The Truth in Journalism Conference

Carine Abouseif is a features editor at The Walrus. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Maisonneuve, and elsewhere.

Andréanne Angehrn is a PhD candidate in clinical psychology. Through her research, she investigates how women develop resilience in the face of gendered adversity.

Meghan Ashford-Grooms is the deputy copy chief for Kaiser Health News. She previously worked as a senior editor at the Urban Institute and FiveThirtyEight and as a reporter and copy editor at the Austin American-Statesman. She has a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin and an undergraduate degree from Columbia University.

Trish Audette-Longo is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. She has reported with National Observer and the Edmonton Journal, and she holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University. Trish’s research interests include journalism education and digital, start-up, and alternative journalism and media practices.

Peter Canby was a senior editor at The New Yorker and ran the fact-checking department. He is the author of The Heart of the Sky: Travels Among the Maya. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, The Nation, Harper’s, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and Best Adventure and Survival Stories.

Saima Desai is the editor of Briarpatch Magazine, a national publication of grassroots politics and social movements. She’s a settler living on Treaty 4 territory, and her family is originally from Gujarat, India.

Matthew DiMera (he/they) is an award-winning editor and journalist, and a long-time advocate for the importance and power of social justice and community journalism. They are the founder and publisher of The Resolve, a new independent media outlet in Canada centering, elevating, and celebrating Indigenous, Black, and racialized voices and stories.

Bruce Gillespie is an associate professor in the Digital Media and Journalism Program at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is the author of News Writing and Reporting: An Introduction to Skills and Theory (Oxford University Press), and his research has appeared in a range of publications, including The Routledge Companion to Journalism Ethics, Literary Journalism Studies, and Teaching and Learning Inquiry.

Ashton Lattimore is the editor-in-chief of Prism, an independent and nonprofit news outlet led by journalists of colour. As a former lawyer and longtime writer and editor, her work focuses on the intersections of race, gender, culture, and law.

Nicolas Leech-Crier, 44, a trans-racial adoptee of Cree ancestry, is a freelance journalist and award-winning photographer. When he’s not working as a Storytelling & Community Networking Liason for Megaphone Magazine, he is usually helping build the first ever Community Research Ethics Workshop in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Or he's playing with his three adorable kittens.

Simon Lewsen is a magazine writer whose work has appeared in The Walrus, The Atlantic, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Foreign Policy, and MIT Technology Review. He teaches writing at the University of Toronto.

Samia Madwar is a senior editor at The Walrus. She is also a member of the board of directors at Magazines Canada.

Tahiat Mahboob is a multimedia journalist whose work spans Bangladesh, America, and Canada and focuses on covering underreported communities, educating storytellers from marginalized groups, and developing sustainable media strategies. She has produced stories for CBC/Radio-Canada, CTV News, Global News, Asia Society, the Daily Star, and more. Tahiat has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY. A fellow of the Online News Association 2021 Women's Leadership Accelerator, Tahiat serves on the Education Committee for The Video Consortium.

Lauren McKeon is deputy editor at Toronto Life and the author of several books, most recently Women of the Pandemic: Stories from the Front Lines of COVID-19. (Photo credit: Yuli Scheidt)

Jadine Ngan is a National Magazine Award-nominated writer and photographer whose bylines include The Walrus, Maclean’s, and Toronto Life. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of The Varsity, the University of Toronto’s newspaper of record.

Greta Pittenger is an information specialist on the Research, Archives & Data Strategy team at NPR in Washington, DC. As part of that work, she fact-checks podcasts, radio segments, and written articles, but has many other duties ranging from breaking news research to managing content in NPR's digital archive. Greta holds a master's degree in library and information science from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she started her fact-checking career copy-editing the school newspaper, The Daily.

Karyn (Pabàmàdiz) Pugliese is currently the Executive Editor of Canada's National Observer and occasionally a guest panelist on CBC's Rosie Barton show. Karyn previously worked as the Managing Editor of CBC's Investigative Unit, overseeing the team at The Fifth Estate and Marketplace. Karyn is best known for her work as a Parliament Hill reporter and as the Executive Director of News and Current Affairs at APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network), where she ran the news department for seven years. Karyn is a citizen of the Pikwàkanagàn First Nation in Ontario and is of mixed Algonquin and Italian descent. She volunteers at a number of Press Freedom groups, including Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and Journalists for Human Rights. When she is not engaged in acts of journalism, you'll find her paddling a canoe, shooting photos, and eating frybread.

Susanna Siegel is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She is author of two books about perception, The Contents of Visual Experience (2010) and The Rationality of Perception (2017), and numerous articles in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. More recently she has written crossover pieces on mob violence, vigilantism, and journalism, including a 2021 article “Salience Principles for Democracy.” She is currently teaching for the second year in a row an undergraduate course in the philosophy of journalism called Truth, Lies, and the Press, which covers the views and visions of Ida B. Wells, Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, and Hannah Arendt on journalism and its role in politics, and combines readings from philosophy, political theory, and media studies.

Erin Sylvester joined The Walrus in 2016 as an editorial fellow. Since then, she has served as the copy editor and the head of research and is now the managing editor. Previously, she was the deputy editor and a history columnist at Torontoist. She always has too many books on hold at the library and, in her spare time, enjoys trying new recipes. She’s a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s journalism program and also holds a degree in history and medieval studies.

Lisa Taylor explores the intersections between journalism, law, and professional ethics. A former lawyer and CBC journalist, Taylor is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University, past chair of the Canadian Association of Journalists’ ethics advisory committee, and the editor of The Unfulfilled Promise of Press Freedom in Canada, published by University of Toronto Press in 2017.

Zoe Todd (she/they) (Red River Métis) is a practice-led artist-researcher who studies the relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish futures in Canada. As a Métis anthropologist and researcher-artist, Dr. Todd combines dynamic social science and humanities research and research-creation approaches—-including ethnography, archival research, oral testimony, and experimental artistic research practices —-within a framework of Indigenous philosophy to elucidate new ways to study and support the complex relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish well-being in Canada today.

Lucy Uprichard is a freelance writer and fact checker originally from the UK and a settler in Tiohti:áke (Montreal). She writes about arts, culture, feminism, and social justice topics, with articles featured in Dazed, Vice, The Walrus, Chatelaine, and other publications. As a fact checker, Lucy has worked with publications across Canada, including Reader's Digest, The Walrus, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Maisonneuve, Briarpatch, and This. She is currently an archives student at McGill University.

Tara Williamson is an independent researcher, writer, educator, and consultant who has worked with and for Indigenous communities and organizations at the local, regional, provincial and national levels. A member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, she is currently research director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit at the University of Victoria and a research fellow with the Yellowhead Institute.

Jackie Wong is a senior editor for The Tyee, an online news magazine in British Columbia. Her journalism has been published in urban weeklies and magazines. She has also worked as a post-secondary educator and as a workshop facilitator in the non-profit community.