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FIMS partners with TVO for Ontario Hubs initiative

A new educational partnership between TVO and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies was announced on September 6, 2017. TVO unveiled their Ontario Hubs initiative in a video posted online. The project will place journalists in hubs around Ontario in order to strengthen in-depth regional reporting in the province.

In each hub, a full-time TVO journalist will be partnered with a post-secondary institution. FIMS will serve as the educational partner for the London and southwestern Ontario region. Mary Baxter, a local freelance writer, editor, and recipient of a 2007 Canadian Association of Journalists investigative magazine feature award, has been named the first journalist-in-residence.

“This partnership will provide internship and experiential opportunities for our students,” said FIMS Dean Thomas Carmichael. “Having a working journalist onsite will also allow for valuable interaction between Mary and our students, giving them a close-up view of the types of things that Mary is involved in, and how she conducts her work.”

A second hub was announced in Thunder Bay, while two additional hubs will be announced in the future.

The partnership between TVO and FIMS comes as the faculty has just moved into its new facility, the FIMS & Nursing Building. Baxter, who will be contributing written pieces to TVO.org as well as submitting weekly feature reports for TVO’s flagship program The Agenda with Steve Paikin, will have access to the new production equipment. The production area houses two full HD studios and control room, AVID edit suites and three radio studios.

Baxter will also have an office located within the production area, which will put her into regular contact with students in the Master of Media in Journalism and Communication program. There may be opportunities for students to contribute to professional journalism in a freelance or internship capacity. Baxter explains that part of the goal of the hub is to bring a variety of voices together to better serve the region.

“I’m looking forward to working with students here – to boost our freelance contributors, including students at Western and area colleges, but also to look for specialists in their field to provide analysis on current events that touch the region.”

The TVO Ontario Hubs project was made possible by a $20-million philanthropic gift to the network from Goldie Feldman and the Barry and Laurie Green Charitable Trust.

Links:
TVO video: http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/introducing-the-ontario-hubs
Western News article: "TVO hub looks to explore Southwestern Ontario": http://news.westernu.ca/2017/09/tvo-hub-looks-explore-region/