Rosa Saba

Bachelor of Humanities, Religion, Digital editor at The Globe and Mail

B.J Hum Graduate 2018
Rosa was the first graduate from the Bachelor of Journalism and Humanities program

What was your experience like in the program and how has your degree helped your career?

I can’t imagine what I would be like as a journalist without the humanities program. The Journalism program was great at teaching me the who, what, where and when questions at the basis of journalistic reporting, but the Humanities program for encouraging me to seek out the why.

Essentially, the program makes you critical and stops you from believing things without further investigation . . . It’s a history of the ideas that shaped the world. Every single new idea or theory or worldview that’s presented to you, the first thing you ask is why.

Today, when the journalism industry is constantly faced with accusations of false or biased news, remaining critical and sticking to the ethics of journalism by impartially including every perspective or stake in a story is extremely important if we want to avoid creating a bubble and furthering polarization.

I feel my role as a journalist is to help people understand and connect with the world around them, working against ignorance. At Carleton, this started with educating myself about different sociocultural, racial and ethnic groups. I graduated with a minor in Religion, specializing in Islam and Christianity, which complemented the Humanities classes I took and helped prepare me to report with empathy, openness and curiosity.