Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, a master’s student in the final year of Carleton’s Journalism program, is on her way to the CBC this summer to work in Toronto and Calgary.
Levy-McLaughlin won the prestigious Joan Donaldson – CBC News Scholarship and will join the ranks of what Canada’s public broadcaster considers to be the best and brightest young journalists.
“I am so honoured and humbled to be working with CBC alongside some of Canada’s best up-and-coming journalists, and learning from veteran reporters,” says Levy-McLaughlin.
The four-month paid internship will see Levy-McLaughlin work on the CBC’s flagship investigative program, the Fifth Estate, the online digital desk in Toronto and the local newsroom in Calgary.
Levy-McLaughlin is a multimedia journalist from Unionville, Ontario. She has reported in different newsrooms across the country for half a decade, from Ottawa to Vancouver to Whitehorse, Yukon. She got her start in journalism at UBC’s student newspaper in Vancouver during her undergraduate degree in English literature.
After graduating from UBC and spending more than half a year of volunteering and travelling across Southeast Asia, Rachel started the Master of Journalism program at Carleton University. That took her to a small town in upstate New York to cover the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, among many other reporting adventures. Last summer, Rachel worked at CBC North in Whitehorse, Yukon.
While she does love a good news story (she once did a story about kids and alpacas), Levy-McLaughlin is no stranger to telling challenging stories. Her Master’s research project looks at the 2014 prostitution legislation and the impacts it had on the sex industry in Ottawa and Vancouver. She received two scholarships from Carleton University to conduct this project.
Her work has appeared in the Canadian Geographic, Postmedia, the Globe and Mail and CBC.
“When I was young(er) and aspiring to be a journalist, I was joking around with some family members about the industry, and I imitated the classic CBC sign off, “Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, CBC News.” One person in the group laughed and said, “yeah, right.” When I did my first radio sign off for CBC News in Whitehorse, I sent this person a recording of it with the closest thing to proud that an emoji could muster.”
The Donaldson scholarship, named after the late CBC journalist, Joan Donaldson, one of the founders of CBC Newsworld, rewards students who have shown exceptional academic performance along with an aptitude for journalism. The selection committee, which included Mark Mietkiewicz, senior manager for CBC News staff development, also looks for students who are engaged with the world around them through community participation or travel.
Levy-McLaughlin is the latest on a long list of Carleton journalism students who have been named Donaldson scholars over the years, and who have built flourishing careers in Canadian media. Recent recipients from Carleton include Patrick Butler, currently a Parliamentary intern, Marc-André Cossette, who works with CBC in Ottawa and Priscilla Hwang, currently working at CBC North in Yellowknife.
Each year, the CBC selects up to eight students for the Donaldson scholarship from undergraduate and graduate journalism programs at 10 Canadian universities and colleges. The list of this year’s scholars can be found here.
Sunday, April 15, 2018 in General, Journalism News, News
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