{"id":49720,"date":"2018-10-15T15:03:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T19:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=49720"},"modified":"2025-10-15T10:59:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:59:21","slug":"stories-north-expand-narrative","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/stories-north-expand-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism Students Expand Their Narrative with Stories North"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Journalism Students Expand Their Narrative with Stories North\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Madeline Lines, a fourth-year Journalism<\/a> student at Carleton University, knows the golden rule of her craft like the back of her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“Objectivity, objectivity, objectivity.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That’s by no means a bad thing \u2014 with mistrust of the journalism industry growing across the globe, according to 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer<\/a>, factual, impartial reporting rooted in objectivity is a journalist’s Holy Grail in the shifting media landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after spending a month in Canada’s North as part of the recently launched Stories North course<\/a> in the School of Journalism and Communication, Lines emerged with a new understanding of what it means to be a practicing journalist in Canada and around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julia Moran, a fourth-year Journalism student, hugs Bessie Cooley, a Tlingit elder who spoke to Stories North students about her experiences at a residential school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“We developed a journalism of empathy,” she explains. “The push to be objective, which I see as being totally valid, can cause people to . . . neglect empathy, when I think it can be a tool to learn about the greatest stories you possibly can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It becomes complicated when a residential school survivor breaks down in tears. Are you supposed to comfort them? When it comes down to that, I will always be a human being before I’m a journalist and that’s something I won’t compromise.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stories North, the creation of Journalism Prof. Kanina Holmes<\/a>, sent 21 upper-year undergraduate and master’s students to Whitehorse for the month of July. They travelled to communities throughout Yukon and northern British Columbia with a goal of expanding the narratives surrounding reconciliation by listening to First Nation stories and providing platforms for their voices and experiences to be heard. The course aims to increase intercultural understanding, empathy and mutual respect.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Educating Students in Indigenous History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Holmes first came into contact with Indigenous and northern storytelling when she worked for CBC North<\/a> in the Yukon in her reporting career, sparking early ideas for Stories North.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“I remember covering these important Indigenous stories and feeling that this is hugely important, but do we actually have the background to understand this?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)<\/a> released its final report<\/a> in late 2015, including calls to action for journalism schools across the country to educate their students on Indigenous history and issues, Holmes sprang into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Journalism is an extractive craft,” Holmes says. “We go in, we get our stories and we leave. I’m not going to be able to change that model completely, but I’m trying to find a way for us to spend more time on our stories and with our sources to understand the nature of storytelling. It’s looking at journalism as more of a collaboration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students who took part completed a course on Indigenous people in the Yukon, heard testimonials from residential school survivors, created photo essays<\/a> from covering the Ad\u00e4ka Cultural Festival<\/a> (a First Nations art and culture festival) and created 60-second videos<\/a> at Atlin Arts and Music Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the second year the course has been running, funded this year by a donation of close to $250,000 from the Mastercard Foundation<\/a>. This year’s course revolved around the theme of connection.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stories North: Exploring Personal Connections<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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One of the stories covered by Isaac W\u00fcrmann, who graduated from the Journalism program this year and now works with CBC Manitoba<\/a>, emphasizes this theme perfectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

W\u00fcrmann’s aunt, Karrie, was adopted into his family in 1968 at 10 months old from the Carcross\/Tagish First Nation during the Sixties Scoop<\/a> \u2014 a Canadian government-sanctioned  program in the late 1950s to the 1980s where Indigenous children and youth were separated from their families and adopted by non-Indigenous families, both inside and outside of Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the more than 20,000<\/a> adoptees were often stripped of their culture. Today, many still deal with the mental and emotional damage<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his final project<\/a>, W\u00fcrmann decided to document Karrie’s second return to Yukon and her experience reconnecting with family members, friends and her culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n