Tara Deschamps named one of DMZ’s Women of the Year

Tara Deschamps, a 2014 graduate of the School of Journalism, has been recognized as one of the university’s Digital Media Zone’s Women of the Year.

Deschamps is currently a business reporter with The Canadian Press, covering tech, real estate, and cannabis. She is a former Toronto Star staff reporter and has also written for The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and The New York Times.

The new annual DMZ’s Women of the Year award is a list curated by the tech community to honour women within the Canadian tech ecosystem for their accomplishments and contributions to creating impact.

"It was a pleasant surprise to be recognized,” Deschamps says. “We have a lot of great tech and business talent in Canada and I never imagined that I'd win. I was even more honoured when I looked at the list and there were these people like Janet Bannister, Arlene Dickinson, and Janice Fukakusa that have really broken the glass ceiling for women. So it was really nice to be recognized."

Deschamps says she never had a plan to become a business reporter. She didn't take any business journalism classes like her friends did during her time at the School of Journalism. When she was completing an internship at the Toronto Star, the interns were rotated through some of the different departments, and while in the business department, she had an editor who wanted the interns to feel excited about business. "He showed me how you can shape any story into a business story, and it got me thinking about business and tech in a totally different way," she says. "I continued writing stories on it, and eventually, the job at the Canadian Press came up to be a business reporter and I was lucky enough to get it."

She says she managed to make tech her niche at the Canadian Press after a few weeks on the job, and within that she looked to blend other kinds of coverage into tech. “I often do stories about the gig economy, what's happening with labour, women in tech and business, or diverse groups and how they're helped or harmed by tech,” she says. “Those have been my favourite stories.”

Gavin Adamson, interim co-Chair of the School of Journalism, says that for a lot of reasons, Deschamps winning this award wasn’t a surprise to him. “Tara was a top student and she's excelled in her career to the point where I'd call her one of the top journalists out there now.”

“She quietly and regularly files exclusives all the time in her business reporting with the Canadian Press,” he says. “Her groundbreaking reports have underlined gender inequity in the business and tech world. She's a star from every angle.”

Deschamps’ best advice to journalism students wishing to break into business reporting is to read as much as you can and to look for stories that aren't being told. "A lot of business reporters have a lot of experience writing about things that impact their own lives, and for journalism students, they have this interesting perspective because they're often younger, dealing with different financial issues or seeing things in their community that an older business reporter isn't seeing or hasn't grappled with in 20 or 30 years,” she says.

She tells students to not be intimidated by complex terminology in business. “Be open to asking questions,” she says. “As reporters, we're always asking questions about what we don't know. Treat numbers and terms the same way.”

“And it's okay when you're calling up sources and you're maybe doing your first story about an interest rate hike or details of a big deal that got announced. It's okay to say, 'I'm not familiar with this term, could you break it down for me or tell me a bit more?' And I think the more you do that, the more you can understand and keep pushing yourself and keep writing better stories."