The Canadian Association of Journalists’ online learning sessions provide members with easy-to-access learning opportunities from fellow journalists. The interview-style series will provide insight to participants about how a journalist broke a particular story of impact. The sessions will be interactive, with time allowed for asking questions to hone skills.
Sessions will be recorded and will be available for viewing as part of the CAJ membership perks through our members-only learning portal.
To register for an event, simply choose from one of the events listed below. Registration ability will be limited to current CAJ members.
Not a member? We can fix that!
Upcoming Sessions
Inside Scoop session will return in Fall 2024
Details of next sessions coming soon.
To view recordings of previous sessions, head to our members-only portal, which are posted soon after the event.
Previous Sessions
To view any of the following recorded sessions, please head to our members-only learning resources page. Not a member? We can fix that!
In Nov. 2022, The Narwhal and the Toronto Star jointly broke the first story that would eventually set the Ontario Greenbelt scandal in motion. In an interview led by Karyn Pugliese, Emma McIntosh from The Narwhal unpacked how she kept up the heat on the story in the months since the original investigation, and found new angles to press on — both in partnership with the Star and on her own. The session covered setting the stage for maximum impact before an investigation is published, using targeted FOIs to catch governments being dishonest, and choosing where and how to dig to keep a story in the headlines.
Interviewee: Emma McIntosh, Reporter with The Narwhal
Interviewer: Karyn Pugliese, CAJ past president and Editor-in-chief, Canadaland
Organ donations by living donors are rare. In 2019, there were just 302 such donations in Ontario; one of them was health reporter Wency Leung’s left kidney. In the Globe and Mail feature that she wrote about her experience, Leung describes the donor organ shortage and its deadly effects. She also explores the experiences that led her to make such an unusual, even radical, choice. When does it make sense for a reporter to center their own perspective? How do you balance personal writing and reporting? This Zoom interview and Q&A with Leung explored how to pull off a first-person feature.
Wency Leung recently joined The Local magazine as a staff reporter. Previously, she worked as a health reporter for The Globe and Mail, and has reported for The Vancouver Sun, The Prague Post, The Cambodia Daily and Reuters. She’d be happy to never write another COVID story again, but still wears an N95 on public transit.
Interviewee: Wency Leung, reporter for The Local magazine
Interviewer: Eva Holland, freelance journalist and CAJ Northern Canada Regional Director
When the Globe and Mail revealed Hockey Canada was quietly using millions of dollars of player registration fees to settle sexual assault allegations without the public knowing, Canadians were incensed. These secret funds helped keep sexual assault cases out of the courts and away from public scrutiny. At federal hearings, Hockey Canada executives repeatedly sidestepped questions about how such matters were handled, keeping hidden what was going on inside the organization. This Zoom interview and Q&A with Grant Robertson explored how he uncovered the funds, how to investigate highly opaque organizations, and how to conduct an investigation on the fly.
Grant Robertson is an investigative reporter with the Globe and Mail, with a background covering business, government, crime, and public policy. His work has exposed the regulatory flaws that led to the deadly Lac-Mégantic rail explosion; Canada’s unacknowledged role in the Boeing 737 Max disasters; the shutdown of the federal government’s internationally renowned pandemic early warning system less than a year before COVID-19 hit; and the hidden use of player registration fees in sexual assault settlements at Hockey Canada. Robertson was the 2022 recipient of CAJ awards in both the Written News category as well as the Don McGillivray award.
Interviewee: Grant Robertson, investigative journalist for The Globe and Mail
Interviewer: Jason Markusoff, journalist/editor for CBC and CAJ Alberta Regional Director
Covering a budget is a grand annual tradition for legislative and parliamentary reporters, but also for the untold legions of general assignment, beat and web reporters who get thrown into the mix. It can be a daunting task to sift through hundreds of pages of numbers and charts, ensure stories have relevant context and background, and write them in an accessible way. This Zoom interview and Q & A with Allison Jones will attempt to demystify the process, discussing how to find stories, key numbers to look for, and why budget coverage doesn’t end on budget day.
Allison Jones is a legislative correspondent for The Canadian Press. She has been a reporter for the wire since 2006 and has covered Queen’s Park since 2014. Her coverage areas of interest include education, housing, energy and health. She has covered about a dozen Ontario budgets and has mixed feelings about the end of in-person lock-ups.
Interviewee: Allison Jones, correspondent at The Canadian Press
Interviewer: Jason Markusoff, journalist/editor for CBC and CAJ Alberta Regional Director
The term ‘pretendian’ is a pejorative colloquialism used to call out a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous identity. Thanks to the work of several intrepid investigative journalists, including Danielle Paradis, pretendian investigations bring these false claims of identity into light and are putting focus on these acts of cultural appropriation. What are the red flags one must watch for? How does one pull on the threads of identity necessary for these investigations? This Zoom interview with Paradis provided a history of pretendians, discussed Indigenous identity, and provided tools for and explored the ethics of conducting these investigations.
Danielle Paradis is an award-winning Indigenous (Métis) magazine writer, journalist, editor, educator, podcaster and mentor who lives in Treaty 6 (Edmonton, Alberta). She has written for both local and international audiences. You can read (or hear) her work at Aboriginal Peoples Television (APTN), Canadaland, Chatelaine, The Walrus, Alberta Views, Toronto Star (Edmonton), Canadian True Crime Podcast, and The Sprawl. Danielle covers politics, arts and culture, and Indigenous Issues. Danielle loves a good FOIP story and studied investigative journalism, story-based inquiry method, at the Centre for Investigative Journalism out of the UK. She has taught journalism, focusing on advanced reporting and reporting on diverse communities at MacEwan University and Humber College. She has also worked for a non-profit, Indigenous Friends Association, that focuses on connecting traditional knowledge and digital technology for Indigenous youth.
Interviewee: Danielle Paradis, journalist for APTN
Interviewer: Eva Holland, Northern Canada regional director for CAJ
