The Northern Journalism Training Initiative, established to help NWT residents access the world of journalism and broadcasting, has run out of funding and will close next month.
NJTI was formed after a group of northern and Indigenous media workers gathered in 2020 to create an organization that would “empower northern people to tell northern stories.”
By 2023, the initiative was delivering its first four-week intensive program to an all-Indigenous class of prospective storytellers in Inuvik. A second four-week program ran in Hay River last year, offering workshops with journalists alongside classroom based and on-location training.
However, the non-profit says it no longer has the money to continue programming.
“It’s become increasingly challenging to get significant amounts of core funding for an initiative like this, specifically one that’s focused on education,” said Garrett Hinchey, a former CBC North managing editor who is a volunteer member of NJTI’s steering committee.
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“There is still money for journalism and media initiatives, but we found the organizations that provided the bulk of our core funding were moving in a different direction with the kinds of projects they funded, looking more towards newsrooms and things of that nature.”
Hinchey said NJTI will keep running until February so its existing projects can be “closed up in a good way.”
“We got to the point where this was, at least in the eyes of the steering committee, the only realistic and responsible option,” he said.
“We didn’t want to run a shadow organization or one that’s increasingly going into debt. If we’re going to deliver this mission, we want to deliver it well.”
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Kaila Jefferd-Moore, a former CBC journalist from Inuvik, has been NJTI’s project director since 2022.
She said the concept of media literacy “flowed through everything” the initiative did, from its larger weeks-long programs to workshops on the likes of podcasting and satire.
Now, Jefferd-Moore says NJTI’s mission will need to live on in the people who participated in its programming – and in newsrooms like CBC North and Cabin Radio.
“Just through conversations with newsrooms, there is more of an awareness and more of an interest and appetite to … maybe think about things a little bit differently,” she said.
She described asking newsroom editors if they would be inclined to hire northerners graduating from a four-week NJTI program over southerners with a four-year journalism degree.
“Resoundingly, most people in the North said: ‘Yes. If you can make that happen, we’ll do that.’ And so I hope newsrooms will keep those doors open and keep the spirit of NJTI’s mission in their minds as well,” said Jefferd-Moore.
“I hope that folks stay curious, they want to hold powers-that-be accountable and challenge misinformation wherever we see it. You know, the skills of verification will never not be valuable. They’re in high demand.
“There are a lot of us in the North who are really willing to share the knowledge we have in any way we can. I think we’re all pretty open to hearing from those folks who want to do that and just trying to help them get into the media.”
In a Friday email to newsletter subscribers, the organization said it is “exploring options for NJTI’s assets, including our curriculum and educational materials.”
Anyone interested in those materials is instructed to contact NJTI.
