If you haven’t read the course outline which contains the complete schedule as well as readings and details about the course assignments, please do so before reading this post.
This week’s materials:
Story: Who Killed Sharmini? (2019)
Podcast: Who Killed Sharmini? episodes 1&2(2019)
Guantanamo’s Child (2015)
FRIDAY MEMO: A reminder that your first Friday Memo is due as a 350-400-word post on your individual blog on Friday, Sept. 13 before 5 p.m. You will be writing a weekly reflective blog post updating me, your supervisor and your peer partner on your progress with the production of your MRP. Topics you might want to address include interviews, research, visuals, pivots, challenges and triumphs. You will receive a Pass (100) for each published post and a Fail (0) for each week missed. Each week, I will raise issues that come up for class discussion.
GUEST SPEAKER MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Our guest this week is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and podcaster Michelle Shephard, whose CBC investigative podcast series Who Killed Sharmini? launched last week. In the latest season of CBC’s Uncover, Shephard revisits the unsolved homicide of a Toronto teen two decades after she first covered the case as a cub crime reporter at the Toronto Star.
During her two decades at the Star, she reported from more than 25 countries, including Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan and went behind the wire at the U.S. Naval prison in Guantanamo Bay more than two dozen times. Shephard was the co-director and producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary about Omar Khadr, Guantanamo’s Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. She is also the author of Decade of Fear: Reporting From Terrorism’s Grey Zone.
Listen to the podcast and watch the documentary before our class on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Please come to class with questions for Michelle about her career and her work.
MEET WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR: Please send your Expanded Treatment to your advisor as soon as possible and arrange a time to meet before Friday, Sept. 26. While I will help keep you on track to complete your first draft by Dec. 13, your MRP supervisor is your go-to person to advise you on the over-all vision and direction of your project. Use your time wisely and check-in with your MRP supervisor regularly throughout the semester.