Carleton University's Susan Harada, co-chair of the Travers Fellowship Steering Committee and professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, announced that the team of Jesse Winter and Andrea Woo have been awarded this year's $25,000 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship. The fellowship is administered by Carleton and supports a significant foreign reporting project by Canadian journalists or journalism students.
The Fellowship recipients will publish their project in the Globe and Mail. They plan to look to Australia, which has long relied on a system of volunteer wildfire brigades, for potential solutions to responding to wildfires and other climate disasters in Canada.
"Our winning applicants pitched a particularly timely foreign reporting project," said Harada. "Canada was one of many nations around the world hit with extreme weather events last year - wildfires, heat waves, flooding. A close examination of the way such disasters are being grappled with elsewhere could help inform policy here, while resonating with Canadians across the country."
Woo, a national reporter with the Globe, and Winter, a freelance photojournalist and writer, note that with climate change bringing more frequent and extreme weather events, experts say Canada will need to consider more all-hands-on-deck responses that engage local communities more directly in their own disaster preparation, defence and response.
"Covering 2021's devastating climate-driven disasters, I was struck by the tenacity and compassion of everyday people fighting to save their homes from fires, or rescue their neighbours' livestock from frigid floodwaters," said Winter.
"I'm thrilled to have this chance to explore how we might be able to harness that energy responsibly and better support communities to respond as climate change gets worse."
"There is no issue more pressing than climate change," said Woo. "This project, which will explore a possible response to urgent challenges in Canada made painfully clear by the extreme weather events of 2021, will serve as a broader look at what may lie ahead depending on governments' ability - or failure - to adapt."
In accepting the 2022 Fellowship, both Woo and Winter noted the legacy of the late Jim Travers, a journalist who deeply believed in the importance of international reportage.
In Woo's view, Travers "pushed journalists to look for answers beyond our borders in an interconnected world."
Winter added that "the challenges we face in confronting and responding to climate change underscore that what happens 12,000 kilometers away impacts us here at home. As Jim said, foreign' news is really local news, and we hope this project lives up to the example he set."
About Winter
Jesse Winter is a freelance photojournalist and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a focus on the intersections of social justice, the environment, and government accountability. He is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, Reuters Pictures, The Guardian, The Narwhal, and Canada's National Observer. His work has been recognized by the National Newspaper Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists Presidents' Award, and the News Photographers Association of Canada.
About Woo
Andrea Woo is a national reporter at The Globe and Mail. She has 15 years' experience in daily news, most recently covering the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada's toxic drug crisis and extreme weather events. Andrea's work has been recognized by the National Newspaper Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Jack Webster Awards.
About Jim Travers
Travers worked as the Southam News correspondent in Africa and the Middle East during the 1980s covering major stories - from apartheid in South Africa and the Ethiopian famine to the conflict in Lebanon and the Iran-Iraq war. Returning to Canada, he continued an influential career as general manager of Southam News, editor of the Ottawa Citizen, executive managing editor of the Toronto Star and finally as an award-winning national affairs columnist known for his compassion and playful wit.
He believed Canadians deserve first-hand, in-depth coverage of important stories outside our borders. He argued passionately that it is crucial for Canadian reporters to "bear witness" - because in our interconnected world, foreign news is local news.
