NationTalk: Journalism students at Carleton University can once again take advantage of an opportunity to work with CBC North through a paid internship program that is exclusive to Carleton. Applications are due on April 26.
This two-month, paid internship can be taken up this spring or summer with CBC North. This year’s placement will be in either Whitehorse or Yellowknife. And the intern chosen for the position will also receive support for travel and living costs from a donor fund, named in honour of long-time Carleton professor Mary McGuire, to support student travel assist with accommodation during the student’s internship.
As part of the application, in addition to providing information about themselves and a statement of intent explaining why they would be a good candidate, applicants will also be asked to submit a detailed story pitch that they think would be of interest to CBC North. The pitch must be accompanied with contact information for at least two human sources contacted as part of drafting the story pitch.
Offered annually, this paid summer internship provides reporting and writing experience to a student who has expressed a desire to learn more about Canada’s North and its Indigenous peoples. This unique internship will help young journalists better understand the history, diversity and realities of the North and Indigenous peoples through the provision of a work experience that can inform their journalism for the rest of their careers.
The student will intern as an editorial assistant for a two-month term with the option of extending the internship being at the discretion of CBC North.
All students in Carleton’s journalism program are eligible to apply, but preference will be given to students who are in their graduating year or in the senior years of the program. The internships are open to both Bachelor of Journalism and MJ students.
The objective of the collaboration is for CBC North Region and the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University to provide students enrolled in the journalism program with an opportunity to acquire knowledge and experience relating to the duties and activities of an editorial assistant in a northern newsroom.
Carleton’s journalism program supports a number of different internships for journalism students across the country and in the Global South, but few exist in newsrooms in northern or Indigenous communities, in part because travel and accommodation costs are a barrier to most students.
Mary McGuire
The project is the brainchild of long-time journalism professor Mary McGuire, who approached the CBC with a proposal to create the internships and a commitment to establish a special fund at Carleton to help cover the high cost of travel and accommodation for students selected for these internships at CBC North.
Carleton continues to accept contributions to the Mary McGuire Journalism Internship Travel Fund on an ongoing basis.
After graduating from Carleton’s journalism program in 1979, McGuire worked for seven years in Whitehorse, primarily for CBC Radio. She also covered northern and indigenous issues on Parliament Hill and across the North for the CBC’s Northern Service before joining Carleton’s journalism faculty in 1990.
McGuire was a fixture in the Carleton journalism faculty for close to three decades before cancer took her out of the classroom. She’s taught more than a thousand students over the years and helped change the school’s curriculum, first to expand courses in radio journalism and then, as the internet evolved, to develop and launch courses in digital journalism, too.
One part of McGuire’s legacy at Carleton will be this program to introduce another generation of students to Canada’s North.
For additional information, please contact Prof. Allan Thompson at allan.thompson@carleton.ca