My Summer with Focus Media Arts

By Daiem Mohammad
(Daiem is a journalist with the FOCUS Media Arts Centre)

In the summer of 2021, Focus Media Arts Centre put out an advertisement for a summer youth program. The program would invite 8 young people from Regent Park and St James Town, for a paid opportunity to work as community media journalists. The youth would film and edit videos, write articles, host a weekly radio show, and host a weekly TV segment.  

I was one of these 8 youth that was invited, and over the course of what was the best summer of my life, I was given the opportunity to work in a field that I could only have dreamed of.
 
Immediately I was surprised on my first day that I would be working with familiar faces people that I had known from around the community, school, or mutual friends (for the purposes of this article, I will be calling them my “team”). The environment at Focus Media Arts was immediately welcoming, it felt as though I was just spending a day in the community.

The radio show was certainly a learning process. In the past, I’ve struggled with delegating, and there have been group situations in which I’ve forced all of the work (and subsequent attention) solely onto myself.  Often this has ended horribly. In producing a radio show, I made the conscious decision to be spread the workload, rather than ask every question and do most (if not all) of the hosting myself, we worked as a team. There were often times when it felt as though my team - the 4GetAboutIt crew - would catch a rhythm, and our interviews would flow perfectly.

The topics of the interviews were right up my alley as well. Many of my friends can attest that politics and conversations surrounding systemic oppression are something I’m very passionate about. Over the course of the radio show, I was given the opportunity to interview and talk to many politicians, activists, and organizers in the community. I was able to learn more about Indigenous Reconciliation, gun violence in the city, and so much more. It was an opportunity I’d deeply regret passing up if I didn’t join FOCUS.

Filming and videomaking was, to put it simply, a joy. On July 23, 2021, our team filmed an event in which the Regent Park Aquatic Centre was being renamed after late city councilor Pam McConnell. The event and press conferences themself were fun, but a highlight was certainly getting the opportunity to interview Toronto Mayor John Tory. While I have my own personal opinions on his handling of the housing crisis and may not necessarily “like” him, the fact of the matter is that, because of Focus Media Arts, a group of BIPOC youth was given the opportunity to interview the Mayor of Toronto.

Editing the video was also tons of fun. In the past, I’ve shied away from video editing, it always seems too meticulous and finicky to be something I enjoyed. But the process of putting something together was incredible, to see a project in my head slowly take shape and become what I had envisioned is nothing short of euphoric. Since the summer started, I’ve edited videos in my spare time, and it’s a skill I learned from Focus Media Arts that will continue to improve my life moving forward. I also personally picked up the role of social media coordinator.

Our weekly TV segment came later in the summer but was still a blast. At first, I attempted to give myself my own 2-minute monologue, to provide criticisms of world events and share my perspective. Eventually, we cut that, and the TV show turned into a very relaxed conversation between a few friends, and there just happened to be a camera there. It was tons of fun and didn’t even feel like work.

Article writing was tons of fun as well, I was given the opportunity to work individually and at my own pace, about what I wanted. Writing is already one of my life’s joys, so to be able to do it in an environment that supports me was one of the best feelings in the world. It wasn’t just that though, through the process of articling, I learned how to take rejection (in a professional setting) and I learned the value of unbiased news.

Which is something I struggled with throughout, on day one I came with my own ideas, and at the end of the day I went home with a note (that I had written) reminding myself that I was “a journalist, NOT a Political Commentator”. I think learning that so early was super valuable, and led to us having a great summer.

Even outside of the topics we worked on, the environment of the office we worked in was fantastic. The staff at the program were amazing, and I could honestly say I consider many of them friends and many who I plan to continue working with on personal projects. I was even given a chance by two of the staff to help do some videography work at a music festival.

I could sit here and gush about how great my time at Focus Media Arts was, but we would be here all day. So let me say this, my time at Focus Media Arts was fantastic, I grew as a person, as a writer, as a thinker and it has set me up with so many opportunities for the future, I can’t help but be excited by life right now.