POSITION: CanadaLabs summer fellow
POSITION TYPE: Temporary full time, summer fellowship: May 13-Aug. 30
LOCATION: Toronto
SALARY: 37.5 hrs per week, $28.67/hr
APPLICATIONS CLOSE: March 13, 2024
Immerse yourself inside Canadaland’s newsroom for four months, learning how to create exceptional audio journalism. Grow your skills while taking your project from pitch to publication.
Delivered in partnership with Journalists for Human Rights, this is a paid program offering two students a four-month placement in Canadaland’s newsroom and an opportunity to work alongside and learn from our team of seasoned journalists and editors. Fellows will receive pitching, research, scripting, storytelling, and audio training, and will complete a project from start to finish under the mentorship and guidance of our newsroom team.
We are looking to recruit and place two third- or fourth-year undergraduate or masters students with a deep interest in creating audio-based journalism and a story or project they are keen to report. This 16-week fellowship in Canadaland’s Toronto newsroom will take place from May–August 2024. Over that time, fellows will aim to complete a project of approximately 20 minutes in length that could be published on Canadaland.
In addition, we are offering up to $500 in relocation support for successful candidates from outside the GTA.
Please complete the application form at this link. [https://forms.gle/t1PzgUgcjYrceU7C6]
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS PART 1:
For the CanadaLabs fellowship, these are some criteria that will be considered to result in a successful application.
Qualifications
Candidate is in their third or fourth year of their bachelor’s or master’s degree in communications, journalism, media studies, audio engineering, broadcasting and/or any relevant field
Fluent in written and spoken English (French and other languages an asset)
Any relevant acquired courses in media/journalism and storytelling
Skills
Beginner to intermediate audio production experience (using such systems as Reaper and/or Adobe Audition)
Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a newsroom environment
Ability to be flexible and prepared as a problem solver (solutions oriented)
An excellent communicator who knows how to receive and verbalize among a team
Punctual and reliable team member
Can work well under pressure and tight deadlines
A passionate storyteller, excited at the prospect of threading together a narrative through audio
Experience
Previous audio production is an asset but not required
Fact-checking experience and/or capabilities required
Source finding experience is an asset but not required
Understanding of various avenues and websites for research purposes
Knowledge
Audio production
Studio recording equipment
Mixing and mastering technique
Good ear for musical sound, pitch and tone
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS PART TWO — THE STORY:
We want your passion project, your investigative piece, your narrative telling and unraveling of trending topics and/or deep dives or more — surprise us. CanadaLabs is looking for an engaging piece, finalized between 20 minutes and 40 minutes in a documentary format which tells the story you want to tell — newsy or otherwise — so long as it is about Canada. The piece should be focused on the idea that Canada is weirder, funnier, more interesting or worse than people think it is. The piece must meet high journalistic standards while bringing on an irreverent tone. We’re looking for an enterprise story or a new angle on an existing story with a documentary narrative. So, bring your pop cultural self, your political self, your economic self, any self you’ve got, just make it intersectional, steeped in research and fact-checking and completed within a 16-week period.
—WHAT IT NEEDS—
Pitches should be 1000 words or less
- To be a meaningful story (what is the relevance to you, the news, the society/culture, why would listeners tune in)
- Have a focus statement, or a proposed question that fits Canadaland’s reporting.
- Demonstrate how you will research the story (such as through library, on-the-ground reporting, open source and/or data journalism)
- Include a minimum of three potential sources heard in the final piece/audio
- An intersectional lens and perspective (this includes race, gender and sexuality)
- The pitch should explain why the proposed story is newsworthy
- What you hope to find that will be a new perspective and/or revelation
- Ideas of how you will approach the audio storytelling (street/ambient sound and more)
- The selected topic must be able to be completed within the 16-week period
Contact:
Sarah Ladik
Programs manager, domestic programs
Journalists for Human Rights
[email protected]
W2pvYnBvc3Rd