Ruona Meyer

Freelance journalist and researcher, Germany

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Spring 2025

Ruona Meyer is an investigative journalist, consultant, and researcher with two decades of experience across Africa and Europe, with bylines in the BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, and El País. As Africa Initiative Manager at the Solutions Journalism Network USA, she developed and delivered climate- and gender-focused courses that served 2,000 people over three years. With expertise in equitable cross-border collaborations, Ruona’s academic research covers power dynamics within transcontinental investigative journalism networks, with sections published in special issues of African Journalism Studies (March 2020) and Journalism (December 2024). Ruona’s recent roles as consultant and trainer include services to Germany’s state-owned DW Akademie, the European Journalism Center, King’s College London, Media in Cooperation and Transition, and the European Network of Equality Bodies. In November 2024, she received the University of Bayreuth’s 2024 Prize for Outstanding Reporting on Africa in German-language Media and is the first Nigerian journalist nominated for an Emmy (2019).

Research focus while a Bridging Divides Journalism Fellow

Ruona’s project—Navigating Canada’s PGWP Policy: Migrants’ Use of ‘Mig-fluencers’ as News Sources—will explore how social media influencers affect the choices migrants make when consuming or distributing policy-related news. By focusing on international students, this project aligns with Bridging Divides’ Employment and Lifelong Learning as well as Citizenship and Participation research themes. As an immigrant herself, Ruona aims to use the fellowship period to contribute to both academic and journalistic understanding of the intersections of trust in news, migrants’ news consumption habits, and the human navigation of transcontinental spaces for work and living.