It’s -30- for journalism at Loyalist College, at least for now

By: Sam Franks

BELLEVILLE – It’s the end of an era for the journalism at Loyalist College. After decades, the teaching of journalism at Loyalist is ending, at least for now. 

QNet News had the opportunity to speak to a couple of graduates about their educational experience, professional careers and feelings on the program’s suspension.

In its prime the journalism program used to attract dozens of students at the start of the school year. This year six students will walk across the stage as the last class of journalism students.

The program has seen plenty of changes throughout the decades. It’s also been an innovator from its beginnings. It was the first program in Canada to certify multimedia journalists. That happened in 1998. Before that a few programs had a single course, but no certificate. The first Data Journalism conference was held at the college in early 1996.

In 2000, a live-stream mayor debate was broadcast out of Alumni Hall. Engineers from Apple Canada came to the college to watch because they were interested in the use of streaming technology and thought it was innovative. 

The program originally started with a print focus as newspapers were still the norm. Radio and television journalism programs joined the mix. A separate photo-journalism program started in 1986. An e-journalism program was begun.  In 2009, the print, e-journalism and broadcast programs came together to teach multi-platform and multimedia journalism. A joint program with Trent University was started a few years later. 

James Bowler was one of those students in the that first class of the combined program which was then called Journalism: Online, Print and Broadcast. 

“[The newsroom] was just an experience that it’s hard to describe, because it was like, I don’t know, going from, you know, from like, the little leagues to the NBA,” Bowler said.

Bowler said that the program made him feel like a real journalist, although he was just in-training.

Bowler recalled a memory where a professor approached him and asked if he would read the newscast for the radio. Never doing this before, Bowler agreed.

“It changed my life. Just a small thing led to such a massive, you know, outpouring of experiences and expertise,” he said.

After developing a new found confidence in himself Bowler started to take advantage of the opportunities presented.

“That almost was the catalyst for me to say yes to a lot of the like. I mean, when I said yes to that and it worked,” Bowler said he then went on to move across the country to Newfoundland to work with CBC. He went on to work in Saskatchewan, and all across Ontario.

Bowler was disheartened to hear about the programs closure.

“It’s what made me the person I am today. So yeah, it was not great news to hear,” he said.

He believes that it’s critical to have accessible journalism programs to ensure people pursuing journalism are following the ethical standards.

“I’ve made those mistakes, but I had people behind me guiding me. If you don’t have that, you know, you potentially are ruining somebody’s life,” he said.

Another perk to the program was the internship placement opportunity.

“You’re not going to get connected to things like CBC, CTV, all these big, major organizations without a program like Loyalist,” Bowler said.

Bowler graduated in 2012 and currently works with Cogeco and runs his own podcasting business.

Another student, Emilie Quesnel, was in the Trent-Loyalist collaborative journalism degree.

Quesnel graduated in 2017 and has been working for CBC ever since her placement there, but remembers her time at Loyalist College.

“It was so fun. It was chaotic,” Quesnel said.

She said that since the Trent-Loyalist colloborations was a new program there were plenty of administration issues and miscommunication issues as the schools are located hours apart.

“There were days where not everybody had a place to sit because there were so many people in the newsroom,” she said.

Quesnel remembers how proud she felt when she published her first story on QNet News.

“You can write an essay in Microsoft Word and submit it to your prof. That doesn’t feel as concrete like, here’s a thing that I made, and now it’s a published piece of work,” she said.

She said the differences between the college and university institutional setting were very apparent.

“I felt more like a student at Loyalist, I think, and at Trent it felt more like a number and a girl that did a lot of homework,” Quesnel said.

Quesnel said there was more room for collaborative work at Loyalist and the students all had the same classes so it was not as isolating.

One of Quesnel’s favourite memories was in the radio booths while her fellow classmate was preparing to read the newscast.

Quesnel said her friend mispronounced a word, live on-air, and they both started uncontrollably laughing and caught the giggles throughout the read.

“I ended up having to leave the room so that she could finish the broadcast, because we could not stop laughing,” she said.

Quesnel said that her time in the journalism program was almost like exposure therapy and helped tackle things like social anxiety while interviewing multiple people.

When Quesnel heard about the programs closure, she was upset.

“I wasn’t super shocked and surprised. I think that journalism is not taken as seriously as it once was, and it’s not respected in the way that it once was. People find their information in different places, in different ways now, which is really sad,” Quesnel said.

Quesnel believes that the closure of journalism programs is harmful to society.

“Journalism is like a cornerstone of humanity in terms of how we communicate and how we get information and learn about what’s going on in and outside of our communities. I think information and knowledge are powerful tools that aren’t always used properly, and I think sometimes are abused,” Quesnel said.