'An equal seat at that table': why Indigenous journalists have formed a new industry group
Ku'ku'wes News owner Maureen Googoo discusses new venture
Indigenous journalists across Canada have formed a new industry group to better advocate for their needs.
The Indigenous Media Association of Canada (IMAC) was formally incorporated earlier this month.
Maureen Googoo, the owner/editor of Ku'ku'wes News, an independent website reporting on Indigenous news in Atlantic Canada, is the interim vice-president of IMAC.
She spoke to CBC Radio Information Morning host Portia Clark this week about the new organization and why it's important Indigenous journalists have a seat at the table.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did this organization come about?
Last fall, I was contacted by one of our founding members now, Eden Fineday. She sent me a message and said she wanted to have a conversation with other independent Indigenous media outlets to have a discussion about forming an organization. And what she told us back then [was] there was conversations happening ... at tables where funding is being offered or input, and she kind of felt that, you know, us as a group, Indigenous media outlets, needed an equal seat at that table.
In December, we just decided that we're going to do it. We're going to incorporate and that's what we did.
Is it more about advocacy with the federal government and other funding sources, or support for each other, or all of that?
We need advocacy. We need an equal seat at the table, but at the same time, we also kind of need to support each other.
My website is the only website in Atlantic Canada that covers Indigenous news exclusively, and that is kind of a lonely endeavour for me. I work from my home and the only time I could actually network with other Indigenous journalists is when we were having these meetings online to form this. It felt great to talk about the challenges we're having and what sort of advocacy we need.
Some Indigenous journalists will [already] be a part of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), I'm sure, but was there a sense that there was a need to have a singular place for Indigenous journalists in particular?
The CAJ is great. I'm a member of the CAJ. I feel that it is needed. I think we have unique needs because, you know, legacy media or mainstream media are having their struggles to survive, whereas Indigenous media outlets like ours … we're emerging and we need support to grow and expand.
Are there some other unique challenges that Indigenous journalists face … if they're working in a mainstream newsroom or running a website like you do?
I think there needs to be advocacy because, you know, even in mainstream media, Indigenous journalists are not in abundance. If you look at mainstream media outlets, you may find one or two Indigenous journalists working there.
The CAJ's study that they just announced on diversity in the newsroom basically pointed that out … there are few Indigenous journalists working in mainstream media.
What's your sense of how important your stories and storytelling are to the people who read your website?
I write for an Indigenous audience and I always keep that in mind when I write my stories. I feel like my readers are appreciative of that and … they appreciate someone putting the issues that are important to them into perspective and informing them.
For example, I've been dedicating a lot of my time to covering the court cases that are going on involving Mi'kmaw fishers who've been charged with illegally fishing either lobster or elver eels and they're asserting a treaty right. There hasn't been a lot of coverage from the mainstream media on those cases and there's more cases popping up in the courts of Nova Scotia every day.
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with files from CBC Radio's Information Morning
