a couple of boxes of disposable masks for our rare in-person assignments, along with an econo-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. Otherwise, it’s the same rather cluttered, often-noisy place.
It was especially hectic in the beginning of COVID-19, with non-stop breaking news, but by now, we’ve settled into the “new normal,” to use an overused phrase.
Whatever happens during this increasing second wave of the pandemic, you can count on me and the rest of the Sudbury.com crew to (as safely as we can) bring you up-to-date news on the pandemic and other important topics. That’s a promise.
Heidi Ulrichsen in the associate content editor for Sudbury.com
