This week’s highlights
- Rachel Pulfer writes in Open Canada on America’s Fork in the Road
- Apply Now! The Gordon N. Fisher/JHR Journalism Fellowship at Massey College 2021/2022
- Apply Now ! Media Girlfriends Scholarships for High School Students in Canada
- Online Indigenous Media Training Program Extended into 2021
- Introducing Board Member Catherine Cano
- #BlackHistoryMonth – ‘The Mandela That I Know’
- World Press Freedom Canada Launches Podcast: ‘Big. Digital. Lies.’
- Indigenous Journalists! Apply for 2nd Annual Award for Outstanding Work by an Indigenous Youth Reporter
‘America’s Fork in the Road’ by Rachel Pulfer
Photo Credit: Open Canada
JHR executive director Rachel Pulfer takes a look at how the United States currently fares on global press freedom and peace indexes, in light of election violence, deaths, and ongoing attacks on the media.
The prognosis? Democracy in America is more fragile than anyone realised, and democratic institutions, in particular media, need strengthening. This time around, institutions eventually prevailed, but the sobering fact remains: 74 million people voted last year for a consummate liar with evident authoritarian tendencies.
How can America best help itself, and how could the international community respond?
Click here to find out more.
Apply Now! The Gordon N. Fisher/JHR Journalism Fellowship at Massey College 2021/2022
2019/2020 Fellow Nancy Emefa Dzradosi
The Gordon N. Fisher/JHR Journalism Fellowship at Massey College in the University of Toronto is an annual opportunity for a journalist from the following regions to participate in the William Southam Journalism Fellowship Program: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, with preference given to candidates from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, South Sudan, DR Congo, Syria, Jordan and Indigenous candidates from JHR’s Indigenous Reporters Program. Funded by the Alva Foundation in memory of the former president and chief executive officer of the Canadian newspaper and communications company, Southam Inc., the grant allows the Fellowship to be held annually at Massey College and the University of Toronto under the auspices of Journalists for Human Rights.
2019/2020 recipient, Nancy Emefa Dzradosi, is a Ghanaian journalist who specializes in field reporting, anchoring and production. Her works focus on Human rights and Environment. Nancy currently leads Joy FM and Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s Clean Ghana Campaign. In 2018 and 2019, her stories on abandoned lepers and a mentally pregnant woman reignited national conversation on social exclusion. Nancy has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and linguistics from the University of Ghana. She lives in Accra, Ghana.
Click here to apply no later than March 31, 2021.
Apply Now! The Media Girlfriends Fellowships
Media Girlfriends is a podcast company, network & student scholarship. Media Girlfriends support women & non-binary journalists. They work to promote more perspectives in Canadian media, particularly those by Black, Indigenous and other people of colour. Media Girlfriends started as a podcast by Nana aba Duncan, currently a William Southam Journalism Fellow (see above) and formerly JHR’s country director in Ghana !
Journalism students: Apply for a new $10,000 CAD Media Girlfriends scholarship for Black high school students pursuing journalism at a post-secondary institution in Canada, and/or one of two $10,000 CAD Media Girlfriends scholarships for women/trans/non-binary students pursuing journalism, communications, media or tech. Deadline is April 30, 2021. More information, including how to apply, is at https://www.mediagirlfriends.
Online Indigenous Media Training Program Extended into 2021
We are thrilled to announce a 4-month extension of our Indigenous Reporters Program 2020 remote media training in northwestern Ontario, doubling its duration and taking it into 2021.
In 2020, our community media training was adapted for online delivery when covid-19 restrictions made in-person training impossible. The program saw great success, reported on by the Globe and Mail’s Willow Fiddler, herself an alumnus of JHR’s Indigenous Reporters Program. Many program participants produced stories that were published by national and local outlets, including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, APTN and the Kenora Miner & News.
The Indigenous Reporters Program works to increase the quantity and quality of Indigenous voices and stories in media in Canada, with the aim of ensuring that Indigenous people across Canada can access their human rights. The northwestern Ontario community media training is a key component of that effort, making media more accessible in a region where diverse and isolated First Nations have particularly little media representation.
The program extension will run from March 1 to June 30, 2021. We are welcoming back many of the incredible slate of media trainers who made the 2020 program such a success: Brandi Morin, Jesse Winter, Jon Thompson, Kyle Napier, Ryan McMahon, Sarah Ladik. The extended program will be accepting new participants, as well as continuing to offer training and mentorship those already registered.
Those interested in participation can register at http://bit.ly/IRP2021form
Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) people of all ages, living in the northwestern Ontario catchment area, are eligible. There is no cost to participation.
This program is funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Introducing Board Member Catherine Cano
Photo Credit: Catherine Cano
An innovative global leader and a seasoned manager in a time of transformational change with a solid expertise in media and strategic management, governance, and financial stewardship, Catherine Cano has been a executive manager for almost 20 years in media organizations as the head of news and 24 hours news networks at Radio-Canada, CBC and Deputy News Director at Al Jazeera in Qatar, CEO of the media network CPAC, as well as Managing Partner at NATIONAL public relations in Toronto and most recently COO of the International Organization of La Francophonie based in Paris. Now President of Canovision, a boutique consulting service firm specializing in media, governance, ethics, transparency, integrity and accountability, Mme Cano has worked in complex political and multicultural environments and with multiple stakeholders and issues. She has won the recognition of her peers and been selected twice as one of the 100 most powerful women and won the Innovator of the year award from Women in Communication and Technology. She also won 2 Gemini awards and the Michener-Deacon Fellowship.
#BlackHistoryMonth ‘The Mandela That I Know’
Photo Credit: Siyabulela Mandela
Siyabulela Mandela is the Regional Project Coordinator for Journalists for Human Rights in East and Southern Africa and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations and Conflict Resolution in the Department of Politics and Conflict Studies at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.
“I write this exposition on Mandela’s legacy (The Mandela I Know) as a tribute to my great-grandfather Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela as a descendent of King Ngubengcuka of the Thembu Kingdom, also as a descendent of The House of Mandela and a son to the late Nosipho and Boy Mandela.”
Read the full article here.
World Press Freedom Canada Launches Podcast: ‘Big. Digital. Lies.’
Photo Credit: World Press Freedom Canada
Many Canadians get their news from the internet and navigate through a web that is polluted with disinformation and misinformation. What’s the impact of this on the people tasked with cutting through the noise? How do we get to the real facts? JHR partner World Press Freedom Canada has teamed up with Ottawa journalist Sarah Turnbull to probe the issue in a podcast series, ‘Big Digital Lies’.
Click here to listen to the latest podcast.
Submissions Call for 2nd Annual Award for Outstanding Work by an Indigenous Youth Reporter
Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) is pleased to announce the call for submissions to the 2nd Annual Award for Outstanding Work by an Indigenous Youth Reporter. The award is supported by the RBC Foundation as part of RBC Future Launch, the bank’s 10-year, $500-million commitment to preparing Canadian youth for the jobs of tomorrow.
To apply, please submit an application to [email protected] by Sunday, February 28, 2021, with ‘Indigenous Youth Reporter Award’ in the subject line. Read full details here.
Land Acknowledgement
We wish to acknowledge the land on which the Journalists for Human Rights’ head office operates and recognize the longstanding relationships Indigenous nations have with these territories. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Tkaronto (Toronto) is in the Dish with One Spoon Territory and is home to Indigenous peoples from many nations across Turtle Island who continue to care for this land today.
To read more on JHR’s land acknowledgement, click here.