Fellowship recipient to help young journalists develop communication tools to better contribute to mass and public information
Francine Pelletier is the recipient of the 2014 Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education. The Fellowship was presented during the annual Michener Award ceremony held at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on June 11, 2014.
Ms Pelletier will put her Fellowship to work at Concordia University where she will organize workshops on big data journalism and elements of digital information in order to help young journalists in finding tools to better contribute to mass and public information.
In her acceptance speech Ms Pelletier said that big data or digitalization is development that is transforming journalism today and journalists are “not quite sure always how to deal with this stuff, how to make sense of it, how to translate it into meaningful prose and also what the ethical implications entail. This is all very much what I intend to delve into in the coming year”. (the full text)
Ms Pelletier is a Montreal-based journalist who has worked in both the French and English media – print and electronic. She was a former reporter and co-host for CBC the fifth estate and parliamentary correspondent in Quebec City for SRC’s Le Point. She is currently a writer and independent filmmaker and writes a weekly column for the Montreal daily newspaper, Le Devoir.
She is the co-founder of a feminist newspaper, La Vie en Rose, and has written for La Presse, Le Devoir, the Montreal Gazette, as well as being a contributing commentator on CBC Morningside and The Editors on PBS. Her work has also appeared in L’Actualité, Maclean’s and Chatelaine magazines.
Since 2001, she has written and directed 11 documentary films, including a profile of former Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau and writer Mordecai Richler.
In 2012, Ms Pelletier was named the Irving Chair in Journalism at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
She earned an MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Ottawa.
The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education, supported by the Michener Awards Foundation and the Family of the late Paul S. Deacon, is dedicated to the advancement of the education of Canadian journalists. The winner will spend time at a Canadian university journalism school, teaching or mentoring students, and also pursue personal education interests.
Rideau Hall – June 11, 2014
Judges for the 2014 Michener-Deacon Fellowship:
Clinton Archibald, retired professor of public ethics, Saint Paul University, Ottawa; Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec, and former publisher of The Gazette and the Toronto Star; Susan Mitton, former regional director, CBC Maritimes; Ivor Shapiro, chair, Ryerson School of Journalism; Maryse Cardin, instructor, School of Communications, Capilano University, North Vancouver.
The fellowship of the Michener Awards Foundation, introduced in 1987, is known today as the Michener-Deacon Fellowship (named after the late Roland Michener and the late Paul Deacon, a senior media executive and Michener Awards Foundation president). The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education was established to support a journalist-in-residence for a semester in a recognized Canadian journalism department. It is supported by the BMO Financial Group and the long-standing commitment of the Deacon family to promote journalistic excellence in Canada.