Pitching, Pitfalls, Soundbites and Historians: Lessons from the Lake Ontario Naming Dispute

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This post is part of the Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration series edited by Jessica DeWitt, Shannon Stunden Bower, and Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles. Submissions for this series are being accepted on an ongoing basis. Learn more here and here.

When Great Lakes historian Dan Macfarlane published his book The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History in 2024, it never occurred to him that the lake’s name would be challenged. Then, in late August, President Donald Trump announced his intention of changing Lake Ontario to Lake America. Almost immediately Macfarlane was flooded with requests for interviews from from the BBC, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, many U.S. news outlets and more. He also wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post. NiCHE editor Mary Baxter sat down with Macfarlane to find out how he has handled this stream of interviews and what tips he has for historians who find themselves in the public spotlight.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Daniel Macfarlane

Mary Baxter: How did the media find you?

Daniel Macfarlane: They just emailed me, basically. I’m assuming they Googled something like “Lake Ontario history.”  After it started going I decided to more directly pitch op-eds to some places. That’s how the Washington Post‘s op-ed came about. When news seems to intersect with my research, I usually try to reach out with something or when a new book’s coming out.

Baxter: What’s your favourite question so far?

Macfarlane: At the end of one of the CBC Radio interviews they asked, “So do you want to move back to Canada?” I just became a U.S. citizen last year, finally, after 12 years in the United States. That was more out of, “OK, if I want to keep going to climate change rallies or anti-ICE rallies, I should have the legal protection of being a citizen” because you can be deported for just going. I love where I live specifically, and my university position’s fantastic. I have issues with what’s going on on the larger scale, so I have mixed feelings.

Baxter: How do you prepare for these interviews? Do you have any requirements?

Macfarlane: I actually don’t have too many requirements. If it’s going to be something I’m not comfortable with, then I just wouldn’t do it. I usually want to know basic things, like is it going to be recorded? Is this for print or audio for radio or video?

That’s just as much to know where I should be when I do the interview. If a reporter just wants to chat for a little bit and ask a few questions, I don’t mind timing the call to my walk home or something. But if you’re going to be doing a live interview, you want to be in a more secure setting with less noise and better Wi-Fi.

Sometimes I’ve dressed up for broadcast interviews, and other times not. One I did for Global TV, I was just wearing a T-shirt and a hat because I was at the archives when they asked if they could do it a little later in the afternoon. So I said, “Well, if you’re fine with me not being all formal looking, then sure.”

Baxter: A lot of history has been bandied about as tensions rise between Canada and the United States. What does this frequent return to the past say about the value of historians in our society?

Macfarlane: The Canada-U.S. relationship has a long history, so I think there is a thirst to look for the antecedents of both how  long they’ve got along and when did they not, or what was done and when there were previous ruptures in the past. Now, I do think this current situation is somewhat unparalleled in modern times.

Maybe that’s what’s driving a search for history. This situation seems so out of the norm that maybe that’s pushing a bit of an “OK, let’s look back.” Or maybe it isn’t.

I’m still trying to decide whether it’s when things are murky about what’s going to happen in the future that the media wants context and whether, since the history’s already known, presumably, by the historians they’re contacting, it’s something that’s ready to go to be put out there quickly.

There’s been some breakdowns before, the Nixon years are often described as the end of the golden age of Canada-U.S. relations that evolved in the decades after World War II. So perhaps not knowing what to make of the situation is what helps drive looking for explanations, and that helps drive more towards looking to history for some of it.

“Being concise is a challenge. It helps to be concise to control the message because it forces journalists to use a little more of what you said in the way you said it. But it also is going to result in media outlets wanting to use you more.”
— Daniel Macfarlane

Baxter: What pitfalls should historians be aware of when being interviewed?

Macfarlane: I get wary of when asked about what’s going to happen in the future. I see so many people, pundits, go on and be wrong so often.

Another pitfall can be getting quoted out of context in the soundbite.

Being concise is a challenge. It helps to be concise to control the message because it forces journalists to use a little more of what you said in the way you said it. But it also is going to result in media outlets wanting to use you more.

In live interviews everything you say is going to be heard or seen, which has its own challenge, because if you mess up or something, that’s there for everyone to see. With newspapers where you’re just being interviewed but not live, you don’t know what they’re going to use. That also has the upside—if you stumble or don’t say something well, no one hears that except for the person interviewing you, and they just present you in a more polished way hopefully—and they will often fact check.

Baxter: What are personal challenges you have faced when doing this kind of work?

Macfarlane: I still hate the sound of my voice. But I think I’ve developed a decent ability to speak clearly. Another important one is using understandable language for the public. I know a journalist who is now doing media consulting, and I have asked them to critique what I’ve done in the last few days. I’ve become a lot better.  I don’t hate as much hearing myself or watching myself now, and I do feel decent about my ability to answer the questions I’m being asked and do so somewhat concisely and in a way that’s understandable.

Two Google maps of Lake Ontario showing its old name on the right and the new name assigned in the United States of Lake America on the left.
Google Maps of Lake Ontario showing the lake’s two names.

Baxter: Was there anything that you wished people had asked you that they didn’t?

Macfarlane: When one of the early interviewers asked, “Is there anything else you’d like people to know about Lake Ontario?” I started to talk about silver linings with bringing awareness to the Indigenous heritage of the name, being one of these. I don’t think most Canadians know where the name comes from. Lots thought it was named after the province rather than the province being named after the lake.

Or I’d bring attention to the state of Lake Ontario or to its environmental health. In my book, I argue that Lake Ontario is possibly the most degraded of the Great Lakes now, and maybe the most degraded it has ever been, even more than when we entered into the binational Great Lakes water quality agreements of the early 1970s, and the the lower lakes were considered to be dying.

Interviewers usually ask at the end, “Is there anything else you’d like to say?” So that’s a good place to keep in mind for when you missed that key thing you wanted to throw in.

Baxter: Well let’s end this with, is there anything you’d like to add?

Macfarlane: It’s actually pretty easy to pitch media outlets. I don’t know how much of the fact that I had done op-eds or interviews in most of these publications before played into it. I don’t know if they were looking at my experience or not. Maybe that plays a role. But not in all cases. Often it was just some producer or reporter calling because they Googled and saw my name on a book.

It can feel awkward at first to pitch and just, I don’t know, feel full of oneself to do that. But I had mentors telling me to do that.

I started doing op-eds about my PhD dissertation while I was writing it. That’s where writing for NiCHE comes in. It’s a similar type of writing, in forum often, that is for a wider audience. Writing for NiCHE can be a very good way to exercise those muscles that are a different type of writing—shorter sentences, better soundbite, less jargon, all those sorts of things.

Oftentimes people can find their research has contemporary relevance. Be ready to strike when that’s the case. Email a pitch directly to an editor or to the op-ed email. Cold call. Sometimes it’s a slow news day or week, and they’re looking for something to fill.

I’ve gotten rejected more times than I’ve got accepted, but I’ve been accepted a number of times. There’s a bit of an art to how you pitch. Don’t assume that because you have a PhD in the topic or have written a book that the op-ed editor will accept your article. The authority that you have for being an expert in the area will certainly help, but often it isn’t enough—if you are the one doing the pitching. It can be when a reporter or producer is looking for someone knowledgeable about that topic. That’s been my experience.

Feature Image: “Toronto Ontario – Canada – Sunset Over Lake Ontario with sea Gull – – HDR” by Onasill – Bill Badzo – OFF- VACATION is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

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Mary Baxter

MARY BAXTER, is a PhD candidate in The Department of History at Western University and a journalist and editor. She specializes in the history of the Great Lakes region and in issues to do with agriculture, rural affairs, the environment and southwestern Ontario.

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