Anishinabek Nation recognizes CBC reporter for excellence in telling First Nations stories

On August 21, Jody Porter, a CBC journalist in Thunder Bay, will be awarded the Debwewin Citation for excellence in reporting on First Nations issues.
Anishinabek News editor and director of communications Maurice Switzer will present Porter with the award at the Anishinabek Nation 7th Generation Charity’s annual Evening of Excellence Awards in Sudbury.
In a press release issued by the Union of Ontario Indians, Switzer explained “Debwewin means ‘truth’ in our language.”
“These awards celebrate First Nation and other storytellers and journalists in our territory who do outstanding jobs of telling our stories – something mainstream media have not historically done very well,” Switzer said.
Porter said that she is “absolutely overwhelmed” about winning the award. She will be the ninth person to receive the citation.
“When Maurice Switzer called me to tell me they were going to give me the award this year, I cried,” she said. “It’s such an honour, it is such validation for the stories that I do because they are not always easy stories.”
Porter’s career in journalism started when she was 19-years-old, at a newspaper in the Northwest Territories.
Although there were many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in the area, Porter said that because she came from the south she didn’t really have the background to be a good journalist dealing with their issues.
After working in various places across Canada, Porter landed a job at Wawatay News in Sioux Lookout in 1998.
“The beautiful thing about working at Wawatay was that people would come into my office and explain to me what things mean, and why things were the way they were, and the First Nations perspective on things,” she reflected.
Porter said that during her time at Wawatay, her understanding of First Nations people and issues caught up with her journalistic skills.
Porter recalled that she wanted to make a difference when she first decided to become a journalist. She is still drawn to stories that she feels may make a difference.
“If just one person understands what it’s like to live in KI, or what it’s like to be a mom whose kids have been taken away, or if one other person understands what it’s like to not able to see a doctor when you need to see a doctor, I think it might matter,” Porter said.
As to why she feels it is important to continue reporting stories on First Nations issues, Porter fought back emotions to explain her reasons.
“We live in a city, and this is going to be a specific to Thunder Bay answer, where students coming out to school here from the north have died and we don’t know the answers as to why that’s happening,” Porter said.
She explained that informing the people who live in the city on how they can be a part in preventing the deaths from happening is why it is important to keep telling the stories.
“If the reasons for it happening are the same, if you make the call to the government and they say it’s a provincial responsibility, and the province says it’s a federal responsibility and you heard it a thousand times before, it may feel like it is the same story you have heard again and again but for that one person it’s happening to, it’s not the same, and for that one person who reads the story or hears it and finally gets it, and they realize ‘that’s so unjust!’ that is why you keep doing it,” she said.
Porter looks forward to receiving her award. It is an award that two of her journalistic heroes, Peter Edwards and Laura Robinson, have won before.
“To think I am in their company is huge,” she said.
Porter explained that when Switzer told her that it was the late Joyce Atcheson, a friend of Porter’s, who started the ball rolling for her to win the award, it had a “real poignant element to it.”
“Joyce was always so good to send an email to say ‘that was a really good story’ or ‘I liked the way you did that.’ You know, the kind of support you need to know you are on the right path,” she said.
Porter said that the Debwewin award is a kind of example of Anishinabek Nation doing the same thing. “I think that’s really the way to promote change, to support the things you like and you want to see.”
“I don’t think I can say enough what a big deal this is to me, it’s so huge,” Porter said of the Debwewin Citation. “The other thing is that it’s an honour. It’s humbling and it’s a reminder that I have to keep trying as hard.”