Alison Uncles
About: I am the former editor-in-chief of Maclean’s magazine. I helped launch the National Post and have worked in newsrooms in Canada and England, including the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen and the Daily Telegraph.
Seeking to mentor: Looking to mentor local reporters and/or editors interested in breaking into bigger markets.
Language(s): English
Alyshah Hasham
About: I’m a courts and justice system issues reporter at the Toronto Star. I cover criminal trials, sexual and intimate partner violence and jails/prisons, among other things. I also cover court access issues and publication bans.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists interested in court, prison and justice issue reporting.
Language(s): English
Angie Seth
About: I am a news anchor and reporter for CTV News Channel. Previous to that, I was the weekend anchor for Global News, multimarket platform, anchoring shows for 7 different markets across the country. I also worked in radio for CBC. I began my career at OMNI Television covering major stories in Canada and around the world.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists and reporters looking to take the story beyond the headlines and are interested in delving deeper into the issues that affect us, including a focus on marginalized and racialized communities.
Language(s): English
Anna Mehler Paperny
About: I am a reporter with Reuters and the author of Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person, which was a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. I have worked for The Globe and Mail and at Global News, where I developed globalnews.ca’s award-winning investigative data desk. My work on deaths in Canadian prisons won an RTDNA Dan McArthur Award for investigative journalism. I’ve chased stories ranging from COVID and public health to incarceration and migration, from post-quake Haiti to Guantanamo Bay.
Seeking to mentor: Anyone looking to develop their interviewing, digging or writing skills or who wants to commiserate and discuss working through imposter syndrome (advice in overcoming the latter will have to come from someone else). Can look over pitches and short(ish) drafts.
Language(s): English
Arif Noorani
About: I am the director of CBC Podcasts, leading content, development and strategy. I co-launched CBC Podcasts in 2015, growing the studio into an internationally recognized leader in the field, garnering more than 70 million downloads annually. He has helped develop more than 40 original series, such as the international hit Someone Knows Something; 12 seasons of Uncover including Escaping NXIVM; The Village; Love Me; and, most recently, the critically acclaimed trilogy on extremism; The Flamethrowers, White Hot Hate and Boys Like Me. I bring more than 30 years of experience in journalism having worked as a print reporter, producer, programmer, creator and entrepreneur.
Seeking to mentor: Someone interested in deep dive journalism and storytelling, interested in making content that resonates with audiences. Brings a contemporary and entrepreneurial approach.
Language(s): English
Charelle Evelyn
About: I am the managing editor of The Hill Times, an independent news outlet focused on Canadian federal politics. In addition to my day job, I’m a a part-time instructor with Carleton University’s School of Journalism, as well as a regular panellist on CBC’s Power and Politics. My previous roles include reporter/editor at the Prince George Citizen, reporter and associate editor of The Wire Report, and doing the weekly community newspaper grind.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists who want to fine-tune their story-focus skills, as well as those at any level who are eyeing a path to editing and newsroom management.
Language(s): English
Chris Hall
About: I’ve spent 24 years as a reporter/analyst in CBC’s Parliamentary bureau, filing to radio, television and on-line. Former radio bureau chief and recently retired host of the political affairs program, The House.
Seeking to mentor: Looking to work with someone interested in honing their skills at communicating both the reasoning behind public policy decisions and how those decision will affect Canadians. I’m also interested in working with anyone wanting to develop their skills at live, on-air reporting and interviewing.
Language(s): English
Christina Frangou
About: I’m a Calgary-based freelance journalist who writes for Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Chatelaine and The Narwhal, among others. My specialties are long-form feature writing and reporting on health and social issues. I’ve been working full-time as a freelancer for two decades. My work has been honoured with a National Newspaper Award and two National Magazine Awards for feature writing, and I’m the 2022 recipient of the Landsberg Award, which recognizes a journalist who shines a light on women’s equality issues.
Seeking to mentor: Early- or mid-career journalists who are interested in feature writing and/or freelancing.
Language(s): English
Craig Wilson
About: I am the senior broadcast producer of the CBS Evening News weekend editions. In nearly three decades at CBS, I have contributed to nearly every program at the network as a writer and producer. I have received three Emmy Awards, two Writers Guild of America Awards for best news-writing and a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi winner. I am a graduate of Columbia University (B.A. European History). My career proudly began as a paper boy for my hometown Medicine Hat News in Alberta.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists focused on pursuing careers in deadline-driven, broadcast/streaming news — with emphasis on strong writing, storytelling and production.
Language(s): English
Daniele Hamamdjian
About: I have been a correspondent for CTV National News for nearly 13 years and most of that time has been spent working out of the U.K bureau, where the stories we cover range from wars to royals. Prior to moving to London, I covered politics in Ottawa and (many) potholes in Montreal.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career TV broadcast journalists.
Language(s): English; French
Fred Lum
About: My 30+ years as photographer for the Globe and Mail has allowed me to follow as the industry has evolved, and in that period, adapt and learn different approaches to story telling. Primarily focused on newspaper/daily photojournalism work. The work runs the gamut from environmental portraiture, general news and anything else that runs online or in print editions.
Seeking to mentor: Looking to mentee a photographer who is not necessarily focussed on longer term work, but understands the skills needed to make their way onto editors’ call and email lists. Daily work gets lost in the shuffle but is the bread and butter of the newspaper business. Very much interested in helping mentees with their editing and post processing workflows. Bonus points if a mentee wants to explore film work beyond the cool IT factor of non-digital work.
Language(s): English
Ian Young
About: I’m the B.C. and Yukon bureau chief for The Canadian Press. I was previously the Hong Kong-based international editor for the South China Morning Post, before moving to Canada as the SCMP’s Vancouver correspondent. In my 30-year career I’ve worked as a journalist on four continents, including stints at Australian provincial newspapers and London’s Fleet Street.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career reporters with an interest in Vancouver’s Chinese communities and other under-reported communities.
Language(s): English
Jacob Boon
About: I’m newsletter editor for The Tyee, where I work with both the editorial and audience development teams to produce special feature projects (like our Under the White Gaze newsletter series) and to strengthen our sense of community with readers. I have over a decade of print and online journalism experience, having previously been the editor at Up Here magazine in Yellowknife (where I’m based) and city editor at The Coast alt-weekly in Halifax.
Seeking to mentor: Anyone interested in developing or growing their newsletters, launching big newsroom projects, finding new ways to listen to their readers, or building sustainable reader-funded journalism. Also, any aspiring editors looking to sharpen their skills.
Language(s): English
Jagjeet Sharma
About: I am a freelance journalist, author/editor/publisher, and the president of the Ottawa Ethnic Media Forum (OEMF). The purpose of the OEMF is to bridge the gap between mainstream and ethnic media, and to expose and promote different cultures by holding workshops, meet-and-greets, and hosting speakers to share their knowledge and experience, and learn collectively from them. I have freelanced and worked with the India today magazine, Indian Express, Hindustan times, the Straits Times newspapers, Ottawa Citizen, CBC (panel discussions). I am a member of the Canadian Ethnic Media Association (CEMA). I won the Canadian Ethnic Media Association’s Editor/Publisher award in 2021.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career investigative journalists and reporters interested in the representation of marginalized communities in media.
Language(s): English
Jessica DeMello
About: I am a producer and consultant currently based in Halifax, where I am helping to develop digital, visual storytelling capacity for print newsrooms across the region. My experience ranges from producing national news on TV, current affairs for radio and live programming for all platforms in local and smaller shops. The past 10 years have seen me at CBC Radio, CPAC, and most recently CTV National News. Before that, I spent five years in Calgary writing for National Post and Avenue Magazine, and producing local and national programming for CBC.
Seeking to mentor: I’m open to supporting anyone along their journey, particularly young women and journalists of colour.
Language(s): English
Jim Rankin
About: I am is a reporter-photographer at the Toronto Star. I specialize in investigations, data journalism and features, and is currently assigned to write on policing and justice issues. In 2002 I led a Michener Award-winning investigative series into race, policing and crime in Toronto, which led to repeated Star investigations into the police practice of carding and racial disparities.
Seeking to mentor: If you’re interested in data, freedom of information work, visual storytelling and navigating newsrooms, I can certainly dive in on those things.
Language(s): English
Joanna Smith
About: I am the Ottawa bureau chief for The Canadian Press and spent more than a decade as a reporter on Parliament Hill covering federal policy and politics for the national wire service and the Toronto Star.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists interested in covering policy and politics or reporters at any stage interested in making the transition into editing.
Language(s): English; French
Kathleen Martens
About: I’m currently the senior online reporter at APTNNews.ca, after seven years with the documentary unit APTN Investigates. I’ve been reporting on Indigenous issues since 2010, after a 25-year career in the mainstream media, where I worked in daily television, radio and newspaper reporting, and also helped kickstart two online startups winnipegFIRST.ca and Banklesstimes.com. I’ve worked at CBC Manitoba, the Winnipeg Sun and Brandon Sun. I’ve covered every news beat except sports and entertainment.
Seeking to mentor: Reporters interested in learning enterprise reporting, how to pitch stories, and/or making a similar transition to a niche outlet from mainstream.
Language(s): English
Kim Bolan
About: I’ve worked at the Vancouver Sun for 38 years and am a long-time beat reporter covering gangs and organized crime. I also try to work on some longer-term investigations every year. And I’m a part-time journalism instructor at Langara College teaching media law and investigative reporting.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career reporters interested in beat reporting, covering courts and doing general investigations.
Language(s): English
Malcolm Johnston
About: I’m the editor-in-chief of Toronto Life magazine. In my 15 years in journalism, I’ve worked as on all types of story (profile, true crime, memoir, trend piece, column, and so on) and in every type of format (long, short, packaged, Q&A, oral history…) and could drone on about any of them. But I’m most drawn to investigative reporting and longform profiles for the way they allow the writer to go deep, to draw out nuance, detail, character and more.
Seeking to mentor: Journalists at any stage who want to improve their longform or interviewing craft.
Language(s): English
Nathan Griffiths
About: I’m currently a graphics and data journalist at the Vancouver Sun/Province, where I report and create data-driven stories, graphics, news apps and investigations. Previously, I was a 360 video producer with the Daily 360 team at the New York Times, covering climate, science and the NY region. Before that I worked as an interactive editor and developer with the Associated Press. I received a Masters degree in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong.
Seeking to mentor: Journalists looking to tell visual, data-driven stories & journalists looking to tell stories through code.
Language(s): English; French
Rachel Ward
About: I am an investigative journalist with the Fifth Estate at CBC and a sessional journalism professor at Mount Royal University. I have worked in different roles as a freelancer and fulltimer in print, online, radio and TV from Nova Scotia to Alberta.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career investigative journalists, in particular freelancers and the precariously employed, and women and gender diverse people.
Language(s): English
Roberto Rocha
About: I’m a data reporter at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, a new nonprofit organization. Before then, I worked at CBC and the Montreal Gazette. I use data analysis and computational methods (web scraping, automation, coding, network analysis, natural language processing, GIS, data visualization) to find, research, and report stories.
Seeking to mentor: Journalists at any point in their careers who are getting into data and computation journalism or who don’t have anyone to look over their code/stats/analysis.
Language(s): English; French
Simran Singh
About: I am currently the managing editor of the Burnaby Beacon and was the former city editor at Daily Hive Vancouver. I graduated with my Masters in Journalism from UBC in 2017. I was the recipient of the 2019 Jack Webster Foundation Professional Development Fellowship, which allowed me to travel to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida, to take part in the reporting workshop for Rising Stars. I was also accepted and participated in Poynter’s September 2021 Leadership Academy for Women in Media.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career journalists interested in community news and telling stories that platform diverse voices and communities.
Language(s): English
Stacey Lee Kong
About: I am a writer, editor and the founder of Friday Things, a weekly newsletter that delivers smart takes on the week’s biggest pop culture stories — or at least, the ones she can’t stop thinking about. My bylines have appeared in publications including Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, Reader’s Digest and enRoute and have worked at some of the largest magazines in Canada, including Flare, Canadian Living, House & Home and Chatelaine. I’m also an instructor at Centennial College in Toronto.
Seeking to mentor: Early-career magazine/lifestyle journalists, aspiring editors and entrepreneurial journalists, especially racialized people and those from other equity-seeking groups.
Language(s): English
Tori Marlan
About: I specialize in longform narrative features and investigative stories. Between my 13 years as a staff writer for the Chicago Reader and my current job as an investigative reporter for Capital Daily, I freelanced for a variety of outlets in the US and Canada, including The Walrus, CBC’s The Doc Project, The Atavist Magazine, The Seattle Times, and The Marshall Project. My work has been recognized with Canadian Online Publishing Awards, CAJ awards, and a National Newspaper Award.
Seeking to mentor: Anyone eager to tell compelling and impactful longform stories.
Language(s): English
Tracey Lindeman
About: I am a longtime freelance journalist based in Quebec. My bylines include the Guardian, Fortune, the Atlantic, Associated Press, the Walrus, Maisonneuve, Chatelaine, Al Jazeera and many more. I primarily covers current affairs, cities, housing and social issues.
Seeking to mentor: Anyone looking to make a career for themselves as freelancers or progressive/alternative media workers, en français ou en anglais.
Language(s): English; French
Willow Fiddler
About: I’m a national staff reporter for the Globe and Mail, covering mostly Indigenous stories in Northern Ontario, a region typically underrepresented by mainstream media. I was a video journalist for four years prior, operating a home bureau alone in Thunder Bay. I’ve received training from Thomson Reuters Foundation, Global News, Banff Centre for Arts, and JHR, where I also provide training for journalism students.
Seeking to mentor: Journalists with a desire to report on or with Indigenous or northern communities in ways that build respectful and trusting relationships.
Language(s): English
