The LJI program will have a lasting impact for years to come. The goal of the program is to address news poverty in areas not in the spotlight. Beauval (Treaty Ten area) has no major media regularly covering events or stories. The program has allowed CIPI Radio to build a library of lasting content. The program has showed other organizations the value in creating content that reflects their community. We give a voice to the people, often in their native language.
There are so many positives that the impact will be seen years from now. I believe what's special is that content often outlives it's content creators. The videos live on and are available to generations ahead of ours. That is often overlooked when we're so focused on the present time. It's a snapshot of that particular time in history. It's a video record of peoples loved ones, their leaders and role models.
As much as video production and consumption is a part of our everyday lives, it's still undervalued. By creating a story, you can shape it any way you like. You have the ability to make people experience emotions. It's an art form in itself through music, photos and video. How you put it altogether is a reflection of the creator. As an editor and producer of a program, you get to see what having a voice does to a person. When you can do that in your own language, that's something very special.
You may have your ups and downs throughout the year in business, but the content you build and produce makes it all worth it. To know that your content will live on, that's the true impact.
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About LJI
LJI Impact is the section of commediaportal.ca where the journalists and their organizations participating in CACTUS' Local Journalism Initiative can share their greatest successes.
Through the written stories, photos and videos you see in the LJI Impact section, you'll be able to read first hand accounts about how the presence of a community journalist is making a difference in communities across Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative and the Community Media Portal.
The Community Media Portal is a gateway to the audio-visual media created by community media centres across Canada. These include traditional community TV and radio stations, as well as online and new media production centres.
Community media are not-for-profit production hubs owned and operated by the communities they serve, established both to provide local content and reflection for their communities, as well as media training and access for ordinary citizens to the latest tools of media production, whether traditional TV and radio, social and online media, virtual reality, augmented reality or video games.
The Community Media Portal has been funded by the Local Journalism Initiative (the LJI) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) in association with the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (the Fédération). Under the LJI, over 100 journalists have been placed in underserved communities and asked to produce civic content that underpins Canadian democratic life.
