Jenna Olsen and Jacqueline Newsome land coveted four-month placements in national newsroom program
CBC News has announced the recipients of its highly competitive Summer Scholarship for emerging journalists—and this year, two standout King’s students have made the cut. Jenna Olsen and Jacqueline Newsome have been selected for the paid, four-month, in-person program, earning the opportunity to sharpen their skills inside one of the country’s leading news organizations.
Created in memory of legendary broadcasters Joan Donaldson and Peter Gzowski, the scholarship immerses aspiring journalists in fast-paced, multiplatform newsrooms, offering hands-on reporting, production and storytelling experience.
“The CBC is a leader in Canadian journalism with newsrooms around the country, so landing this scholarship is like walking through the front door and having even more doors open for you,” says Assistant Professor of Journalism Terra Tailleur.
Many scholars end up working for the CBC long after the summer ends, she says. “This is a highly competitive summer job program. All the credit goes to Jenna and Jacqueline for putting in the work and standing out among the applicants. For King’s, having two scholars this year is a big deal. It’s really a testament to our programs and the support we offer our students.”
Congratulations to Jenna Olsen and Jacqueline Newsome on this remarkable achievement—we can’t wait to see where their reporting takes them next!
Jenna Olsen, Bachelor of Journalism Program
“I think any journalist’s dream is to perform new groundbreaking public interest reporting that makes a difference.”
Last summer, Olsen was working with King’s alum Robert Cribb, BA(Hons)’89, the founder and director of the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto, when a tip came in. Cribb and Olsen hopped on a call with an animal research expert who told them about a clandestine dog testing program happening in a public hospital in London, Ont. What followed was a months-long investigation with deeply impactful, policy-changing results.
“We spent about two months digging through research protocol documents and interviewing whistleblowers, officials, ethicists and research experts about this secret research program,” Olsen says. “They were taking puppies through the back door of a hospital, covering their cages with blankets and playing loud music to drown out their barking. They were taking them up to the research lab and inducing heart attacks that were up to three hours long before eventually euthanizing them.”
Four days after the story was published, the hospital shut down the research program following talks with the province. The provincial government announced they would ban all invasive research on dogs and cats and tabled legislation to do so in November.
In her time at IJB, Olsen also helped to build Canada’s most comprehensive femicide database.
“It’s certainly difficult. It’s taxing. It’s very intense. It can be hard to pull yourself out of it, but there’s nothing more rewarding. I think any journalist’s dream is to perform new groundbreaking public interest reporting that makes a difference.”
Her time at King’s and the IJB, along with her role as Editor in Chief at the Dalhousie Gazette, she says, has supported her mission to keep investigating, crediting Assistant Professor of Journalism Caora McKenna, MFA Mentor and Instructor Lezlie Lowe and Robert Cribb for their patience, passion and mentorship.
Olsen’s CBC scholarship will see her working for two months in Toronto, followed by two months in Halifax.
Jacqueline Newsome, Master of Journalism Program
“Community passion protects so much and is unsung in so many cases with volunteers, but they keep doing it.”
In the four years Jacqueline Newsome served as a volunteer firefighter, she attended everything from house fires to car accidents. “A lot of people don’t realize that volunteer firefighters respond to the exact same emergencies that career firefighters would in big cities.”
Those experiences have informed her area of interest as a journalist, with Newsome highlighting public safety issues like lead in school drinking water (a story she published as a summer reporter with the IJB) and how first responders are adapting to climate change, the focus of her upcoming capstone project at King’s.
The volunteer fire service, she says, is deeply embedded in the culture of Nova Scotia. “It’s honestly astounding to think about the passion that people’s neighbours put into keeping them safe. It’s really beautiful to think of. There are an incredible amount of risks associated with the volunteer fire service as well, which is what I write about.”
Newsome describes her time at King’s as “absolutely phenomenal,” crediting Vice-President and Assistant Professor of Journalism Tim Currie, Associate Professor of Journalism David Swick, Assistant Professor of Journalism Terra Tailleur and Associate Professor of Journalism Lisa Taylor for helping her learn everything from how to determine the difference between a topic and a story, to how navigate the industry she’ll soon enter.
What’s Newsome’s dream gig down the road? “I want to be a fire correspondent in Canada. I want to be someone who understands the system and how we approach fire, especially considering the upcoming climate decade, and that 96 per cent of Canada’s fire departments are volunteer. Community passion protects so much and is unsung in so many cases, but volunteers keep doing it. It’s that sense of selflessness stacked up against impossible risks.”
Following her two months at CBC’s Toronto headquarters, Newsome will complete a two-month regional placement in Montreal.
Find out more about King’s renowned journalism programs.
