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Hello readers,

After months of excitement, the 2024 Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) conference and awards banquet came and went in a flash. The two-day journalism circuit took place in Toronto from May 31 to June 1, and I attended along with fellow IndigiNews reporter Dionne Phillips. 

It was the first time I had been to Toronto in years. I was nervous, but there was actually a sense of comfort that came with wandering the city and finding myself lost in a sea of people from so many different walks of life.

The awards were a highlight of the event, as the CAJs are some of the top investigative honours in the country. I was ecstatic and proud when Dionne Phillips — who reports on Secwepemcúl’ecw for IndigiNews and our sister publication the Wren — won the Emerging Indigenous Journalist Award.

What Dionne has been able to accomplish in about a year and a half of working as a professional journalist is a testament to her character and her skills as a storyteller. She works hard and puts so much care into her stories. She was so deserving of the win, which was based on a portfolio of her work.

Photo by Ana Sofia Hibon

Watching Dionne’s growth has been one of the best experiences of my career. With no background in journalism, she took a leap of faith into the industry, through the IndigiNews mentorship program in early 2023. She is already receiving national recognition for writing about her Secwépemc community with love and grace, and we are all so proud of her.

On top of Dionne’s award, Brandi Morin and Amber Bracken won in the Environment and Climate Change category for their reporting on wildfires in northern Alberta — a collaborative project between IndigiNews, Ricochet and the Real News. 

The rest of the conference was a fantastic experience. I’ve been working in the journalism industry for roughly five years, and along the way I’ve come across the work of so many amazing journalists whose approach to both visual and written storytelling has helped inspire my own craft. 

To finally meet colleagues whom I had never met before –— or had only met online — was one of the highlights of my trip. Some of those folks included the incredible Tanya Talaga, Jesse Winter, Solana Cain and Melissa Tait.

Equally gratifying was connecting with some people I hadn’t seen in awhile, such as Matteo Cimellaro, Jackie McKay and Angel Moore.

Photo by Brandi Morin

Spirits were high as the journalism community came together to celebrate one another and exchange knowledge. The panel discussions I attended explored the dynamic between photographers and reporters; the highs and lows of Indigenous journalism in 2023; and reporting on climate change and the environment.

These discussions, as insightful as they were, came with mixed feelings. On one hand, I gained valuable perspective into the minds of great storytellers, and how and why they do what they do. On the other, I could hear the frustration and sense of despair in some of their voices around the state of journalism and the direction it is going in. 

While addressing the banquet, CAJ president Brent Jolly spoke about what was on everyone’s mind. Ethical and meaningful journalism across the world is eroding. Resources are slim. Fact and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. Media literacy is at a low. Press freedom — the truth and those who fight for it —  is under attack. Palestinian journalists are being killed while reporting on the horrors being inflicted upon them. 

My takeaway was that while the storytelling we do has gotten better over the last few years, there’s always room for improvement. Doing journalism is getting harder but has never been more needed, and there’s less and less people doing this work. Luckily our small teams are able to make amazing things happen through reader and grant support, collaborations with other outlets, and the passion we have for the stories we tell.

So thank you to the CAJ, thank you to my IndigiNews colleagues, and thank you to our beloved readers who make this all possible.

Warmly, 

Aaron

Aaron Hemens is an award-winning photographer, journalist and visitor in unceded syilx Okanagan territory. He is Filipino on his mom’s side, and has both French and British roots on his dad’s. As a settler, he is committed to learning and unlearning in his role as Storyteller for the Okanagan region, and to accurately and respectfully tell stories of Indigenous Peoples throughout the area. Aaron’s work is supported in part with funding from the Local Journalism Initiative in partnership with The Discourse and APTN.

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