MONTREAL -- A collaboration between Concordia University and CTV News Montreal has won the 2020 RTDNA Canada National Digital Media Award (Large Market).
The project, entitled ‘from shore to sky: a reconciliation story,’ reveals how the Indigenous community of Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek-Gull Bay First Nation was able to move away from diesel fuel and toward solar energy as part of reconciliation efforts.
The ambitious project brought Concordia journalism professor Aphrodite Salas and a team of student journalists from Montreal to the remote community in Northern Ontario as Chief Wilfred King and other leaders shared their story.
“The strong, resilient and brave people of KZA-GBFN welcomed us into their lives and shared their knowledge with us, and by extension shared with countless others because of our partnership with CTV Montreal,” said Salas, who said she was inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “This project was rooted in the TRC’s call to action for journalists and journalism educators to work towards building a new relationship between Indigenous peoples and the media in this country, one that comes together in healing and respect.”
Chief King said he was pleased his community's story was brought into the national limelight.
“I was really impressed with Aphrodite and her team from Concordia. The community was very receptive to them coming in and sharing our story with the rest of the world. It was really important that we had a team like that come in an assist us in showing that this is really a unique project and can benefit all mankind,” he said.
Hydroelectric dams built around Lake Nipigon in the first half of the 20th century raised water levels, flooding the land around KZA-Gull Bay First Nation, eroding the shoreline and destroying burial grounds.
Ironically, the community wasn’t able to benefit from the energy project and was instead forced to operate on diesel power.
An effort at reconciliation by Ontario Power Generation and several other partners brought a solar-powered microgrid to KZA-Gull Bay First Nation, providing the community with self-sustainable, green energy.
The Concordia journalism team, which included students Virginie Ann, Lauren Beauchamp, Luca Caruso-Moro, Marissa Ramnanan and Katelyn Thomas, produced a nine-minute documentary about the history of the land and the energy project.
The team then brought the documentary to CTV News Montreal, where digital reporter Amy Luft built an interactive story map using Esri ArcGIS technology to dive even deeper into the story. With digital extras, including video explainers and a photo gallery, the result was a comprehensive and collaborative multimedia project.
“I used mapping technology as a starting point to situate the story and approach the narrative from that vantage point. My goal was to ensure the digital feature would complement and highlight the project in a spirit of collaboration,” said Luft. “I’m very grateful to Aphrodite and the team of student journalists for trusting me with such an important story.”
The model shows how a partnership between journalism schools and traditional newsrooms can produce compelling storytelling, helping to elevate the work of student journalists and share it with a broader audience.
“We’ve always had a very strong relationship with Concordia’s Journalism Department,” said CTV Montreal News Director Jed Kahane. “We support various initiatives that help students prepare for their careers, and we have hired so many of the university’s fine graduates. So to collaborate on a project like ‘from shore to sky,’ where we helped develop the digital aspect of the story and then got it out to a very wide audience, really fits into our mandate of helping future professional journalists learn their craft. And happily for us, three of the students who worked on the documentary have since spent time in our newsroom, including two who are on now on staff and were working today when this wonderful recognition of their work came in.”
