The St. Thomas University Experiential Learning Office hosted a session with CBC New Brunswick Senior Producer Jocelyn Elsdon Heenan to give students an insight on the media industry.
“We value journalists that come from all different places and spaces and personalities and our job is to be the conduit to people’s stories,” said Elsdon Heenan.
She provided advice for new journalists entering the profession: get your foot in the door, acquire as many skills as possible and be valuable.
“Once you have your foot in the door, you just try not to leave and make yourself more viable. You build up your skill set as much as possible … but the more skills you have, the more useful you are,” she said.
“You listen, be insatiably curious, ask a lot of questions and just get all the skills that you can suck up like a sponge.”
Elsdon Heenan has previously worked for CTV National News as a producer and writer, CTV’s Canada AM as a producer and CBC’s The National.
During her lecture, she emphasized that journalists can be both a “hard-nosed dog” or more of “an empath.”
Rafaella Ortega, a journalism student at STU said that it was inspiring to hear that there is a place for her empathy and sensitivity in journalism.
“She made me realize that it’s okay to be uncomfortable. There is a place for my sensibility in journalism and many ways to produce journalistic work and different types of stories,” said Ortega.
“I felt like she said there is a place for that in journalism, which made me feel really good about it.”
During the session, Elsdon Heenan addressed Ortega’s and other students’ discomfort in some of the uncomfortable work that can come with being a journalist.
“It’s okay to acknowledge your discomfort in that space. I don’t think that makes you less of a journalist. I think that makes you a bit more human,” said Elsdon Heenan. “You’re allowed to be a human journalist, too.”
Suzanne Shah, a journalism student at STU shared challenges in finding a balance between being bold and asking tough questions, giving the interviewees time and meeting deadlines.
“I loved our conversation about sensitivity and journalism,” said Shah.
Elsdon Heenan shared the importance of using trauma-informed lenses when interviewing.
“Instead of going into someone’s space and saying, like, give me the what, why, when, where, how, you know, you’re very aware of the vulnerabilities they may have, the trauma they may have experienced,” she said.
Overall, Elsdon Heenan is excited to see the future generation of journalists break onto the scene.
“[It] makes me really happy to see the new cohorts of journalists and hear the questions that they’re asking, see their critical thinking and their approaches to things … their experience of the world is much different than my experience of the world.”
