CBC News: These days, Julie Beaver sees all the photos and videos she has of her father in a new light.
Fresh from the first boot camp ever held by the new Northern Journalism Training Initiative, she’s looking at a world of possibilities for all the stories she’s wanted to tell, but hasn’t known how until now. “My eyes have been opened greatly,” she said.
Beaver, who is from Fort Smith, N.W.T., said she hasn’t really been the kind of person who tunes in to newscasts. During her four weeks at the training institute, though, a conversation with Inuvialuit elder and former CBC manager Louie Goose stuck with her. “He actually said that journalism is storytelling. And I really resonated with that,” she said. “That’s what we’re about. We are about sharing stories, and I think reframing that has really made a difference for me.”
The Northern Journalism Training Initiative, created with funding from the Google News Initiative and support from Journalists for Human Rights, officially launched in February. From March 27 to April 21, nine students gathered in Inuvik to learn a mix of journalism theory and hands-on skills from trainers Laurie Sarkadi and Dëneze Nakehk’o.
The Trailbreaker
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They “got down to the nitty-gritty,” said Monica Dillon. Dillon, who is from Inuvik, said she’s still absorbing and reflecting on everything she learned. One of the things that stuck with her was meeting CBC North’s Juanita Taylor, who recently was named best national reporter at the Canadian Screen Awards. “I thought that was really cool. Having that representation of her being Inuit … it just felt really nice to kind of see myself on TV, reflected back at me,” she said. “[It] made me feel like I could truly do it, because representation matters.”
Changing the face of journalism
Representation of Indigenous people in media is one of the issues K’a Nakehk’o, who is from Yellowknife, has also pinpointed. He said going through the program with other Indigenous students made him feel proud as an Indigenous Northerner. “I’ve always really noticed that there’s not a lot of Indigenous people who get to go on air and talk about some of the things that happen in the North,” he said.
Changing that would help bring in journalists who understand the culture, land and practices of Indigenous communities — and, in turn, let them tell more in-depth stories. That’s also one of the goals cited by those who built the program when it originally launched.
The students are now working on a final project. For Nakehk’o, that’s a video project on students who are learning to teach Indigenous games to younger generations in different communities. Dillon said she’s going to be working on a podcast, A Minute With Monica, to spotlight Indigenous women in business. It’s a project she’s worked on in the past, but one she’s never been happy with. “It’s fostered around empowerment, healing and loving yourself,” she said.
As for Beaver, her final project will look at the impact of technology changes for people who spend time on the land — specifically, whether widespread internet access is making some widely used emergency devices such as inReach obsolete. “I’m just amazed at all of these tools that I get to be able to research … And, you know, it’s important for the North,” she said.
In the future, Beaver said she wants to do something with all those photos and videos of her dad. She’d also like to bring those skills to her part-time job to have Indigenous stories in several communities documented in audio, photos and — eventually — reference books.
With files from Hilary Bird