Editor Bios

Editors

Alan Bass is chair of the journalism school at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. His 19 years of journalism experience includes writing about national political, economic and social issues as a reporter in Ottawa for United Press and Canadian Press; working as a beat reporter, copy-editor and section editor at the London Free Press; and editing a magazine and doing corporate communications work as manager of alumni communications at the University of Western Ontario. His interests include the impact of the Internet on journalism and communication, political journalism and professionalism in journalism.

Paul Benedetti is a lecturer at the University of Western Ontario. Over the last 20 years, Paul has worked in print and online journalism. He was a bureau reporter, general assignment reporter, music writer, arts writer, columnist, feature writer and investigative reporter at the Hamilton Spectator. He also has extensive experience in the online world, including a position as Executive Producer for C-Health and Canoe Travel at Canoe (www.canoe.ca) where he focused on developing original online news content.

Colette Brin has been a professor at the Département d’information et de Communication, Université Laval, since 2002. Formerly a journalist at Radio-Canada, she holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Laval). She has published several articles, book chapters and co-edited a book on the changing nature of journalism (Nature et transformations du journalisme, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004). Her current research projects concern media credibility, economic journalism and the impact of cross-ownership on news content.

Robert Cribb is an award-winning investigative reporter at the Toronto Star. His investigations include reports on serious food safety problems in Toronto restaurants, illegal slaughterhouses, fraudulent telemarketing boiler rooms, dangerous doctors, decrepit rental housing, airline safety and government corruption. Cribb is past president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, a lecturer at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism and co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide (Oxford University Press).

Patricia Elliott is a Regina-based magazine journalist who has written for publications such as Saturday Night, Canadian Living and the Bangkok Post in Thailand. She has been cited numerous times by the Canadian Association of Journalists and the National Magazine Awards for outstanding investigative work. She is also the author of The White Umbrella, an historical biography that deals with Burma and the Golden Triangle. Elliott is a University of Regina history graduate who got her start in journalism with the Carillon.

Dean Jobb is an associate professor at the University of King’s College School of Journalism in Halifax, where he teaches print journalism and newspaper production. He is the author of Media Law for Canadian Journalists (Emond Montgomery Publications, 2nd ed., 2010) and co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide (Oxford University Press). He writes a column on legal issues for Media, the Canadian Association of Journalists magazine, and frequently reports on media law topics for The Lawyers Weekly. He covered legal issues during a 20-year newspaper career with the Chronicle Herald. He is a three-time winner of the Atlantic Journalism Award and a finalist for the National Newspaper and National Magazine awards.

Deborah Jones is an independent journalist whose work appears in Agence France-Presse, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, Time magazine and other publications. Deb began journalism at the Yellowknifer newspaper in Canada’s far north. She then worked for two years as a desker at the Halifax bureau of the Canadian Press news service, and served as a long-time Contributing Editor at Chatelaine magazine and the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine. At the Vancouver Sun she was a member of the editorial board and, for 2-1/2 years, an opinion columnist on the Saturday op-ed page.

Mary McGuire is an associate professor of journalism at Carleton University and teaches broadcast and online journalism. She has won two teaching awards and served, for a time, as the President of the Canadian Association of Journalism Educators. As a journalist, Mary worked for 11 years at CBC Radio News as a reporter, editor and documentary producer. She has led training workshops in broadcast and online journalism for many professional organizations including the CBC, National Public Radio in the U.S., the American Press Institute, and the Canadian Association of Journalists. She co-authored The Internet Handbook for Writers, Researchers and Journalists.

Janice Neil is an assistant professor of journalism at Ryerson University. She most recently worked at CBC Radio in Toronto, as Senior Producer of Metro Morning and in the newsroom as an editor, writer and reader. Janice was a tenured member of the journalism faculty at Carleton University from 1998 to 2003, and continued to work as a journalist, producing documentaries for TVOntario and writing on media issues and appearing as a commentator. From 1993-1998, Janice was the Ottawa Bureau Chief and Senior Editor of TVOntario’s Studio 2, producing documentaries, studio discussion panels and interviews. In 1992, she created and produced a weekly program about Ontario politics (4th Reading). Her career as a producer followed many years as a TV and radio reporter for CBC: in the London bureau; Toronto; and, Regina, Saskatchewan.

Regan Ray joined J-Source as associate editor in 2008. She is a former web reporter at Investment Executive and worked as a reporter-researcher at Canadian Business magazine. She is a graduate of Ryerson University’s Bachelor of Journalism program and also has a political science degree from the University of Victoria. Before joining the world of Canadian journalism, Regan spent eight years working a little and traveling a lot in Asia.

Ivor Shapiro, associate professor and director of magazine journalism at Ryerson University, has worked as a reporter, magazine editor, and editorial trainer. He is the former managing editor of Chatelaine magazine and has written feature articles for it as well as Saturday Night, Toronto Life, The Walrus, Maclean’s, Today’s Parent and the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business magazine, among others. Ivor has been honoured six times at the National Magazine Awards and in 2005 was a finalist for a Canadian Association of Journalists award for investigative journalism. His principle research field is in understandings of, and challenges to, best practices and excellence in journalis

David R. Spencer holds a full professorship in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies with a concentration on Canadian media history and specifically the role of illustrations and political cartoons at the University of Western Ontario. He is a past president of the American Journalism Historians Association and a past chair of the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Dr. Spencer has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, book chapters and edited reviews. His latest work in book form is The Yellow Journalism and the Rise of America as a World Power, Northwestern University Press, release date, January 2007.

Contributing Editors

Mary Baxter has worked as a reporter, editor and freelance writer since 1993 and has specialized in writing about agriculture since 2001. She holds an M.phil from Trinity College, University of Dublin and an Honours B.A. in English Literature from the University of British Columbia. She has won national recognition for her editorial writing and reporting, is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists and second vice-president of the Eastern Canadian Farm Writers Association. She is currently a field editor with Better Farming and Better Pork.

Sue Ferguson is an assistant professor of journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University – Brantford Campus. Her journalism career began in the late 1980s, as a freelance fact-checker at Maclean’s, Chatelaine and Canadian Living. She joined the Maclean’s staff as Chief of Research in the mid-1990s, eventually rotating through a variety of editing and writing positions. As Associate Editor and Senior Writer at Maclean’s, Ferguson wrote and edited stories about history, education, families and, when pressed into service, modern dance. Since taking up the position at Ontario’s newest journalism school, Laurier-Brantford, Ferguson has developed her research and teaching interests in children, toys and media.

Robert Irwin has been managing editor of Better Farming and Better Pork as well as other special publications since 1999. Previously, he was an Agricultural Publishing Company reporter (1991 – 1999) and a freelance and contract reporter with several publications (1976 – 1991). He has won various writing awards since 1982 and is a long-time member of CAJ, IRE, Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation and a past member of the swine committee of the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute.

Greg Locke is an experienced photographer, writer and media producer with 25 years in the news business. He has three books published and his work has appeared in many Canadian, European and US publications such as Canadian Geographic, Canadian Business, Financial Post, Time, Utne Reader, Men’s Health, Forbes, der Spiegel, Bunte, Presse Suiss and France Soir. Locke is based in St. John’s, Newfoundland where he runs an independent media production company, writes for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and is a contributing editor for the Newfoundland news agency, NLPress.ca.

Maija Saari designed the new undergraduate journalism program at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford campus and has served as assistant professor and program co-ordinator since 2004. Originally trained in radio, Saari worked as a television videographer and daily newspaper reporter before shifting careers to broadcast journalism education in 1999 and has taught at The University of Western Ontario and Mohawk College. Saari’s research is rooted in critical qualitative sociology and she continues to examine issues surrounding journalistic agency and cultural capital within the media field and beyond, as well as journalism education.

Kelly Toughill is assistant professor of journalism at University of King’s College in Halifax, and an award-winning writer and editor who has worked at several newspapers in Canada and the United States. Her background includes 20 years at The Toronto Star, where she helped set up an investigative team, was a senior political reporter at Queen’s Park, was a member of the editorial board and founded The Star’s Atlantic Canada bureau. She was deputy executive editor of The Star when she resigned to join the King’s faculty in 2006. She has been nominated for a national newspaper award twice, and won once. She has a BA. in journalism from San Francisco State University, and an MBA from Queen’s University.

Fred Vallance-Jones is assistant professor of journalism at University of King’s College in Halifax and an award-winning journalist with 24 years of experience in broadcast and print journalism. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, he began his career in 1983 with the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa before moving on to the CBC, where he served as a writer, editor and reporter in Charlottetown, Brandon and Winnipeg. He joined the Hamilton Spectator in 1999 and became the newspaper’s specialist in investigative and computer-assisted reporting. Fred is one of Canada’s recognized experts in the field of computer-assisted reporting.

Stephen J. A. Ward is acting director and associate professor of journalism ethics at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo and has 15 years of journalism experience, including 10 years with the Canadian Press (CP) as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief. Dr. Ward is also the author of The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond – winner of the 2006 Harold Adams Innis Prize for best English-language book in the social sciences – and has published articles and reviews on journalism ethics in several national and international publications.

Robert Washburn is the co-ordinator of the award-winning e-journalism post-graduate program at Loyalist College, which explores the uses of new technologies and journalism. He is the first post-secondary educator in Canada to teach in Second Life. He is managing editor of the Online Pioneer, the college’s online newspaper, along with being executive editor on numerous community-based web sites and research projects. Washburn has trained journalists across Canada in computer-assisted reporting and Internet research skills. He served for four years on the board of directors for the Canadian Association of Journalists, with one year as chairman. He has worked for more than 20 years as a journalist in newspapers, magazines and radio. Prof. Washburn recently was presented The Educational Technology Committee 2007 award for Innovative Teaching With Technology and he won the Canadian New Media Award for Educator of the Year in 2007. Prof. Washburn is currently working on a Masters degree in e-journalism at the York-Ryerson joint program in Communications and Culture.