Vanishing breed

Humble copy editors hammer out a
paper very much like The Gazette in
David Sherman’s The Daily Miracle

THE GREATEST JIGSAW PUZZLE: Sherman

by NEIL BOYCE

A career in newspapers has seen David Sherman work at the fabled Montreal Star, the Sherbrooke Record and The Gazette in jobs that run the spectrum of print journalism: circulation manager, freelancer, music critic, feature writer, reporter and copy editor. It was in this last posting, in 2004, where he saw the potential for a story about his workplace.

Enjoying a twin career at the time as playwright-in-residence at the Centaur Theatre, Sherman was busy developing his first play and shelved the work for awhile. Submitting it to Infinithéâtre’s Write-On-Q playwriting competition last year, his story was among three finalists and is set to hit the stage this week.

Whether Sherman’s paean to the newspaper, The Daily Miracle, will be seen one day as a look at a struggling but still essential craft, or as a curiosity—an anthropological look at an extinct species—is still up in the air.

The five-actor piece offers a glimpse of what it’s like to hammer out a paper, day after day, under high pressure and a steadily worsening job environment. “When I was a kid working in newspapers a long time ago,” says Sherman, “it wasn’t a corporate-owned entity. The corporatization of newspapers changed everything. They were no longer a family trust or a public trust—they were a way to make money. There wasn’t the same obligation to serve the community or even its employees—that all went out the window—and with it, the standards of journalism and the investment in it. The work went from interesting and compelling to something closer to drudgery.”

Sherman’s play sings the praises of the unnoticed, unglamorous copy editor. “These were people who were incredibly dedicated and believed in what they were doing,” Sherman explains. “They loved, as I do, working with words and what they meant. Putting out a newspaper, working on the copy desk at night, is like doing this great jigsaw puzzle where you’re always looking for the right words and fitting stories in—it’s a fascinating job.”

And is it still a noble job? “I think it is—when you believe in the English language and in trying to shape it, to find the right words, to communicate with people—I think it’s pretty noble, and anybody who can work under the conditions they’re forced to now at newspapers is a pretty amazing person.”

Sherman, however, isn’t optimistic about the future of the daily paper. “The one thing I’ve found out in keeping up with the changes in newspapers is that nobody has the wildest notion of what’s going to happen. It’s great to say ‘Let’s put this stuff online,’ but that doesn’t mean anybody’s going to buy it. We pay for the privilege—quite happily—of having this magnificent publication delivered to our door for an incredibly cheap price. It’s pretty magical.”

Panel discussion

Infinithéâtre hosts a special event on Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m. Following the performance will be a panel discussion with four senior Montreal journalists. Alan Allnutt, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Gazette; Henry Aubin, Gazette columnist; Josée Boileau, editor-in-chief at Le Devoir; and Françoise Guénette, reporter for Radio-Canada. As journalists are involved, cocktails will be served after.

THE DAILY MIRACLE, JAN. 26–FEB. 14
AT BAIN ST-MICHEL (5300
ST-DOMINIQUE) INFO: (514) 987-1774
OR BOX-OFFICE@INFINITHEATRE.COM