After 40 years, there is one story this editor will never forget

Marcia Enman says she will never forget the day a man, visibly upset, came into the office of the La Voix Acadienne newspaper.

It was after the P.E.I. weekly newspaper published an editorial advocating for the amalgamation of the Acadian Festival and agricultural fair in the Evangeline region.

The man loved the agricultural fair, and was worried it would be lost if it became part of the Acadian Festival.

"It was really close to his heart," said Enman, the newspaper's editor and Mainstreet P.E.I.'s  Acadian Beat columnist.

"I respected him so much for coming in but it was really hard on me and to this day I can always go back to that day because he was really crying."

As Enman celebrates her 40th anniversary with the paper, the story is a reminder that no matter how much changes in the media industry, the stories journalists tell and the opinions editors share will always impact the audience. 

I'm honoured to be able to defend when we need to defend and to congratulate when we need to congratulate.— Marcia Enman

Enman's career spanned many of those changes too. Before digital cameras, for example, photos were processed in a dark room.

"If you screwed up on the negative, well then you didn't have any pictures for your edition," she said.

Enman even remembers when the paper got its first computer, around 1990. She chuckles when she recalls keeping all the subscribers' names and addresses on index cards.

"When the computers came and we entered all this information in the computer, I would not let go of my index cards, because 'Oh no, this is not going to work, that computer's going to lose everything.'"

Fewer employees

While computers and the Internet have made the job more efficient in some ways, it has had a negative effect on staffing.

"I can remember there were a lot more employees to do the publication. I think we were eight, nine employees. Now we're three or four," she said.

Enman said as long as her health holds up, she'll continue to be a voice for P.E.I.'s Acadian community "for another few years anyway."

She said she's proud of many of the stories the paper has covered, such as the those about the parents who in 2000 went all the way to the Supreme Court to have French taught in a Summerside school.

And the amalgamation of the Acadian Festival and agricultural fair, which to this day continues to be an annual success.

They spoke again

As for the man who came into her office all those years ago, he passed away last year. But not before they had spoken again years after he pleaded his case.

"I'm really honoured to have met him and how he defended his exhibition," Enman said. "It all worked out in the end and people realize it's our job and they respect that and I'm honoured to be able to defend when we need to defend and to congratulate when we need to congratulate."

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With files from Angela Walker