Inclusive Journalism Microcredential – Cohort #3 - New Canadian Media
The third cohort of the Inclusive Journalism Microcredential started on February. 8, 2024. The opening speaker for this cohort was San Grewal of The Pointer.
Cohort #3 Participants: Mainstream journalists from CTV News, Village Media and 10 members of the NCM Collective.
Previous Cohorts:
For more details on the microcredential and future cohorts, visit this link: Inclusive Journalism Microcredential.
Below are the journalists who served as instructors in the third edition of this pioneering microcredential:
San Grewal is the founder of The Pointer and a journalist. He has won numerous awards for his investigative work over his 25-year career in journalism. Prior to founding The Pointer he worked for the Toronto Star, where much of his journalism was focused on Peel Region and other parts of the Greater Toronto Area. Prior to that, he launched a national magazine, Diverge, which also received numerous awards during its publication run in the mid-to-late ’90s.
For more than two decades, Christina Frangou has been an independent journalist in Calgary, where she specializes in writing about health and social issues. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Canadian Geographic and more. She has been recognized with some of Canada’s most prestigious awards for print journalism, including a National Newspaper Award and four National Magazine Awards for feature writing. In 2022, she received the Landsberg Award, which was given jointly by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and the Canadian Journalism Foundation to honour her efforts to shed light on women’s equality issues. Christina received her Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.
Nazim Baksh has been producing news, feature reports and investigative documentaries for multiple CBC platforms from May 1990 to present. He has covered a range of subjects but has distinguished himself by cultivating a niche of his own in the national security space. Nazim has produced stories pertaining to violent religious extremism and right-wing ideologically motivated hate and racism, and more recently, the plight of international Indian students in Canada who were “Sold a Lie,” a Fifth Estate episode that aired on September 29, 2022. As an unofficial CBC resident “expert” on Islam, Muslims and the Middle East, Nazim has become adept at informing story selection and production so as to avoid bias, stereotypes and racism.
Eden Fineday is a powerful writer, a passionate speaker, and publisher of IndigiNews. IndigiNews.com journalists tell stories from across Indigenous homelands while practicing trauma-informed, culturally relevant and respectful journalism. Eden is a nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from the Sweetgrass First Nation in Treaty 6 territory and the publisher of IndigiNews. She endeavours to be a good relation as an uninvited guest on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqeum),  Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples.
Paul Bucci is an award-winning journalist and editor who has worked in senior management positions in some of Canada’s largest media companies, including Postmedia, Black Press Media and Brunswick News. Accomplishments at Postmedia included establishing Tai Yang Bao, a Chinese-language online news publication and Vancouver Desi, a publication for South Asian audiences. A former legislature journalist with reporting stints in Somalia and Bosnia, Bucci has been an editor and strategist with New Canadian Media since 2022.
Denise Balkissoon has been executive editor at Chatelaine, where she edited a National Magazine Award-winning feature about long-term care. She has also been a columnist, reporter and editor at the Globe and Mail, where she co-hosted and co-produced the podcast Colour Code about race in Canada, which won a Digital Publishing Award. From 2011 to 2018, she was a founding member of the Ethnic Aisle, a groundbreaking digital magazine about ethnicity and racism in the Greater Toronto Area. She has been recognized by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations for her longstanding commitment to integrating racial justice into Canadian journalism.
Sandra E. Martin is The Globe and Mail’s Standards Editor. Sandra addresses complaints regarding accuracy or bias, as well as any questions arising from The Globe’s use of artificial intelligence. Sandra has over 20 years of experience creating content for print, digital, broadcast and social. Previously, she served as The Globe’s Head of Newsroom Development, as well as Editor-in-Chief of MoneySense. She has also been an instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Journalism. A former Editor-in-Chief of Canadian Living, Sandra also is a two-time National Magazine Awards finalist, a repeat MA judge, and a two-time NMA host. She sits on the board of directors of Canada’s National History Society and SABEW Canada.