Fred Vallance-Jones

Fred Vallance-Jones has been on faculty with King's since 2007 and teaches investigative reporting, as well as introductory reporting and copy-editing in both second year and the one-year program. He also supervises fourth-year students on their honours projects.

Fred feels fortunate to teach at a small school such as King's because it affords the opportunity for the kind of one-on-one teaching that can make such a difference in a young journalist's training. Fred is passionate about journalism, and he works daily to ignite the same love of reporting and storytelling in his students.

Prior to coming to King's, Fred had a 24-year career in radio and print journalism with the CBC and Hamilton Spectator. He also taught investigative journalism at Ryerson University. He won many journalism prizes, including a National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting, and twice won the computer-assisted reporting award in the investigative journalism awards sponsored by the Canadian Association of Journalists. Fred was named journalist of the year in the 2006 Ontario Newspaper Awards. He received a citation of merit in the 2006 Michener Awards for meritorious public service journalism.

Fred is one of Canada's authorities on investigative and computer-assisted reporting and is co-author of two textbooks on these subjects. He writes a column on computer-assisted reporting for Media magazine, and is contributing editor for CAR for j.source.ca  He oversees carincanada.ca, a national resource on CAR.

Fred has research interests in investigative journalism, computer-assisted reporting and freedom of information. In 2008, he led a national study into the performance of governments responding to information requests, on behalf of the Canadian Newspaper Association. Fred is frequently called upon to provide professional development training in computer-assisted reporting and investigative reporting, both in Canada and the U.S. He leads an annual week-long course on computer-assisted reporting for working journalists and students, held at King's in June.

Fred is studying for a Master of Arts at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax. He is married with four children and lives in Halifax.

Recent Publications

• Freedom of Information: How Administrative Hurdles Influence Reporter Acceptance, paper presented at the Canadian Communication Association annual meeting, May 2009
• CNA National Freedom of Informaton audit, January 2009 
• Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Comprehensive Primer, Oxford University Press, 2008
• Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter's Research Guide, Oxford University Press, 2006