Even for a journalist used to big projects, it was an overwhelming assignment. Peter Calamai spent five months criss-crossing Canada and the United States, interviewed more than 100 literacy experts, educators and bureaucrats, and devoted countless hours talking to illiterate Canadians. Add to that seven revisions of the Southam Literacy Survey questionnaire that eventually went into 2,398 Canadian homes and you get a picture of Calamai's life since March. The 44-year-old national correspondent for Southam News says it was the most satisfying—and rewarding—assignment in a career that began with the police beat at the Hamilton Spectator in 1966. "I had no idea how pervasive illiteracy is." What impressed Calamai most about his assignment was the diversity of illiterates in Canada. "I met a lot of people I would never have guessed were illiterate. These are articulate and seemingly confident people who simply cannot read or write very well. "Some illiterates were total wrecks. But even then their illiteracy was part of a larger group of problems. Illiteracy doesn't sit on its own." Calamai is one of Canada's most honored journalists. He is a three-time winner of the prestigious National Newspaper Award, most recently in 1985 for his reporting of the Supreme Court of Canada. He joined Southam News in 1969 as an Ottawa-based science writer. Four years later, he began a series of postings in London, Vancouver and Nairobi, ending up back in Ottawa in 1983 after eight months on a Southam Fellowship at Massey College in the University of Toronto. |
