Alumni making their mark in the transportation sector

The RSJ newsletter is taking a look at alumni who are making their mark in the transit and transportation sector. Communicating key messages around transportation is a passion for these three former RSJ students working in Toronto and London, in a fascinating industry with many moving parts.

Matt Llewellyn — senior advisor, media relations and issues, Metrolinx

During his time at RSJ, Matt Llewellyn freelanced his photography for several newspapers. After leaving Ryerson at the end of 2010, he landed work at CBC Toronto, his voice recognizable from shows such as Here and Now and Metro Morning. Now, he is a senior advisor with the media relations team at Metrolinx, a transit agency of the Ontario government.

One of Llewellyn’s favourite things about his job, which he started in July 2018, is how he gets to use a variety of technical skills learned during j-school to cover the many sectors of Metrolinx. This includes the Metrolinx blog (external link) , where his team often gets to take a deep dive into the operational side — including rail, a particularly popular subject. One of Llewellyn’s hits was a three-part series (external link)  following a trainee’s journey in conductor school to becoming a GO train operator.

“It was really cool to be able to use those transferable communication skills that I had learned, working at the CBC and before that through Ryerson, and be able to still take all of those great abilities to tell a story, but from the inside now,” said Llewellyn.

Social media has also become a big part of connecting customers to Metrolinx. 

One story that resulted from a shoutout on social media involved a young Guelph woman whose GO bus driver picked her up (external link)  when she was being followed by two men, and who grabbed their licence plate number. It garnered over 80,000 views, a high click rate for any newsroom or corporate blog. 

“It’s really nice to be very surprised at how often people want to reach out to just say that they had a fantastic bus driver who really went the extra mile on their commute… and they really just wanted to give a shout out to that person,” he said.

Llewellyn is a passionate photographer and credits RSJ instructor Peter Bregg for helping him gain confidence and experience. He often still gets to flex his photography and video skills by providing high-quality material for reporters, such as B-roll and photos of the new K9 unit (external link)  responding to a suspicious bag last August.

During a period of structural changes in the CBC Toronto newsroom, Llewellyn took some time to reevaluate the time commitment of his career, as he and his wife were considering starting a family.

He remembers “agonizing” over this one day while sorting his recycling in his garage, when an idea came to him.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, if there was a job at GO Transit that opened up, as part of their communications team, I think I would take that.’” he said. “Every time that I talk to them on the phone, they're always so open and transparent as an organization.”

Through his reporting, he knew the Metrolinx spokespeople. Not too long later a job posting showed up, and he went for it. 

Usually, Llewellyn makes the commute from Hamilton to Toronto each day on the GO train himself. He lives the experiences of customers, and that is a motivator for him and his team. 

“On occasion, we see customers who reach out, whether it's through social media or another channel, and sometimes they ask, ‘Do you even take your service?’” he said. “And I love that question, because I do, I take it every day... I completely understand the frustrations of customers when something goes awry in the morning or on the way home.”

Calvin Lau — content designer, Transport for London

Calvin Lau graduated from the RSJ broadcast stream in 2007, but his heart was in online content before it engrossed the RSJ curriculum. He had his internship with the Discovery Channel and worked in a variety of web producer roles in various companies, until he caught the “wanderlust” bug, as he calls it, and he went to live in the U.K. In July 2018, he found himself at Transport for London (external link) .

As the government body for transportation, Transport for London covers a much broader mandate than just transit. Lau particularly focuses on messages around driving, and his job is centred on figuring out what content website users are looking for. Most of the skills he uses are from journalism.

“You… figure out the kind of questions a user would want to ask or find out about when they come on a webpage,” said Lau. “Then going through the old W5H to know what kind of information they’ll need to be given and how to present it to them.”

During his time at Ryerson, Lau was keen on exploring what an online presence meant in the journalism industry when many news and media organizations were trying to figure that out.

Lau’s interest in marketing grew when he saw those companies taking an interest in transforming themselves with digital media.

“Being someone that's always been trying to be ahead of the curve in terms of what's going on in the digital space…  it seemed like a natural fit for me to keep exploring it that way,” he said.

While growing up, the Toronto native had an interest in the TTC.

“When I was a kid, I always loved the TTC, thinking about different routes and checking out the different kinds of rolling stocks with the new streetcars and buses and things like that.”

For a team that promotes efficient and enjoyable transportation experiences, reduced transit lines when COVID-19 hit posed an interesting challenge.

“Turning around and knowing that we had to basically discourage the majority of people (from) travelling has been a little bit of a challenge,” said Lau. “We still need to be able to communicate the ‘do not travel’ message, but at the same time, make sure that the people who do absolutely need to travel can get around.”

Nitish Bissonauth — bilingual spokesperson and media relations specialist, Metrolinx

With his parents being from the French island nation of Mauritius, being bilingual in French and English has helped Nitish Bissonauth throughout his career, eventually leading to his current job as bilingual spokesperson and media relations specialist at Metrolinx.

“I have transit in my DNA, so to speak,” said Bissonauth. “When Mauritius was first founded, they relied on people to create networks of transportation and at the time that involved cattle and horse carriages… somewhere along my family line transit was a big part of their lives in terms of their business and how they went about their day.”

Bissonauth graduated from RSJ in 2015 and soon found himself at CBC Edmonton as a French news reporter. He got the opportunity to be closer to home when he landed a job at The Weather Network in Oakville, also returning to Ryerson for a master’s in digital media, followed by his “dream destination,” CityNews.

“Through there, I managed to tell some amazing transit stories. I've always been fascinated by a few different niches and transit has always been one of them.”

In his job, Bissonauth responds to media calls along with other teammates and also produces content for the Metrolinx blog.

“It's never a normal routine. There's always something new. There's always something different,” said Bissonauth. “I enjoy it because it's part of a unique organization that's tasked with the job of getting transit right.”

“Some people ask me, do you miss reporting and telling stories? And yes, the answer is yes, sometimes I miss it, but what I love about my role and my team and what we do here at Metrolinx is we also tell our stories.”

He enjoys working with a team that has former reporters who provide content for today’s journalists.

“It saves (reporters) time when they don't necessarily need to come down and (do an) interview,” he said. “The messaging and everything, all the questions that they had, is answered…. we're trying to help our former colleagues in the industry because we understand the challenges that they face and we understand that it's collaborative work.”

He offers some advice to younger journalists.

“Journalism is a tough industry to break into,” said Bissonauth. “When you have any assets that you can leverage, whether it's different skill sets, or in my case a different language, I always believe it's important to use that, and you never know what doors will open.”