Algonquin journalism program crucial to covering news in the North

In a world rife with disinformation, fake news and artificial intelligence, Canadians need more journalists to help sort out what’s real — not fewer.

That’s why it is disappointing to learn Ottawa’s Algonquin College might scrap its journalism program as a cost-cutting measure.

It’s one of 30 programs whose fate the college’s board of governors will decide on Feb. 23.

On behalf of Nunatsiaq News, here’s an employer’s perspective on the valuable contribution Algonquin College graduates make to the reporting of the news in Nunavut and Nunavik, each of them underserved parts of Canada. Here’s the case for sparing journalism from the chopping block.

Over the past five years, Nunatsiaq News has employed four graduates of Algonquin’s journalism program — a significant portion of this paper’s 10-person newsroom.

Readers in Nunavut and Nunavik are getting their news from Algonquin graduates who are telling important stories.

Last year, Algonquin grad Jorge Antunes was the first to report the federal government had changed the rules for a universal food voucher program funded by the Inuit Child First Initiative.

Arty Sarkisian, another Algonquin product, has reported extensively on the federal government’s nation-building projects, including the plan to build a deepsea port in Qikiqtarjuaq, now seen as an integral part of Arctic security and sovereignty.

Former reporter Madalyn Howitt won a Canadian Community Newspaper Award in 2024 for her coverage of opposition to Larga Baffin’s planned expansion in Ottawa.

In 2023, Andrea Sakiyama Kennedy won the Quebec Community Newspaper Association’s Best Environmental Story award for an article on research into the loss of sea ice.

The North is increasingly important in Canadian public life because of Arctic security and sovereignty, climate change, the exploitation of natural resources, and Canada’s ongoing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

With everything that’s at stake — increasing significance in Arctic matters along with a growing complexity in the relationship between Inuit organizations and the federal government — Canada needs more journalists writing the first drafts of this history.

A strong vibrant Algonquin is important to students from the North.

Algonquin College has 1,000 Indigenous students, including about 80 Inuit. That might not seem like a lot but consider the relatively small number of high school graduates Nunavut and Nunavik produce in a year.

Sadly, we’re not aware of any of those 80 Inuit who are studying journalism. That’s a shame. If more Inuit could get journalism training, it would create opportunities for them to tell their own stories to other Inuit and to more Canadians overall.

Algonquin is an accessible option to students from the North.

There’s a special connection between Ottawa and Nunavut. It’s a direct three-hour flight from Iqaluit. Many Nunavummiut know the nation’s capital because they go there for medical treatment. It’s comfortable, and it has Canada’s biggest population of Inuit outside of the North.

Politics and business are now inundated with communications specialists who control the information Canadians get. Over the past 20 years, it has become harder for journalists to make it past these gatekeepers to get the information readers — citizens — need.

It’s understandable that Algonquin’s financial crisis cannot continue. The board of governors is right to want to get the college’s house in order.

Perhaps the journalism program could be retooled to make it more cost-effective. Perhaps smaller.

Given what’s at stake in the public life of Canada at this moment, now is the wrong time to reduce the number of journalists.