Editorial: When "The Media" Walks Into the Room

There are moments in life that make you stop, look around, and wonder if everyone else is participating in a completely different movie than the one you thought you were starring in. I had one of those moments recently while attending the Alberta Municipalities Municipal Summer Leaders Caucus in Red Deer.

I walked into the room, ready to shake a few hands, catch up with familiar faces, and maybe locate the coffee before someone else emptied the pot. Instead, I was greeted with a sentence that still makes me laugh every time I think about it. "Chris Brown has entered the room. The media is here."

Now, I have been called many things over the years. Some of them I can print. Some of them I definitely cannot. But hearing myself introduced as "the media" felt like someone had accidentally promoted me without sending the paperwork first. I looked around to see if another Chris Brown was standing behind me carrying a satellite truck and a notebook full of confidential government documents. There was not. Apparently, I was the media.

Welcome to 2026.

The funny thing is that I still do not think of myself that way. I know why other people do. I understand the perception. I walk around with cameras, microphones, lights, and enough equipment to make airport security question my life choices. My show reaches people across Canada. I interview politicians, business leaders, community advocates, and anyone with a story worth telling. On paper, I suppose it checks enough boxes that people naturally place me into the media category. But in my own mind, I still see the guy who started this journey back in 2019 because he simply wanted to have conversations that mattered. There was never some grand plan to become a media personality. There was no vision board with flashing lights, television cameras, and dramatic theme music. It started because I enjoyed listening to people, asking questions, and telling stories.

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Perhaps that is why these moments continue to humble me. Every single time someone changes the way they behave because I have entered a room, I feel a little awkward. Suddenly conversations become quieter. Jokes become safer. People glance over their shoulder before finishing a sentence. Some immediately become polished politicians even if they are nowhere near elected office. Others seem convinced that every word they say is seconds away from becoming tomorrow's headline. I always want to reassure them that I am not secretly recording every conversation while pretending to stir my coffee.

In fact, I have always believed that there is a very clear line between a conversation and an interview. That line begins when I press record. Before that happens, people are simply people.

Maybe that makes me old-fashioned. Maybe it makes me naïve. Either way, I have always believed ethics matter more than clicks. The interview starts when the camera starts. The microphone goes live when everyone knows it is live. It really is that simple. I have never believed in ambushing people because they happened to say something interesting while standing beside the cookie tray. I have never enjoyed gotcha journalism where the objective seems to be catching someone on their worst day instead of helping people better understand an issue.

There are certainly journalists who do exceptional investigative work, and society absolutely needs them. Democracy depends on people willing to dig deep, challenge authority, and uncover stories that would otherwise remain hidden. I have enormous respect for those professionals because that work requires skill, patience, courage, and an incredible amount of research.

That simply is not who I am.

I ask difficult questions. Sometimes I ask questions that make guests uncomfortable. If someone opens the door to an issue, I believe it is fair game to explore it. Honest conversations are not always comfortable conversations. They should not be. But there is a significant difference between asking tough questions and trying to embarrass someone for entertainment. My goal has never been to win an interview. My goal has always been to understand the person sitting across from me and hopefully help viewers understand them too. Sometimes that means challenging them. Sometimes that means giving them space to explain themselves. Sometimes it means sitting quietly because silence often produces the most thoughtful answers.

Somewhere along the way, however, perception took over reality. Somewhere between those first episodes in 2019 and today, people stopped seeing me as someone with a camera and started seeing me as "the media." That still feels strange to admit. It is even stranger to write. There are journalists with decades of experience who have forgotten more about reporting than I will ever know. There are investigative reporters who spend months chasing a single story. There are newsroom veterans who understand media law, public policy, and investigative techniques on a level I simply cannot pretend to match. Compared to them, I often feel like the kid who accidentally wandered into the professionals' clubhouse because nobody checked his membership card.

Yet perception has a funny way of becoming its own reality.

When people believe you represent the media, they treat you differently regardless of how you see yourself. They become cautious. They become calculated. Every sentence suddenly feels like it has legal representation. Even compliments sometimes arrive wrapped in disclaimers. I have noticed it more and more over the past several months. People hesitate before speaking. They ask whether we are recording before they finish saying hello. They assume every conversation is somehow destined for public consumption. Ironically, I often spend more time convincing people to relax than I do asking them questions.

There is something almost comical about that. I still spend far too much time worrying whether my microphone battery is charged or whether my camera lens has fingerprints on it to think of myself as some intimidating media figure. Half the time I am wondering where I left my notebook. The other half I am hoping the coffee is strong enough to survive another day of meetings. There is nothing particularly glamorous about independent media. It is usually just one person carrying enough equipment to qualify for physiotherapy while trying not to trip over extension cords.

The introduction in Red Deer reminded me how quickly our own perception of ourselves can fall behind the perception others have of us. I still think of myself as someone learning every day, trying to improve every interview, trying to ask better questions, trying to tell stories that deserve to be told. Other people apparently see someone who represents a larger role within Alberta's political and municipal landscape. Whether I fully agree with that assessment is almost beside the point because perception influences reality. It shapes conversations before they even begin.

I never entered this profession expecting people to modify their behaviour because I walked into a room. I certainly never imagined someone formally announcing that "the media" had arrived as though I was accompanied by a breaking news helicopter hovering over Red Deer. It was funny. It was flattering. It was humbling. Most of all, it was a reminder that this little project which began seven years ago has grown into something much bigger than I ever anticipated.

I studied journalism in college because it interested me. I came back to it because I loved the conversations. Everything else has happened gradually, one interview at a time, one story at a time, one community at a time. Along the way, I have been fortunate enough to meet remarkable people from every corner of Canada and beyond. Their willingness to share their stories has always been the true strength of the show. My role has simply been to provide the microphone.

So to Alberta Municipalities Director Jenn Schmidt-Rempel, thank you for that introduction.

Thank you for unintentionally reminding me that sometimes we are the last people to recognize how others see us. It was a small moment, delivered almost casually, but it left a lasting impression. It reminded me that even if I still hesitate to call myself a journalist, even if I still believe there are far smarter and more accomplished people in this profession, the work matters. The conversations matter. The trust people place in me matters.

I may never fully embrace the title of "the media." I suspect I will always feel more comfortable describing myself as someone who tells stories and asks questions. But if carrying a camera, respecting people's trust, asking honest questions, and giving communities a platform has led others to see me differently, then perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all.

I will still walk into every room the same way I always have, hoping for meaningful conversations, hoping the coffee has not run out, and hoping nobody expects me to have a television crew hiding behind the coat rack. After all, despite the rumours, "the media" still has to carry all of its own equipment.