Expert panel celebrates a decade of the Southam Lecturer in Writing

For the past 10 years, students in UVic’s writing department have benefited by learning from veteran journalists and authors, thanks to the Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Nonfiction.

Named for UVic alumnus Harvey Southam—who, before his unexpected death in 1991, worked as a journalist before serving as director for a number of companies owned by one of the country’s leading publishing families—this influential journalist-in-residence program sees a mid-career writer join the Writing department each year to teach a course and give a public lecture on their chosen topic.

Courses have varied widely, ranging from print and broadcast journalism to sports, humour, popular culture, Indigenous perspectives on storytelling, and changes in the media landscape itself.

Now you can join the writing department in celebrating a decade of this prestigious position with a special 10th anniversary panel: “The Future of Journalism in the Age of #FakeNews” brings six former Southam Lecturers together for the first time for a lively moderated discussion at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, in room 105 of UVic’s Hickman Building.*

“The idea for the panel was sparked by a perfect convergence,” says writing chair David Leach, author of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel. "A chance to mark the 10th anniversary of the Southam Lectureship, the opportunity to thank the Southam family for their generosity, and to respond to a sense of global urgency around the role of journalists as guardians of our democratic institutions—especially when the most powerful elected official on the planet keeps attacking the free press as #FakeNews."

Leach, who will act as emcee and moderator, will be joined by six returning Southam Lecturers:

• Jody Paterson: former Times Colonist columnist, whose course focused on experiential and activist journalism
• Terry Glavin: current Ottawa Citizen columnist and author of Come From the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan, who focused on foreign affairs
• JoAnn Roberts: CBC veteran and retired host of CBC Radio’s All Points West, who focused on public broadcasting
• Tom Hawthorn: freelance writer and author most recently of The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country, who focused on sports media
• Mark Leiren-Young: freelance writer, whose most recent book is The Killer Whale Who Changed the World and whose course focused on satire
• Vivian Smith: former Globe & Mail editor and author of Outsiders Still: Why Women Journalists Love—and Leave—Their Newspaper Careers, who focused on women in journalism

“We try not to think of ‘journalism’ in too narrow or stereotyped of a way,” says Leach. “We are always looking for a different voice, a different background, a guest lecturer who has an interesting ‘hook’ that will interest both our professional writing students and also curious undergraduates from across campus.”

Given the almost daily outcry over “fake news”—both real and perceived—in the media today, is Leach legitimately concerned about the future of journalism?

“Absolutely, we should all be. There are very powerful forces—political and corporate, domestic and international—feeding misinformation to the general public in ways that undermine our democratic institutions, increase inequities and even incite hatred against vulnerable groups of people,” he says.

The role of good journalism has always been as a BS detector that speaks truth to such abuses of power. We need to remember and support that vital function before we all disappear into our private filter bubbles of socially mediated information in which we only hear echoes of our own points of view and declare anything contrary to our own biases as #FakeNews.
—David Leach, writing chair

The evening will also include a memorial to former Southam Lecturer, Richard Wagamase, who passed away earlier this year.

“His course challenged our students to think about First Nations history and forms of storytelling in new ways,” says Leach. “He was an amazing presence when he was here as a guest lecturer.”

*This event is free and open to the public. It will be followed by a book signing and reception.