Fellowship opportunity aimed at enabling deep, critical reporting on energy issues in sub-Saharan Africa
Andrew Mambondiyani, a Power Struggle 2015/2016 fellow, interviews Elijah Ngwarati while reporting in Zimbabwe.
The Access to Energy Journalism Fellowship (AEJF) supports reporting that pushes the conversation about energy access and climate change forward.
Our first project had a global scope: we selected fellows from around the world to share stories of energy poverty and innovation. The result: Power Struggle, a multimedia platform that presents an in-depth picture of the issue globally. For our 2016/2017 fellowship, we are offering four fellowships specifically focused on reporting in sub-Saharan Africa.
Why? Sub-Saharan Africa is the most energy-poor region in the world, with 13 per cent of the world’s population and only four per cent of its energy demand. In the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s economy has expanded rapidly and energy use has risen by 45 per cent. Projections forecast the continuation of this growth. Fast-forward to 2040: almost one billion people are projected to gain access to energy. But it’s not that simple. The population will increase too, meaning that without implementing solutions, 530 million people are expected to be without access to electricity in 2040, especially those living in the region’s rural areas.
Our fellowship is an opportunity to report on stories of energy access challenges and stories of solutions. It’s open to both staff reporters and freelancers. Preference will be given to reporters who have deep knowledge of the communities they plan to report on. Applications are due by midnight Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, Dec. 7th, 2016, and details can be found here. The four fellows selected will be announced in January 2017.
The AEJF is administered and produced by Discourse Media through financial support from the Waterloo Global Science Initiative.
The case for deeper reporting on education in Canada
The Canadian education system faces some serious challenges. But most media outlets fail to report on those problems, Discourse Media found in our new landscape analysis, “How do we talk about success in childhood?”
Reporting on education in Canada is often driven by conflicts or by political funding discussions. But the people interviewed in the landscape analysis highlight other important issues. Most media outlets don’t talk about good-news stories of successful young Canadians, and newspapers and broadcasters don’t ask whether fast-growing private schools pose a threat to the public education system that Canada has cherished for many decades.
Often, journalists don’t know enough about the challenges in the education system — with a few exceptions. Most of Canada’s education reporting is now done by general reporters who don’t have the time to dig for underlying problems. And the daily news cycle doesn’t reward deeper research. So news articles about education often stick to what politicians in different regions have to say.
Our analysis finds that what’s missing is a neutral space for discussions about education in Canada. It’s important to focus on the national level, because schools do not only impact the lives of young people in different regions. The education system determines some of the core values of Canadian society. The question is: what do we want our society to be like and how can we prepare our kids for that? Media should be enabled to ask that question more often.
For the landscape analysis, commissioned by Ashoka Canada, Discourse Media analyzed over 600 media sources and interviewed over a dozen education professionals, parents and others.
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact .
Elements that we look for when deciding to take on a project:
1. Journalism that builds empathy.
When done well, this approach to journalism goes beyond simply causing an audience to feel compassion for a voice or character impacted by the issue reported on. It is journalism that features complex characters with complex motivations, avoids oversimplifying conflict, and utilizes multimedia storytelling formats. It “sets the table” for constructive dialogue by enabling audiences and communities to imagine where multiple stakeholders from different backgrounds (political, ethnic, socioeconomic, generational) are coming from.
2. Access to sophisticated information.
We aim to empower our audiences and communities by making sophisticated information available, understandable and engaging. We recognize that much knowledge and data exists that isn’t being effectively communicated to the public or to policymakers, especially as it relates to science. We prioritize data journalism, which includes collaboration with experts and in-depth analysis.
3. Journalism that nurtures imagination.
We recognize that a lot of journalism is conflict-driven and can cause its audience to feel pessimistic and weary, harming public support for systemic change. We want to leave our audience with a better understanding of problems, while fuelling a sense of possibility. Solutions journalism practice produces content that not only describes challenges we face but also illuminates possible paths forward and mobilizes knowledge among those on the ground working towards change.
4. Impact-driven.
This means pausing before pitching to consider how we can add value to existing conversations as opposed to simply broadcasting content. We often begin major projects by analyzing current discourse around an issue and asking what it means to advance a constructive conversation. What is the potential impact of this work? What do Canadians need to know about this subject? What can we do that no other media outlet would take on?
What we want in a pitch:
A pitch should be a maximum two-page document that clearly lays out the story or investigation. Please use hyperlinks as needed and email with the following:
Focus statement (2-3 sentences):
Paint a clear picture of the story and the angle you’re proposing.
Why tell this story (2-3 sentences):
Explain why this is a story that Discourse Media needs to tell. How time-sensitive is the story/why now? How does this fit with our values and/or contribute to projects we are already working on? What solutions journalism attributes does the story have, or have the potential to contribute?
Your experience (3-4 sentences):
What is your experience working on this subject? What information/documentation/media do you already have? What do you see your role being in the project?
Digital engagement (2-3 bullet points):
How will this story live on social media? What multimedia elements should be used to best tell the story?
Data and digital:
What data exists that supports your work (e.g., link to data repository, sources, experts)? Is it publicly available? Are there data gaps? Are there experts in a related field who might bring value to the project through collaboration?
Other coverage (choose the most relevant):
What has been done? Where and when was it published?
Concerns and critiques:
What are the gaps in the story? What issues do you think you may have to deal with in your reporting? Any conflict of interest?
Timeline:
How long do you need to tell this story? What deadlines will you meet? What support do you need from the team (e.g. FOI support, data interpretation, multimedia production)?
VANCOUVER, B.C. — Discourse Media is excited to announce multiple new hires, including president Ian Gill and managing editor Lindsay Sample.
“We’ve enjoyed significant growth this year, our third, despite the troubled Canadian media landscape, and I’m delighted to bring on board new talent and experience that will contribute much to Discourse Media’s continued growth,” says Erin Millar, editor-in-chief and CEO. “Our momentum is attracting smart people who share our vision of a new digital media company dedicated to serious, impactful journalism rooted in communities. And we’re just getting started.”
Ian Gill joins the team as president, bringing his experience founding Ecotrust Canada and deep knowledge of the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. Gill spent over 20 years as an award-winning journalist at the Vancouver Sun and CBC, and in his native Australia. Most recently, Gill spent a year studying journalism innovation in Canada and beyond as a Senior Fellow of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. His book No News Is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse — And What Comes Next will be published by Greystone Books in September. Gill will lead long-term business strategy as Discourse Media strives to make a significant impact on the media landscape in Canada.
“Discourse Media’s talented, visionary and hardworking team embodies all that is hopeful about today’s new journalism,” states Gill. “I was tremendously fortunate to detour out of reporting into the nonprofit world for a number of years, but I feel even luckier to have found my way back into journalism with a team that shares my belief that harnessing the power of the story lies at the heart of positive social transformation.”
Lindsay Sample joins the team as managing editor. She brings a wealth of experience from her time at CBC where she worked on national investigations with Marketplace, produced in-depth radio for CBC’s The Doc Project and contributed to a range of other programs. Sample has reported abroad through the International Reporting Project and the Global Reporting Centre.
“I was drawn to Discourse Media because I’m passionate about investigative journalism and the impact that reporting can have when people build relationships with communities,” says Sample. “Working with this talented team to tackle big topics while exploring innovative ways to communicate them is really exciting.”
Gill and Sample are just part of the expanded Discourse Media team. “We believe there is the opportunity for new players at this tumultuous time for the Canadian journalism sector,” says Millar. “And we’re positioning Discourse Media to take advantage of that by strengthening both our editorial and business teams.”
With this expanded capacity, Millar’s role shifts to editor-in-chief and CEO, allowing her to focus on building a new model of impact-driven digital journalism at the helm of a talented team.
Debbie Douez, who has worked with Discourse Media as a consultant for the past year and a half, deepens her role on a permanent basis as vice president of strategy, bringing over 20 years of experience in business planning, marketing and project management.
Caitlin Havlak moves into an executive role as director, digital and data journalism, signalling the importance of digital and data journalism strategy to Discourse Media’s future.
Coming from the social innovation sector as a RADIUS fellow and founder of Fusion Kitchen, Sonam Swarup joins Discourse Media as marketing coordinator.
Finally, German journalist Daniel Stahl joins the team as a summer fellow to learn more about solutions journalism and immigration in a Canadian context for the next two months. This opportunity was made possible through the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship.
Canadian Journalism Foundation recognizes innovative collaboration and data work on Moving Forward project
Discourse Media co-founder and CEO Erin Millar, director of business development Debbie Douez and academic collaborator George Poulos.
TORONTO, ONT. — Discourse Media is the winner of the 2016 Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) Innovation Award for our work on Moving Forward!
The win was announced at the CJF awards gala in Toronto, Ont. on June 16, 2016. Discourse Media’s co-founder and CEO Erin Millar and Debbie Douez, director of business development, were there to accept the award, alongside academic collaborator George Poulos, whose research at the University of British Columbia was used in Moving forward’s popular Cost of Commute Calculator.
Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, presented the award. The Nieman Journalism Lab recently published a piece on Discourse Media.
The CJF Innovation Award recognizes innovations by individual news organizations — from newsroom products to reporting techniques to audience engagement strategies — that advance the quality of journalism in a time of big change for the industry. Fellow finalists for the award were CBC North, for its online election forums which helped reach voters in isolated communities in the Northwest Territories, and The Globe and Mail, for new multimedia- and data-focused publishing tools.
Discourse Media produced Moving Forward in response to the over-politicized media landscape during Metro Vancouver’s 2015 transportation funding referendum. Journalists struggled to access adequate data and information, leaving voters under-informed. To address this problem we took a collaborative approach: we partnered with academics to access datasets which we used to produce issues- and evidence-based reporting. We shared our work with other local newsrooms, who either republished our reporting or produced original stories using our data.
“Moving Forward served as a proof of concept that collaborative models could enable us to do deep, ambitious journalism as a small team,” explained Millar. “We overcame conflict between the value systems of our academic and media partners and found that the journalism was better as a result of this productive tension. While we anticipated reluctance . . . we found a profound openness to new solutions.”
Six-week investigation found no evidence of meeting in First Nation where B.C. government claims community voted 244 to three in favour of LNG development proposal, and raises questions about whether legal obligation to “free, prior and informed consent” was achieved
LAX KW’ALAAMS, B.C. — Despite B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s repeated claim that the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation voted in favour of a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility on Lelu Island in northern B.C., an investigation by Discourse Media suggests that no vote in favour of the project occurred.
The revelation comes just before a series of meetings the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation has scheduled with its members next week about the proposed $36-billion Pacific NorthWest LNG (PNW LNG) project, majority owned by Malaysian company Petronas. The project will link an LNG pipeline with a plant on Lelu Island, which Lax Kw’alaams claims as part of their traditional territory.
The isolated village of Lax Kw’alaams is reached via a 40-minute ferry ride followed by a 17.5-kilometre drive along Tuck Inlet Road. Credit: Ash Kelly
The proposed PNW LNG project is in the final stage of government approval, with a decision from the federal government expected at any time between now and the end of September. Project proponents and the B.C. government are legally obliged to seek “free, prior and informed consent” from five First Nations in the region, including Lax Kw’alaams.
At the Western Premiers’ Conference in early May, Clark said the Lax Kw’alaams leadership “voted overwhelmingly in favour of moving forward into the next stage of this agreement on LNG.”
In an emailed response to Discourse Media about the meeting, the premier’s office stated, “First Nation officials carried out their own internal engagement processes prior to their vote and letter of support to the federal government.” The premier’s office stated that Lax Kw’alaams voted 244 to three in favour of developing Lelu Island.
Discourse Media’s investigation found no evidence of such a meeting. In May 2015, community members in Lax Kw’alaams voted to reject a benefits proposal from PNW LNG. No further band meeting appears to have occurred since a new mayor and council were elected in November 2015.
Neither the premier’s office nor the band council provided any documentation of any band council or community vote. Discourse Media also could not identify a single community member who attended or was aware of such a public meeting.
Political pressure on Lax Kw’alaams, the small community near Prince Rupert at the centre of the controversy, has been immense. Locals describe a community deeply divided over its future, desperate not to miss out on the economic opportunity LNG could provide. However, the majority of community members were opposed to locating the plant on Lelu Island, which sits at the mouth of the Skeena River, because of the location’s impact on salmon.
There are multiple issues at stake that could prove tricky to navigate.
Federally, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised a renewed “nation-to-nation” relationship with Indigenous peoples based on “recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.” Canada also committed to the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in May.
And former Truth and Reconciliation Commission chair Murray Sinclair, now a senator, says projects like PNW LNG are an opportunity for Trudeau to demonstrate his commitment to reconciliation.
Provincially, Clark is jockeying for re-election in 2017, and she has invested considerable political capital on promises of jobs and tax revenue from LNG.
But the biggest stake might be that of the Lax Kw’alaams.
Economically, four of the five First Nations that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office required PNW LNG to consult with — Metlakatla, Kitselas, Kitsumkalum and Gitxaala — have signed either impact benefit agreements (securing payouts for their communities along with environmental commitments from PNW LNG) or term sheets, which are often a precursor to impact benefit agreements. Lax Kw’alaams is the lone holdout.
PNW LNG declined multiple interview requests and provided a written statement: “PNW LNG is working collaboratively and constructively with local First Nations. We do not comment on band governance issues.”
What is journalism doing to carry out reconciliation with Indigenous peoples? This was the question I was invited to ponder earlier this month at “Reconciliation Journalism,” a conference sponsored and hosted by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation on Wasan Island, Ont.
But what are Indigenous people doing to understand journalism?
That is my overriding thought after attending. The small conference brought together journalists, academics and community activists to discuss and define reconciliation journalism.
Conference participants en route to Wasan Island for a three-day conference on reconciliation journalism.
I likened some of the exercises participants did to turning a mirror — reconciliation — around to face ourselves. Looking into the reflection, we’re actually looking into our souls and asking, “What do we want to be as a country?”
I have to admit, I’d not thought of reconciliation journalism before. I’d thought about reconciliation, and about journalism, but never the two as a hybrid.
When I think about reconciliation, I think back to this time last year when now-Senator Murray Sinclair released the 94 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final report. It’s the only time in my life when I saw places and people come to a complete standstill as the event unfolded, denoting a historical moment but also the weight that rested with it.
I also saw that the backdrop of the recommendations includes spiralling education, employment, mortality, addiction, child apprehension, suicide, language retention and incarceration statistics. These numbers aren’t improving, they’re worsening. It was against this backdrop that the TRC calls to action represented hope, maybe the best of hopes and maybe the last. To not act on or to not perform journalism in the service of this is to take away people’s hope when that’s all they have left. This is a moment in history that we can’t let pass.
Three of the calls to action, 84, 85 and 86, concerned journalism. Yet there was no parallel recommendation for Indigenous leaders to learn about journalism, its role in a democracy, or about journalists and what they do. I’m convinced that if this isn’t shored up then it will cause the public’s understanding of reconciliation to be skewed at best or stalled at worst. Journalism is the portal through which the public sees and understands reconciliation. But if journalists can’t get unfettered access to First Nations communities then that portal will either close or turn into a void that can be filled with anything, and our moment will be lost.
I witnessed conference participants struggle to define reconciliation journalism. I wouldn’t say we arrived at a concrete definition, but a lot of ideas surfaced. We know and understand reconciliation. But I think this is the first time we have tried to strain it through a journalism colander, or fashion a colander to accommodate it. For my part, when thinking about a definition, I hearkened back to the canons of journalism, specifically one — journalism as a public service. Journalism has an obligation to public life, I once learned — an obligation that is deeper than just telling stories. Public service journalism impacts public life. Thinking of it this way, my working definition of reconciliation journalism is journalism in the service of reconciliation.
I was pleased to see conference participants struggle for a definition because it meant that, at least here, people are thinking and doing something about it; they’re working with it. Who else in mainstream media can say they are doing the same? I was still left wondering, though, how are First Nations working to understand journalism and work with journalists?
A key moment from the retreat that stands out to me was when we were asked to reflect on the work of Ian Mosby, whose research uncovered nutritional experiments performed on students in residential schools in the 1940s and 1950s. One of those residential schools is located in my hometown of Port Alberni. My parents both went to the school, and cousins of mine were part of the experiments. I reported on the story both when it broke and when Mosby released his findings to residential school survivors in Port Alberni in 2013. I interviewed two men who were part of the experiment, and recounted a story about when a black-and-white picture of a classroom of kids in the residential school during that time flashed on the wall during Mosby’s PowerPoint presentation. Some audience members were in that picture as children, and the silence for a few moments afterward was surreal. That moment, and listening to the stories of two survivors, I told participants, will be with me for all of my days.
An exercise where participants drew a line from their name to that of people they connected to during the three days.
The conference wasn’t without its challenges. The lack of Indigenous journalists was noticeable.
APTN’s Naomi Clarke, David Moses and I were the only Indigenous journalists at the conference. Of them, I was the only practicing journalist. I thought it unusual that there weren’t more. Space, timing and logistics likely played a role in why. Having said this, there needs to be more of these sessions with more Indigenous journalists. They’re out there, and they have insight, perspectives and ideas that need to be included, especially during the formative stages of this concept of reconciliation journalism.
The last challenge is a challenge to ourselves — to not let this wither away. To not relegate it to just another conference whose pamphlet is tucked away on a shelf, whose ideas are not thought about again, and whose momentum crests like a wave. To borrow journalistic phrases from newsrooms I’ve worked in: What’s next? How has this advanced? What’s the conversation we want to have? Why should we care? These things fall to us now to carry on.
In a recent post for the Toronto Star, Ry Moran of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation asked, “What makes us Canadian?”
“From beer commercials to first-year political science classes, this question has echoed throughout much of our history. For many years, we carefully built the narrative that we are a peace-loving peoples — true, north, strong, and free. We are these things. I believe that. But we are also much, much more complicated than that,” he wrote.
A morning view from Wasan Island.
“We are a country that has been denounced by senators, chief justices and former prime ministers as being genocidal in its treatment of Indigenous people. We are a country that ran residential schools for more than 150 years. Together, one year into the implementation of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we are a country that is making promising gains, but still has much work to do in terms of righting past wrongs.”
I read Moran’s piece while travelling home from a session at Wasan Island with a group of twenty-some participants involved in Canadian media in different ways, from small startups to legacy media organizations. Funded and organized by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, I was privileged to be invited to incubate ideas around one (huge) question: “Can 21st-century journalism solve Canada’s 21st-century problems?”
As Canada aims to achieve reconciliation and build a national identity that includes all its people, we discussed how important it is to talk about the role the media plays in constructing our national narrative, and in telling the stories that inform the way we view ourselves as Canadians and in relation to those around us.
With this in mind, I’m coming away from Wasan Island with a deeper awareness that journalism has a responsibility to work towards reconciliation and social change in Canada. The problems faced by 21st-century Canada are complex and solutions themselves aren’t clear. At the same time, of course, the 21st-century journalism industry is facing complex challenges. And it’s so easy to get caught up in conversations around the crisis in the industry that we forget to ask how journalism can contribute to a better place.
But what if the two are connected? On Wasan, I was inspired by the idea that the instability of the media landscape might actually open up a space for innovation and problem-solving on a deeper level than was possible before.
Journalism, in its past and present forms, has really failed at telling the stories of all Canadians. Ian Gill, who will publish a new book about the Canadian media landscape, No News is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse – and What Comes Next, in September, made this point in a talk that opened the weekend. The Canadian journalism industry, he said, functions to support the colonial status quo. (Disclosure: Gill works for Discourse Media as a strategic advisor.)
“So much has gone unreported in Indigenous history,” said Gill. “There’s something disruptive about thinking about how to write with people whose truths have been inconvenient to the status quo,” Gill told us.
How can we do better?
Wasan Island retreat participants brainstormed some components of the media ecosystem of the future.
So much work has to be done in order to create a media ecosystem that tells Canadian stories better, and many of these issues came up during our discussions. I left excited, though, because these challenges serve as opportunities to disrupt what we, as journalists, have established and assumed to be objective and adequate.
Underreporting in Indigenous and rural communities is one major hole that needs to be addressed. Another is the lack of diversity within the media itself. A different gap exists in the way we measure the life of a story. Often, we report on an issue and drop it before we write about how it got fixed.
David Bornstein, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) and author of the New York Times’ “Fixes” column, presented concrete ways to incorporate solutions journalism into our reporting practices. “Problems scream and solutions whisper,” he said. He meant that solutions stories can require deeper investigative work. But reporting on them can bring deeper knowledge to the public discourse around an issue, knowledge the public is hungry for and that SJN studies show can prove to increase engagement.
I’m a millennial with a fresh new journalism degree, so I can’t even imagine what working within a “stable” media landscape might look like (if that ever did exist), and I’m certainly not mourning the death of a golden age of journalism.
Our ideas about opportunities to make diversity a core principle in our media work.
I’m excited to be entering the conversation now, because everything about the media is being questioned. Since storytelling and technology have crossed paths, more and more people have been using more tools to tell more stories than ever before. But I’m learning that within this exciting and rapidly changing framework, it’s important not just to consider the mediums we use to tell stories, but to evolve what we write and whose truths we tell.
As I saw this weekend, there’s a growing group of storytellers building a different media landscape. They’re using innovative models to represent Canada’s diversity, speak truth to power, deconstruct status quos and strive for impact. I’m really inspired by the potential for solutions that these models hold, both for redefining the journalism industry and for social change.
In April, Discourse Media co-founder and CEO Erin Millar took our newsroom to a global stage at the 2016 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy. She made connections and traded ideas with newfound like minds in collaborative, solutions-focused journalism.
Millar hosted a panel with Anne-Lise Bouyer of Journalism++ and Andrew DeVigal of the University of Oregon’s Agora Journalism Centre discussing the case for collaborative media partnerships rather than competitive relationships.
Discourse Media shared the stage with heavy hitters like The Guardian, NPR, The Economist and ProPublica for a panel on the development of new products in the newsroom, from tech tools to innovative forms of content.
“There’s promise in asking how we can work together to do something more ambitious,” said Discourse Media co-founder and CEO Erin Millar in a new piece from Journalism.co.uk by Madalina Ciobanu which highlights Discourse Media’s most recent collaborative project, Power Struggle. Millar spoke to Ciobanu about the “solutions-oriented, systemic angle” Discourse Media brings to our work and how we track the “slow burn of change” with long-tail coverage after stories break.
Discourse Media has been covered in a number of of recent publications in addition to the Journalism.co.uk story.
As a counter to critiques of Canada’s lack of a “vibrant media culture,” Discourse Media was profiled in industry publication J-Source as one prime example of a successful Canadian journalism startup.
On the heels of the “mega-collaboration of investigative reporters” that leaked the Panama Papers, Discourse Media took part in a Vancouver Press Club panel on the future of journalism. The Tyee’s David P. Ball covered the free public event, where panelists discussed possibilities for innovative partnership in Canadian media. Millar asked, “How can we collaborate to bring expertise and resources to the table to do work [with] impact?”
In April, Millar attended the 2016 International Journalism Festival (IJF) in Perugia, Italy, where she spoke on a panel alongside major players like ProPublica, The Guardian, NPR and The Economist. Check out the panel below, and get more coverage of our time at the IJF here.
