The NB Media Coop is one of the Collaborators on the CEDAR project and I am a representative of this news organization.
The NB Media Co-op was formed in 2009 following a successful New Brunswick Social Forum in 2008 in Fredericton, where 200 people rooted in a variety of social movements gathered under the hopeful banner “Another New Brunswick and World are Possible.”
The people who came together at this forum — workers, students, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, peace activists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, gay rights activists, labour unionists, environmentalists, social workers and artists — recognized they had one common problem: the media in New Brunswick. Following the adage, “Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media,” a group of activists did just that, and the NB Media Co-op was born months later and officially incorporated shortly after.
As an independent media outlet, the NB Media Co-op publishes stories not covered in the mainstream commercial media. Our stories take a social justice lens and include the perspectives of workers, students, Indigenous and racialized peoples, and other groups marginalized by society. We are mostly volunteers. Our editorial board members have journalism training and experience and all of us are committed to social justice.
In the past, NB Media Co-op has also been involved as a Collaborator in the SSHRC-funded RAVEN (Rural Action and Voices for the Environment) research project that was conducted from 2018 to 2023. I was also the NB Media Co-op representative on that project.
I moved to Fredericton in 2008 and, although I didn’t attend the New Brunswick Social Forum, I’ve been a member of the editorial board of the NB Media Co-op since 2012. I also write and edit stories on arts and culture, have supervised interns for the Co-op, among other duties. You can read my news pieces here.
Fun fact: I had my first paying gig as a freelance journalist for Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Écosse in 1993. I am also a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton), a literary translator with various books published, and a member of the editorial board for the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies.