Celebrating the power of journalism
News stories praised for ability to effect change on World News Day
At the Canadian Journalism Foundation inaugural World News Day, Carol Todd, whose daughter Amanda committed suicide after experiencing online bullying, said she kept a written record of every journalist who called and emailed her.
“We didn’t want to be a family out there that shared our story,” she told the audience at CBC’s Barbara Frum atrium.
“In the throes of sadness, I didn’t want to do that.”
Five-and-a-half years after news of her daughter’s death was publicly broadcast around the world, Todd is grateful for the power of journalism for continuing the legacy of her daughter’s efforts to shed light on cyberbullying. Her story began the CJF event, which coincided with the United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day.
The event came days after nine journalists were killed in Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, in the deadliest assault on reporters since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
In Toronto, amid talk of fake news and debilitating trust, journalists, and those who told their stories to journalists, celebrated the power of news stories, and the changes they can inspire, in policy, law and the lives of individuals.
The Star’s work and wealth reporter, Sara Mojtehedzadeh, spoke at the event in a questionand-answer segment with Angel Reyes, a temporary worker and refugee who came forward three years ago to reveal the conditions of temp agencies for the first time.
Reyes retold the story for the audience, his voice breaking as he did.
He lost his job when he came forward, Mojtehedzadeh told the audience, but doing so pushed the City in Toronto to investigate his workplace, leading to the agency paying its workers $1.33 million in back pay.
“He represents the type of person whose voice deserves to be heard,” Mojtehedzadeh told the Star. Reyes story opened the doors for more coverage on temp agencies in Ontario.
In September 2017, the Star published an undercover investigation by Mojtehedzadeh into one of the GTA’s largest industrial bakeries, where a temp worker had died as a result of a workplace accident.
The power of journalism, she told the Star, lies in the fact that “when people like Reyes speak and we listen, it can generate real change.”
The Star’s Daniel Dale, the keynote speaker at 20th annual world press freedom awards luncheon held in Ottawa, said that journalism matters today because journalists “put truth at the forefront of everything we do.
“There is a consensus, as far as I can tell, that we should simply tune out the nonsense and do our jobs as always,” Dale said.
“Digging, exposing. Not responding.”
DANIEL DALE “We should simply tune out the nonsense and do our jobs as always.” STAR REPORTER