UBC j-student class project featured on Globe and Mail site

As part of its “8 Discussions We Need to Have,” the Globe and Mail tackles industrial shrimp farming practices by following a team of 10 UBC masters of journalism students to a shrimp farm in Thailand.

A web video by students from UBC’s graduate school of journalism is featuring on the new arm of the Globe and Mail‘s website, “Our Time To Lead.” The video documents their trip to Thailand where they investigate the impact industrial shrimp production has had on the environment and our health.

It’s a class project by students enrolled in the journalism school’s new international reporting program; the same program  whose inaugural effort, the documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, won an Emmy for magazine investigative reporting this September.

The course mandates that students must find and tell the story of an under-reported issue in the developing world. In their own words:

“We were thrown into the role of foreign correspondents and
videographers. Our class conducted and filmed interviews with industry
leaders and critics, government ministers, and the illegal migrants who
are the backbone of the industry. Upon our return, we spent months building a multimedia story, drawing
from more than 100 hours of footage we shot in the field.”   

The video featured on the Globe website only scratches the surface in terms of showcasing all the reporting the students did on their year-long investigation into the topic. On the Cheap Shrimp
website there are video reports on the four main issues
related to Thailand’s shrimp farming industry: coral reef damage,
mangrove destruction, labour abuses, and health consequences. The site
features a timeline, a site map of regions visited, a photo and sound
slideshow, additional
interviews, as well as a sidebar on the human
health consequences surrounding imported shrimp.
          
Each week since the paper’s relaunch on Oct. 1, the Globe has run special features using multimedia on the “8 Discussions We Need to Have” section. The eighth and final discussion is on “Global Food.”