If anyone understands just how vast Ontario is, it’s JHR’s Indigenous Reporters Program team.
They’ve spent the last few months crisscrossing Ontario, running workshops in newsrooms, Friendship Centres, classrooms and student papers.
Some seminars have focused on skills development for working journalists, ensuring they’re properly equipped to tell accurate, inclusive Indigenous stories.
Other community-wide events, held in partnership with the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, have attempted to build bridges between journalists and Indigenous community groups by identifying challenges that exist in storytelling and suggesting steps all partners can take to improve these relationships.
To date, they’ve trained over 100 journalists in 14 workshops across 7 cities.
Looking ahead, JHR will be supporting 6 intrepid young journalists this summer as they intern with some of the most notable outlets in the country. From Saskatoon to Halifax, interns will be placed in APTN and Global newsrooms, adding much needed balance and Indigenous perspective to Canadian storytelling and paving the way for a new generation of reporters to relay the information that matters to us all.
– by Miles Kenyon, Coordinator of the Indigenous Reporters Program