I decided to make life easier for myself by putting my best bookmarks onto a single Web site for all to use. Or so I thought, because things have snowballed and BOURQUE NEWSWATCH has taken on a life of its own. At first I had just a few daily visitors, then a few dozen, followed by a few hundred, and so on. It's now reached the point where my daily traffic rivals the circulation of many medium sized daily newspapers. And still it continues to grow as word of mouth spreads.
I love the fact that people increasingly find it an integral part of their daily online activities. But the resulting incoming email is developing into a bit of a problem. A pleasant one, though.
Page design is low-barrier-to-entry. No slow loading graphics, applets, Shockwave, or other trumpets and gadgets.
What at first started out as a handy reference site for my news
column readers has become a centrepoint for online newsjunkies
who have never read any of my columns. So, here I am, in perpetual
mutation ... just like the Net itself.
At the time that I launched, Drudge was getting a lot of coverage for his Lewinsky scoop and Canadian journalists found that I was essentially providing the same coverage from my "North of the Border" location.
That, coupled with my ability to ferret out CDN news often before it hits the mainstream press, gave reporters who wanted to cover me the obvious parallel with Herr Drudge. Of course, I think I offer a broader range of news from a greater number of sources.
Driving a race car at speed in competitive conditions is one of
the most challenging and enthralling experiences you can have.
Living life on the edge, the razor's edge, helps you appreciate
the basic realities of everyday life.
It helps put into perspective daily annoyances, petty jealousies,
and the mundane banalities that can often consume one's energies.
In other words, find a passion and live it. And don't sweat the
little things.
Well, I can't speak for traditional journalism, because I come to reporting from a different angle than others. I have no formal journalism background other than I have always loved reading and watching the news. I was/am an enlightened consumer of news & current affairs. And to an extent, I think that I am breaking new ground and pushing the envellope with what I do at BOURQUE NEWSWATCH. It is unique, hot, compelling.
Having said that, I LOVE breaking news. I love finding it, chasing it, mirroring it, and then moving on to the next big catch in the news stream. So the similarities for me, at least, are my passion for hot news; the speed & energy at which news breaks, arcs, then dissipates; the adrenalin rush of reacting to it in time to make a difference for my audience; and the solo effort it entails in that I have no editors, though I have a lot of tipsters who are loosely part of my team.
Racing, in its essence, is not a team sport. It is man against
man with every sacrifice offered, and where the consequences can
be lethal.
His name was Gilles Villeneuve, father of Jacques, the 1997 World Formula One Champion and 1995 IndyCar Champ. Gilles was Canada's first motor racing superstar and he sadly died at the wheel of his Ferrari while qualifying for the 1982 Belgium Grand Prix. He had been a small-town boy with a dream and no means who had gone on to seduce the greats of his sport and conquer the world in pursuit of his passion.
In my early racing days, he had been a tremendous inspiration to me and to countless others and I simply wanted to honor his memory and give something back to the sport by promoting it through the issuance of a postage stamp bearing his likeness.
There were many who called for some form of national recognition,
perhaps I was the most persistent with the political powers that
be. In the end, not one, but two stamps were issued to great success.
Copyright 1998, Thomas L. Mangan
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