Canada’s mainstream news outlets have covered stories from Idle No More to decades of missing and murdered indigenous women to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But what are the implications of the TRC for newsrooms? How can reporters do justice to these issues and where is the line between advocacy and journalism?
Join us as we continue our series on journalism and indigenous communities with a discussion on language and activism with CBC’s Jody Porter.
Jody Porter worked in community papers in small towns across the country for a decade before starting as a reporter at CBC Radio in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She is the editor of Strength and Struggle: Perspectives from First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples in Canada, published in 2011 by McGraw-Hill Ryerson and currently being used in high schools across the country. Jody is fond of creating radio/social experiments that take ordinary people out of their cultural comfort zones. This includes CBC Thunder Bay’s Common Ground Café series that brought strangers together to make a meal and discuss race relations in the city. She was given the 2011 Adrienne Clarkson Diversity Award, RTDNA for her work on this series. She is also a Clarkson Laureate, having received the public service award from Massey College in 2015. Jody considers her highest honour an owl feather, received from the Anishnabek Nation as part of the 2013 Debwewin Citation for excellence in reporting on First Nations issues.
WHAT: Indigenous Issues and the Mainstream Media: can truth be reconciled?
DATE: September 16, 2015
TIME: Noon – 1 p.m.
WHERE: The Venn RCC-103, Rogers Communication Centre, 80 Gould Street, Toronto
View event poster here
RELATED POSTS
News coverage of indigenous issues lacks balance, context: panel discussion
Clueless in workshop on aboriginal issues