Haneen Al-Hassoun, Nehaa Bimal and Jhamesha Janella all have three things in common. They are all women, people of colour and journalists.
These three facts have propelled them to a life of reporting on issues that matter to their communities. But it has not always been easy.
Her Campus Carleton and the Charlatan hosted a panel on March 19 to discuss what decolonizing journalism means to these three women. Tejiri Obaze and Teni Ogunsanya, both EDI Directors for Her Campus Carleton and The Charlatan, moderated the panel.
Haneen Al-Hassoun is a muslim woman who wears a hijab. She said because she can’t hide her identity, that propelled her to speak up for overlooked communities. Her identity became her inspiration.
“I’m no longer going to be apologetic for who I am.”
Haneen Al-Hassoun
She worked in predominantly white, male newsrooms such as CTV and CBC in Ottawa during her journalism career, paving the way for her community in those spaces.
Nehaa Bimal took a different route, starting work for an Indigenous newspaper called Nunatsiaq News immediately after she finished her journalism undergraduate degree at Carleton University.
She believes that challenging traditional norms in journalism starts with where you report from. Choosing Nunatsiaq news was part of that.
“It connects remote communities across the north, just by providing daily coverage,” she said.
She told the crowd that reporting in communities that have traditionally been hurt by media coverage requires care, research and most importantly, listening.
While Al-Hassoun thinks local news is important, she said it’s important to look outside our communities to report on world events. Pushing to have her news organization publish stories on the war in Gaza was part of that.
“I had to fight to keep the story alive,” she said.
To her, global news can have as much as an impact as local news.
Jhamesha Janella also believes in reporting on underreported communities, including her own. She told the audience about the importance she placed when reporting on a Haitian woman, being Haitian herself.
“A lot of people in my community are overlooked,” she said. “I definitely make sure to bring that up to the forefront and make sure people’s stories are told in the right way.”
All three women spoke about the importance of having thick skin and fighting for important stories. Stories that the typical consumer of news might never know about, unless journalists like them choose to cover them.