AJAs 2017 Finalists
Attachments
| Slug/Label | New Journalist |
|---|---|
| Date Aired or Published | |
| Media outlet where first aired or published: | CBC NB |
| Name of Program: | CBC NB |
| If co-produced, list partner: | |
| Location: | New Brunswick |
| List awards, grants: | |
| Running time (TV/Radio): | |
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Short explanation of the story and how it developed: I have been incredibly lucky to start out my journalism career at CBC NB because my colleagues have been so eager to mentor me and encourage me as I tackle more and more stories. Since my time as an intern over the summer and since then working here, I have covered a wide range of stories from features, municipal politics, environmental coverage, enterprise reporting, and daily news. Here are three examples that I feel represent my young career with CBC. Rotenone This was one of four stories I did over the summer investigating a conservation group that had been trying for two years to use a pesticide to kill invasive smallmouth bass in order to save salmon. I did my first story to see where the project stood for summer 2023 after a first round of spraying the previous fall, since they had made no announcements and it was still up in the air. No other outlet was covering it, so this story started the conversation again. The next story looked into how local cottagers felt about being left in the dark on plans. During an interview with DFO, they mentioned a progress report from round 1 of spraying, which the public had not seen. DFO and the conservation group refused to give it to me, so I filed an FOI. It came back a month later, and the results were shocking. The group was very defensive as the results showed they killed far more salmon than smallmouth. I searched for experts in the field and ended up using the best interview out of three I conducted for the story. Two days later, the group announced the plan to use rotenone had been cancelled. I feel that my reporting brought Rotenone back into the spotlight. St. George Tourism This was my first enterprise story with CBC. I wanted to investigate how tourism in NB had been impacted by provincial welcome centres closing under a new strategy. I spent a day calling around to most of the municipal tourism centres that were left to fill the void, and eventually struck gold: one municipal welcome centre didn't even know that it was listed. The shop owner was a great character and it was the perfect example of how the province's strategy was at best, ill-managed. By searching scores of old google reviews of the now-closed welcome centres, I found a nearly 10 year-old review by a couple from Maine who credits a visit to the centre with sparking a love for visiting NB, and they've now visited 10 times. I tracked down the man online and interviewed him. I then did an interview with a provincial tourism executive and confronted her with my findings. It was my many hours of research and calling around that gave me those two incredible sources, which made a better case for the accountability interview. NBCC This was the second story I did on NB Community College. The first was about how program cancellations had disrupted the lives of international students planning to come to NB to study. It was because of that reporting that led to a group of international students emailing me because of further troubles they'd experienced with NBCC- the school changed a deadline last minute and then cancelled student acceptances when the new deadlines couldn't be met. It also stopped accepting students from two African countries. I was able to craft a compelling story and spoke to the president of the NB Nigerian association who has been trying to help these students. The president refused many interview attempts so by covering the story I was able to hold the school accountable. It was only because of the original story that led other people to send me this tip that resulted in a compelling story. |
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Resources of the newsroom (money and time) available to complete the story: Each story I spent about 2 days working on. |
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