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The
streets around Ryerson University were littered with flyers and
posters for essay editing services in October. It seemed that new
posters were being put up almost daily for these businesses promising
to provide university students with A+ essays.
The story began when Chris Richardson, then a first-year student,
went to check his e-mail and found a note from Joe Friesen asking,
“How would you like to go undercover and buy an essay?”
Joe Friesen was the news editor at the Eyeopener at the time.
Eventually they were able to convince the newspaper’s staff
that giving them some money for Chris to pose as a cheating student
would be worth it. This way, they could see how these businesses
really operated.
A few weeks later, after calling all the “essay editing services”
they could find, it seemed that they had hit the jackpot with “Essay
Experts” or “The
Paper Experts” as they’re known internationally.
Instead of an older adult answering the phone and hesitating to
give even the most basic information, suddenly there was a talkative
young woman on the phone who explained everything they wanted to
know about the business.
A tape-recorder is essential in these types of investigations; when
people admit to a client that they sell essays they know students
are going to pass off as their own, they tend to refute these claims
later unless you have them on tape.
With Joe’s encouragement and an eventual hundred-dollar cheque
from the Eyeopener, Chris ventured to the Essay Experts’ North
York location one evening with a friend. He ordered an essay and
saw just what the business looked like. The friend who accompanied
him, another journalism student, helped by looking around as Chris
was talking to the secretary, allowing for more details to be captured
afterward for the story.
When they left the second-story strip mall office, they quickly
wrote down all the details that they could remember (the shelf full
of student’s textbooks, the fact that two clients at York
University were graduating this year, the name and age of the young
secretary, the fact that everything was promised to be confidential,
the payment methods available: cash, Interact, all major credit
cards, Western Union money orders, and a myriad of other details).
In a week, Chris had received his three-page politics essay. This
was all that they could afford with the $100 they had been allowed
to spend. He dropped off the essay with Joe, who knew a number of
professors who would examine the essay. He interviewed them and
returned with some great quotes and some interesting insights from
these professors who could easily have already been receiving essays
from these companies and not even known it.
After the initial work, Chris called around for comments. The Secretary
of Academic Council at Ryerson said she “hated” these
services. Some people were reluctant to say anything on the record.
And then it came time to call back the Essay Experts.
On their website,
they leave a number claiming that they value comments so much that
they even have a direct line to the president. And surprisingly
enough, they did (though it has since been removed).
As soon as Chris started asking questions as an “interested
buyer,” the owner became very hostile, even to the point were
they wondered whether the owner might try to find them after the
story was published. This was a very sobering thought for two novice
journalists.
Chris returned once more to the location with a photographer from
the Eyeopener to try to get a few pictures. Luckily, there was a
long line-up of students ordering essays and the two were able to
take quite a few pictures as they waited.
Before the piece was printed, Joe called the owner and told him
very honestly what they were doing and asked whether he’d
like to tell them his side of the story. This is where they got
the quotation used to end the piece.
After it came out, the story caused a sensation on campus. To say
the least, it became the topic of many conversations. The article
eventually led to a policy at Ryerson dealing with “essay
editing services” and the Eyeopener chose not to accept ads
from companies like it in the future. Joe and Chris were interviewed
on campus and when news of a CAJ award spread, Chris being from
Scarborough, was featured in the community newspaper (link).
In the end, it was a very successful story that brought about conversation
and change, which is really any journalist’s goal. The importance
of taping phone conversations, taking note of the little things
(a shelf in a room, the colour of the carpets), and making sure
that everyone that might have a comment has been asked for one,
is all that can be suggested after the experience of writing the
story. As well, you shouldn’t worry too much when someone
sounds like they want to kill you. Chris and Joe are still alive.
And now they have CAJ Awards.
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