Student journalists are often met with “isn’t that a dying field” when asked about their chosen degree.
“The way people are getting their news is shifting but where that news is originating from is still media organizations,” said Sam Odrowski who graduated from the Durham College Journalism and Mass Media (JOMM) program in 2017 and is now an editor for the Orangeville Citizen and Shelburne Free Press.
News Media Canada reported 57 per cent of adults in Canada access their news online, abandoning traditional papers and moving to digital production. The Local News Research Project reported in 2025, more than 400 local newspapers in Canada have closed.
Students are the new wave of upcoming journalists, but with journalism programs being suspended across the country, it is hard for them to get the proper experience.
Ron de Roo, a retired journalist, works with Whistle Radio and wants to provide those opportunities for students.
Academic news partnerships are essential to students’ hands-on learning as they can give students a chance to see how a proper newsroom operates while continuing as a student.
“It’s a brilliant concept,” said de Roo, who has dedicated more than 40 years to a career in broadcasting.
He started at 17 when he hitchhiked a ride across the country and decided to volunteer with the local station. With this, he soon fell in love with journalism and then decided to pursue a post-secondary education to get a degree in what he loved.
“I’m trying to engage students to come and volunteer to get practical experience,” said de Roo.
“Not every student that went to a j-school becomes a journalist,” said April Lindgren, the director of the Local News Research Project.
Platforms like Substack are becoming popular as they focus on a singular journalist and not a media outlet.
“You’re coming to one person to get the information, you might not trust a media organization as a whole, but you know you can trust the reporter,” said Odrowski.
Trust in journalists has been on the decline for years, according to Statistics Canada. In 2023, only 13 per cent of Ontarians reported they had high confidence in the news.
This mistrust in the media has impacted local journalism. To continue local journalism, Lindgren said we need to build trust with our community.
Rochelle Raveendran is a CBC reporter in Oshawa, she said she is dedicated to building trust and relationships with her community.
“I think that it’s important to spend the time to just get to know people and get to know community groups and organizations. Then as you build the trust and then hopefully people will feel more comfortable sharing things with you and as you get to know the community more,” said Raveendran.
“You have to make journalism essential reading for residents in your community. That’s how you earn trust, by producing the kind of coverage and demonstrating value to the place where you live,” said Lindgren.
“The people in the community need to live informed, productive lives. And for the community to function as an effective local democracy.”
But newsrooms are increasingly understaffed due to budget cuts. Papers are not able to pay their journalists fairly with a large staff, so they start to downsize but then reporters are not able to keep up with the demand.
Ron de Roo said after the Metroland downsize in 2023, they are getting “some from York Region, we will get Vaughan articles or Newmarket articles or Aurora articles.”
He said that people always want information and people have a need to belong to a community. Without those local papers, the community is turning to other platforms to get their news.
Online newspaper subscriptions are becoming more popular. In 2024, 15 per cent of Canadians said they subscribed to the news according to Media in Canada.
News has changed a lot over the last decade, but Odrowski hopes it will stay consistent to how it is now.
The Local Journalism Initiative provides funding to areas with little news coverage across Canada. It aims to increase access to reliable local information which supports diversity in Canada.
“It covers the cost of a part time or full-time positions which helps offset some of the advertising losses through Google, Facebook and Instagram ads,” said Odrowski
The Canadian Government passed the Online News Act in 2023, which required companies like Meta and Google to pay Canadian news outlets for their content. Monetary compensation was never agreed upon with Meta and now, users can not share Canadian news online.
Odrowski said there are two sides to how it affects journalism. Since Google pays $100 million a year, there is more money going to journalists and keeping news outlets alive, but it has caused a spread of misinformation.
“People on Facebook are less able to be informed, people still share it by copying and pasting articles, but it is much less easy to access than it once was,” said Odrowski.
The loss of being able to share links to articles has caused a ripple effect of distrust. Statistics Canada found more than 40 per cent of Canadians thought it was harder to distinguish between true and false news and information online.
“But one of the side effects of having people go to a journalism school is they have a better understanding of what journalism is and they’re not immediately think that … all journalists are untrustworthy,” said Lindgreen.
More than 40 journalism programs have closed or been suspended within the last five years. This is not a new issue; Cambrian College suspended its journalism program as early as 2012.
Most of these programs were cut due to budget cuts and the ever-growing news poverty in Canada. Some fail to realize that students learn more than journalism in those programs.
Durham College’s JOMM program has been suspended, there are no new intakes for the next year and it has been removed from the DC website.
“One consequence of the closing of journalism schools is just that many, fewer people around who understand the importance of timely, the regularly produced timely, verified, information that’s not beholden to special interests,” said Lindgren.