Peter Jackson · Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St, John’s Telegram
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Lana Payne’s introduction to the labour movement was a baptism by fire.
She was sent to cover a court story for The Evening Telegram in St. John’s, something she’d never done before.
“We were both in our early 20s,” recalls fellow reporter Nancy Walsh, who moved on to CBC shortly afterward. “We were straight out of university, green as the grass. To put it kindly, we were both deeply unlearned about politics and current affairs. I think we pretty much came of age together.”
In the mid-1980s, the newspaper printed the names and addresses of defendants. Payne accidentally got a name wrong that day. The next day, she was fired.
“I filed the first grievance, I think, in the union at The Telegram,” Payne said in an interview last week, “and the rest is kind of history.”
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