The Chronicle newsroom is pretty excited to welcome a new face — especially since it has nothing to do with staff turnover. Caitlin McKay is joining our team as an intern, and you will start seeing her byline in the paper and hearing her voice on the other end of the phone.
Caitlin hails from Toronto, but her passion for media brings her to Vancouver Island. The pace of Ladysmith is a little different from Toronto, but Caitlin is no stranger to small towns. She took her writing skills to Winneba, a rural town in Ghana, West Africa, to work for Challenging Heights. She wrote her first-ever story for Challenging Heights about a young Ghanaian soccer team. Caitlin claims that while she interviewed the coach, she decided that this was what she wanted to for her career.
After she returned to Canada to finish her studies, she continued to pursue her interest in media. Caitlin started as a contributor for The Queen’s Journal, the on-campus newspaper and was quickly promoted to staff writer. In April, Caitlin graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in global development studies from Queen’s University in Kingston.
Pen in hand and ideas in her head, Caitlin entered the job market only to realize that journalism is a very competitive field and there are a lot of aspiring journalists. So when the opportunity to work at the Chronicle came up, Caitlin jumped at the chance.
Caitlin says her favourite thing about journalism is finding a good story. She loves to conduct interviews with people because everyone has an interesting perspective. She maintains that no one has a boring life story.
Caitlin already has a connection to the area. Her long-time boyfriend is originally from Chemainus and is moving back to the Island. Caitlin loves the area and thinks she is so lucky to live by the ocean. She is excited to start her work with the Chronicle and to get involved with the small but tight-knit community of Ladysmith. And she also secretly hopes to meet Pamela Anderson.
— The Chronicle
