By: Zachary Andrade
Mary Lynn Young
Mary-Lynn Young, PhD, is a lead researcher and professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. A founding member of both The Conversation Canada, as well as the Global Journalism Innovation Lab, her interdisciplinary work spans innovations within both explanatory and computational journalism.
“I like them all for different reasons,” she says of her ever-evolving projects in the field. Within the Lab, Mary-Lynn works to not only interrogate the institutions on which contemporary journalism stands, but also to carve out a niche for future journalists at the national level. She highlights the central dialogue between The Conversation and the Lab, especially regarding their modern applications. “There’s a real time, living lab of what journalism could look like in a not-for-profit context in Canada.” While both initiatives sit at the convergence of Mary-Lynn’s work, she refuses to pick a favourite project.
“I’m not being apolitical […] It’s the culmination of a lot of my work in practice,” she affirms. As a co-lead of the Journalism Innovation and Media Startups theme, she is in constant search for new methods of bringing national attention to Canadian journalism. “The literature shows that not a lot of funding has gone into innovation […] and it’s been powerful to both contribute to the Canadian media sector as well as gain perspective and expertise in a comparative sense.”
From our Conversation:
Q: What specifically in your project theme are you researching?
A: We’re basically doing a sort of journalism practice at The Conversation Canada. […] Often there’s competitive information so you can’t share in real time. There’s a number of impediments to learning, […] That’s in part why we founded The Conversation Canada: Can we make a principled intervention to address research-driven questions, and then can we study it and share that widely so that people can learn?
Q: What in media needs to change for a more sustainable model of journalism?
A: For me, the most useful contributions to the media system in Canada now are trying to understand how the contemporary moment is different from the past; what needs to be repaired and transformed and with a conscious clarity approaching those issues. […] The best thing would be a kind of retrospective and conscious examination of journalism infrastructure with questions [like] what does this contemporary moment require? And I still don’t think we’re there yet.
“I’m not being apolitical […] It’s the culmination of a lot of my work in practice,” she affirms. As a co-lead of the Journalism Innovation and Media Startups theme, Mary-Lynn Young is in constant search for new methods of bringing national attention to Canadian journalism.
Sibo Chen
Sibo Chen (PhD) is an assistant professor in TMU’s School of Professional Communication. His research is concerned with the analysis of transnational AI programs, polarization, as well as anti-Asian racism and energy transition. He has written for The Conversation Canada, participated in Toronto’s “The Green Line,” and serves on the executive board for the Canadian Communication Association and the International Enviornmental Communication Association. To read more about Sibo’s work in academia, click here. He joins me on Zoom from a Vancouver cafe to discuss the limits of scholarly writing, his AI endeavours, and to express hope in the democratic promise of Substack.
“The industry is in deep crisis […] I think we are all interested in keeping the public role played by journalism and looking at the different aspects.” His words early on punctuate much of our discussion; his work with Lab collaborators Dr. Blanchett and Dr. Davis at TMU, surely, but his own efforts to innovate, too. Separate from his position as a researcher for the Global Journalism Innovation Lab, Sibo has authored over a dozen articles for The Conversation Canada, spanning #StopAsianHate to the environmental impacts of energy extraction. “I used to [write] during the pandemic because there [was] nothing else you could do. Now I think I do less, but I’m trying to publish one or two pieces a year.”
The kinds of accessible, quality journalistic outputs that The Conversation facilitates are of deep importance to Sibo. By bridging the factually dense, less visible writing of scholars with approachable and succinct media, his vision of journalism’s future is better realized. His insights are dually interested in the writing of the individual- especially in their potential application for foundational change.
He points to Substack, a virtual platform that allows users to write and send newsletters for free, as a candidate for the future. “One person operations [are] able to get a decent income by writing newsletters […] So could that model be one of the possible directions for some of the smaller revenue models? I think the conventional model- the advertisement-based model, is not going to work.” Instead, Sibo posits, the power of journalism patronage may be better suited to a smaller print; focused but limited. And ethically sourced.
“One person operations [are] able to get a decent income by writing newsletters […] So could that model be one of the possible directions for some of the smaller revenue models? I think the conventional model- the advertisement-based model, is not going to work.”
Nicole Blanchett
Nicole Blanchett (PhD) is an associate professor of TMU’s School of Journalism. Her research primarily touches upon the optimalization of AI in newsrooms, as well as accessible, quality-driven journalistic startups. She is currently studying The Green Line as well as the Lab’s own industry partner The Conversation Canada. Over a Zoom call, we discuss her projects in and outside of the Lab, as well as restructuring the journalistic landscape, and the golden ingredient of journalism.
As we speak, she denotes that her projects largely fall under two categories: innovation, and the modeling of community-minded journalism. “There are many of these sorts of disruptors that are entering the industry and sort of challenging the boundaries of what journalism is, and that’s something that my research has been focused on since I started.” We discuss The Green Line; a local Toronto startup that is aimed at a younger audience, including those in underserved communities. “It’s all about […] find[ing] the best way to connect with an audience and share information […] it’s very community driven.”
It bears resemblances to The Conversation Canada in its curiosity of information dissemination, but many of Blanchett’s endeavors are also interested in the growing presence of AI in journalistic efforts. Through a survey, she and a team of researchers at TMU are exploring “audience perceptions of the use of AI in journalism […] how they think it’s being used, and how they feel about the way its used.” That same survey further examines an audience member’s willingness to pay for AI journalism, a model that threatens to dually maximize content output and outdate the work of human authorship. Unsurprisingly, Blanchett offers reassurance.
“I would say there are still jobs […] I think we saw, for example, even during the height of COVID, when people are in a crisis mode, they’re looking for information. Then you see more trusted news sources being used more frequently.” It’s the best of both worlds: innovation and community. Mindfulness in progress.
From our Conversation:
Q: What has been your favourite project so far?
A: It’s like picking your favourite child […] I think that the overall thing that I like about [the Lab] is that it’s all about examining innovation and new structures of journalism, and all of these things that I find so fascinating. It’s just so interesting to think about all the different ways you can look at journalism, all the different perceptions there are of journalism, what the implications of that can be.
Q: What in media do you think needs to change to structure a more sustainable model of journalism?
A: If I could answer that question succinctly, I could make a lot of money. Because the thing is, I don’t think there’s one thing that can change. I think that its a whole bunch of things that need to change, and I think people are recognizing that with realizing that we need multiple revenue streams; we can’t just count on subscription. Maybe we’re also going to have to get donations, or maybe we’re also going to have to look at different partnerships to see how we can help sustain it. […] If you can’t connect with an audience, then that’s the golden ingredient that’s missing.
“It’s just so interesting to think about all the different ways you can look at journalism, all the different perceptions there are of journalism, what the implications of that can be.“
Candis Callison
Candis Callison (PhD) has proven to be foundational in her approach to Indigenous thought in journalism. After a two-year break, she has returned, continuing her collaborations with both Daniel Justice of the Institue for Critical Indigenous Studies, and Rick Harp, host and producer of the podcast, Media Indigena. Callison has been a contributor since 2018, acting as a regular member of the show’s roundtable discussion format. “We get organized around what [Rick] brings us in to talk about, and we have these conversations which are really useful- I’ve heard, from a lot of scholars and students, but also non-academics.”
She notes that some of Media Indigena’s most poignant episodes centre around critiques of media, a topic that has informed much of the research Callison conducts outside the Lab. Since 2015, she has worked on a project concerned with journalistic efforts based in and around the circumpolar north, an effort which incorporates ethnographic field work through interviews with fellow journalists. “We talk some in scholarship about how Indigenous people in the North are represented, […] but it’s been an incredible privilege to talk to journalists about the work they do reporting on the North, and for the North.”
The study has reinforced the stark realities already posited by Callison and her Lab peers. “I think we’re seeing a really continued, sustained decline [in journalism]. In my research across the North, I have really come to value and appreciate the individuals who are committed to keeping this paper of record idea alive.” And yet- there is a disconnect; the small, community-driven publications are, in Callison’s own words, “do[ing] bigger work,” while maintaining an interdependency on metropolitan epicenters of media. This clash of agendas comes to embody a portion of Candis’ essential research; continuing to embolden the true centres of thought.
“I think we’re seeing a really continued, sustained decline [in journalism]. In my research across the North, I have really come to value and appreciate the individuals who are committed to keeping this paper of record idea alive.”
Zachary Andrade is a third-year Honours English student at the University of British Columbia. He is interested in arts and culture within journalism, and has written album reviews for Discorder Magazine. Previously, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Steveston-London Secondary Press. His role as Research Assistant is funded by UBC’s Arts University Research Award (AURA).