Before I decided to work as a writer, I worked as an accountant. I got my diploma in accounting and finance, and worked as an accountant for a number of years. Given my background in business, I naturally like to write about business and economic issues. I decided to pair my accounting diploma with a degree in journalism. My major was public relations. I have lots of good experience in journalism, covering hard news like politics, crime, health and education. Features are something I enjoy writing as well.
In this portfolio update, I’ll include several business articles I wrote. One reporter I worked with complimented me on my article on the state of the B.C. economy by saying “it didn’t make her fall asleep” like most articles usually did. If she found it interesting, I think I did a good job on it.
I’ve decided to move into different kinds of writing, and have found myself writing promotional articles and press releases, which is fun to do. I’ve got lots of interesting projects coming down the pipe and 2008 is looking like it will be a fun year.
On a slightly different note, a while ago I decided to modify my blog template slightly. I didn’t like the picture that came with this template, so I took one of my many photos (I enjoy sunrise and sunset photos, and Alberta has some incredible ones.) and modified it for my blog. This one happened to be a sunrise. Hope you like it.
Business articles
B.C. economy outlook
Proposed coal project for Quesnel, B.C.
Promotional article & press release
Petago article – Christmas gifts for dogs
Petago news release – Christmas gifts for dogs
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Articles
With Canada having a minority government, we could be back in election mode in the blink of an eye. Judging by the ads on TV, it would seem the Conservative Party already is in that mode.
On that note, it would seem appropriate for me to post a series of articles I did for the last federal election. I came up with a number of topics that seemed to be important to the electorate and decided to articles on those topics only. Rather than respond to the flurry of new releases from each candidate, I took control of the process. The candidates seemed to respond well to it.
The topic areas for the last election were: crime, health care, forestry (in that riding, it’s a huge issue), finances, environment and social issues. In the social issues article, several topics were questioned, including post-secondary education, child care, senior care and poverty. These were monster articles and a ton of work, but I think it was worth it. It gave voters who read the Quesnel Observer in January 2006 a good snapshot of what each candidate had to say on each topic.
It was nice to see other papers in the Black Press chain picking those articles up. One editor said he thought the articles were really good. That’s always nice to hear.
For this post, I’ll start with the article on crime. It’s a perpetual election topic, with plenty of misinformation.
Quesnel Observer – Election issue Crime
Quesnel Observer – Election issue Crime page 2
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Articles, election
Having recently moved and condensed a lot of my possessions, I came to realize just how many clippings, articles and photos I actually have. There are hundreds! Many of them are not in PDF form because one of the papers I worked at did manual paste-up while I was working there. It was only in 2004! So, I still have to scan and PDF a lot of those.
I do have other PDFs, but I still have to go through them before I put them up here, which I will do. Right now, the priority is writing and also completing a new course I am taking on writing for the web. While a lot of it may be repetitive, there’s nothing wrong with reinforcing old lessons. I’m sure there will be some great information I can use to add to my skills as a writer. My first online course, just completed, was on search engine optimization. I learned a lot in that course.
If you’re looking for more of my work, check out another page of my articles, photos and writing.
Categories: Uncategorized
Time to post a couple more articles on here. I’ve been searching for ways, not exhaustively mind you, to put my PDF files on here along with a thumbnail view of it, rather than just a text link. I think it looks better.
You can occasionally pull my articles up if you search my name: Alain Saffel. There is a lot of other stuff on there, so it’s hard to find them. This will make it way easier. As my name is unique, if you find my name out here on the web, you can be sure it’s either about me or by me.
Actual Terasen rate increase higher than they said
Crime rate causes controversy in Quesnel
There seems to be a theme with these two articles: obfuscation. Whether it’s your gas bill or the crime rate in your community, it’s not really a problem if you just change the way you look at it. Yes… I won’t worry about my wallet being stolen because it was empty after I paid my gas bill.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Articles
I’ve got blogs and websites all over the place, and I eventually plan to host my blog on my own site. I’ve heard good thing about WordPress, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Since I’ve been with Blogger for so long, it will be interesting to compare the two.
My journalism job search site has been my main focus of attention lately. Considering I’m looking for writing work, it’s perfect. I had started it just to accumulate sites in one spot, so no matter where I am, I can always access those links. Others have also found it quite useful, which I’m happy to see.
What I’d like to do here is to post articles and photos I’ve taken and turn this blog into an online portfolio. I’m lucky enough to have tons of my articles as PDFs. I also have a large number of articles I have to scan, which really is a pain. I’m not looking forward to that. It will be worth it though, because they’re really interesting ones. The photos of course will be easy.
Categories: Uncategorized
