LJI Participants Discuss The Importance of Independent Community Media

Two years into their work with the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) under the guidance of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS), two participants from the Maritimes are grateful for the opportunity to provide an independent voice to communities and residents that might otherwise receive it. 

To help celebrate the second anniversary of TELILE 24/7, the first of three new programs launched at Telile Community Television in Arichat, Nova Scotia under the station's LJI membership, host and producer Adam Cooke welcomed his counterpart at CHCO-TV in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, Vicki Hogarth, for a discussion about their respective challenges and successes in a pandemic-driven media landscape in their respective provinces. 

In addition to hosting the weekly CHCO-TV Newsbreak and the interview series Southwest Magazine, Hogarth is overseeing New Brunswickers Take Action, a weekly series that invites visible minorities to speak to each other about issues of diversity, along with Your Town Matters, which sees municipal leaders and elected officials from around southwestern New Brunswick sharing the latest news from their areas. 

Conversely, Cooke's TELILE 24/7 output is now supplemented by the 30-minute panel-discussion series Roundtable, which is set to focus on issues related to seniors over the next few months beginning with a closer look at the Strait-Richmond Palliative Care society, and the French-language interview show Notre Cote. Following Hogarth's lead at CHCO, he is also now providing Telile viewers with local analysis of the regular COVID-19 briefings held for Nova Scotia by Premier Tim Houston and the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr, Robert Strang.

Through it all, Cooke and Hogarth continue to place a high priority on providing coverage to people, places and events often missed by larger media in their respective provinces. Hogarth, who recently participated in a public forum on New Brunswick's media landscape, has expressed concern that the Irving-owned Brunswick News print and broadcast journalism outlets have limited true discussion between communities around the province.

Cooke expressed the same concerns about corporate media ownership in his part of Nova Scotia, noting that the parent company of The Chronicle-Herald, SaltWitre Communications, now owns dailies such as Sydney's The Cape Breton Post and Charlottetown's The Guardian, as well as smaller weekly newspapers such as The Casket in Antigonish. As well, the weekly Strait Area newspaper The Reporter has been owned for several years by Pictou-based Advocate Media, while Port Hawkesbury-based radio station 101.5 The Hawk was sold to Acadia Broadcasting Limited by former owners Bob and Brenda MacEachern in 2019.