CACTUS Journalists Making Impact In Eastern and Western Canada

ARICHAT - The third anniversary of the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) at Telile Community Television gave TELILE 24/7 host Adam Cooke the chance to catch up with fellow participants under the auspices of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) in Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. 

Making her third consecutive annual appearance on TELILE 24/7, Vicki Hogarth of CHCO-TV in St. Andrews, New Brunswick was this time accompanied by Rrain Prior, the news director for Neepawa Access Community Television (NACT) in Manitoba. 

Noting that the scope of her work has changed dramatically since New Brunswick lifted its COVID-19 restrictions at this time last year, Hogarth has been kept busy with her weekly five-minute Newsbreak feature, as well as hosting duties for the interview series Southwest Magazine and a series focusing on New Brunswick's municipal leaders, Your Town Matters. She added that the latter program and CHCO-TVs regular broadcasts of the region's municipal councils are helpful to viewers who may still be adjusting to a massive overhaul of the province's local councils as a result of the municipal reform program New Brunswick launched this past fall. 

Both Hogarth and Prior spoke enthusiastically about how their current LJI experiences differ from their previous work. Hogarth, who worked in the arts and culture fields for magazines and TV stations in Montreal and Toronto, found herself interviewing guests as diverse as Justin Timberlake, Donald Trump and The Property Brothers prior to her arrival at her family homestead of New Brunswick. Similarly, Prior was a writer for the online edition of The Toronto Star, one of Canada's largest daily newspapers, before she heeded the call of the Neepawa Valley area that she called home in her childhood and early adulthood. 

"I planned to come back for a few years, and I blinked, and ten years later, here I am," Prior beamed, adding that her NACT work "is not as different as you'd necessarily think" from her previous life in Toronto. 

"Even in a place like Toronto, you're looking for those community stories - you're looking for those personal stories that people want to hear about."