The book begins like this.I was New Brunswick correspondent for Atlantic Insight magazine from 1979 to 1982 when I came out to Israel.This is an anthology of some of the articles I wrote then. The magazine expired in 1989.Why am I doing it?New Brunswick may be the most difficult territory in all the democracies for historians to find sources for events that happened in the province as time recedes. The reason is that the daily newspapers have all been owned by one family, the Irvings. Issues on which they had a vested interest got short shrift. But beyond that, without competition there was never any incentive for these newspapers to do more than the minimum. Having said that, because of the dedication of the journalists, pound-for-pound the Irving papers were quite good in obligatory areas such as covering government and breaking news. What was always lacking was secondary print media to provide a more complete picture of society and from different viewpoints. Atlantic Insight tried to fill that void and I think it did it very well within the limits of its resources.What drove this home to me was that I came upon a site which provides sources on the history of the labor movement in N.B. Six articles that I wrote in Atlantic Insight were there, making me the single most cited author on the list, and I was only active for three brief years.I was surprised and not surprised.The Irving papers simply did not cover the labor beat in the private sector except when there were strikes or actual events that bubbled over. As for features on personalities, examinations of issues, or general commentaries, there was never any of that. The Irvings are the largest employer in the province with a vested interest in marginalizing organized labor and had no interest in publicizing discussions about such things as technological changes, worker conditions and safety, or fair wages.Next to the family the most important thing in people's lives is their work. It's what they think about and what they talk about, and this should be a great source of articles for any media all the time and not just during confrontations which cannot be ignored. Not so in the Irving media. In the public sector, what was happening with teachers or nurses or police was covered sufficiently but that was a safe area.As a freelancer I was working in a vacuum on the labor beat and as a result these six articles got written and appar-ently they have been judged to be of some value to research-ers. That organization by the way is called Labor History in New Brunswick project (LHTNB.ca).I've only run one of those six articles mentioned on the labor site here. All the rest in this anthology are on different subjects which I think Atlantic Insight covered if not best, at least with justice. I publish them here in the hopes that they may be of value to some people interested in the recent past in New Brunswick.Table of Contents1/ HAPPY ENDING2. MOUNTIES3/ KASHETSKY4/ VAUTOUR5/ MOOSEHEAD6/ SNAKE PIT7/ LOVELACE8/ TURCOTTE9/ BIKERS10/ CRUEL SEA11/ GRASSY KNOLL12/ JAMBALAYA13/ SAUCERS14/ LA PASIONARIA15/ DOGPATCH16/ IRVING -117/ IRVING -218/ RADIONICS19/ CHIGNECTO
