Humber Polytechnic's journalism students from every year gathered on Nov. 13 in the Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation for the second Trust in Journalism Symposium.
First held five years ago, virtually during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the symposium was set up by Humber’s journalism program coordinator, Lara King, following a backlash that Humber’s newsroom and newsrooms in general were discriminating against BIPOC individuals and not giving them the same opportunities as their white counterparts.
The symposium gathered together journalists from across the industry, ranging from the Toronto Star, CBC, The Pointer, current postgraduate students, and previous Humber students.
As people took their seats in the morning, the majority with coffee in one hand and notebook and pens in the other, the symposium commenced with Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), and managing director of the national NewsMedia Council of Canada, with a look back over the last several years.
Jolly said research on newsroom diversity has been ongoing since the late 1980s, including two major studies by TMU professor John Miller in 1994 and 2004 examining the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association.
The 1994 report surveyed 2,620 news professionals and found that only 2.6 per cent were journalists of colour, and the follow-up a decade later showed only modest improvement.
Jolly said while there have been increases in representation among Black, Middle Eastern, and other non-white journalists, as well as some narrowing of gender gaps in recent years, progress remains slow.
He emphasized “diversity isn't only about who gets hired, it's about who gets heard, who gets promoted, and who gets supported once they're inside the newsroom,” concluding that connection is journalism's most important asset right now.
Following Jolly’s discussion around inclusivity, a panel discussed the previous symposium and what has changed in the last five years to make newsrooms more inclusive.
Moderator Mahnoor Yawer, a previous Humber grad, was joined by panellists journalism grad Annica Albano, Donnovan Bennett, Nick Davis, both with the CBC, and freelancer and educator Shenaz Kermalli to speak about their own challenges they face in newsrooms.
“Journalism should be fact-based, and the stories reflect the people it serves,” Albano told Et Cetera, who also works as a freelance journalist and programs and community engagement producer at the Canadian Journalism Foundation since graduating earlier this year.
“It should be reflective of all Canadians and not just the people who have been here a long time,” Albano said. “But also making space for the newcomers, the refugees, the immigrants, and even Indigenous people who are still finding the right platforms to tell their stories without their stories being misconstrued or having different biases or assumptions placed for their arguments to be taken out of context.”
Another panel included one-year post-graduate students, who worked on stories involving community outreach in and around the Jane Street and Finch Avenue area, and helped garner research on the real struggles people face in those areas, and helped build positive relationships with journalists.
Following them, was a panel consisting of moderator Humber journalism professor Mike Wise, joined with Wilf Dinnick and David Micheal Lamb to discuss how as journalists, they can make sure that the information that's shared with the public is accurate, truthful, and different ways to spot AI driven information as well as best practices surrounding AI use in journalism and how to build trust in the age of misinformation.
With the symposium drawing to a close, one final panel of people were brought on to discuss what editors are looking for in new, upcoming journalists.
Moderator Lara King welcomed to the stage The Toronto Star's Robert Benzie, Maclean's Editor-In-Chief Sarah Fulford, Laura Green with the CBC, Pointer found San Grewal and Citytv's Nick Westoll for one final presentation on what new journalists can do to further sharpen their skills in ways they may now have thought of prior.
While designed to help journalism students become more well-rounded in terms of reporting, King hopes that these skills won't just apply to journalism but to their actual lives, from communication to spotting the difference in a newly AI-driven world.
