J-School Canada’s Facts and Frictions challenges the practices and policies in the world of journalism
The editors of Canada's only academic journal about journalism want to challenge and examine the practices of the profession.
Created and published by J-Schools Canada/Écoles-J Canada (external link) , a national association for journalism educators, Facts and Frictions is a national journal for postsecondary journalism education and research about the profession and the industry.
The publication is an open-source academic journal that explores discourse on emerging issues and controversies in journalism and journalism education.
Recent articles have examined evolving practices and points of friction in the journalism industry, such as how unpaid internships exploit student journalists. The goal of the journal is to explore how journalism operates and how it could progress.
A recent article questioned the practice of celebrity journalism, focusing on Taylor Swift. Celebrity Journalism and Taylor Swift’s “Reputation,” (external link) interrogates the changing role of celebrity journalism in a digital media world.
The first volume of Facts and Frictions (external link) was published in the fall of 2021, and the second (external link) was published in the spring of 2023.
Editor-in-chief Patricia W. Elliot is a professor at the First Nations University of Canada and is a long-time J-School (external link) and JSource (external link) board member.
Elliot founded Facts and Friction three years ago and has been running it ever since, soliciting articles and persuading academics to write. She says she is passionate about the quality of media information and the process of journalism practices.
“Journalism is a human right,” said Elliot, “Our job as journalists is to uphold that right to the public.”
Nicole Blanchett, a Toronto Metropolitan University J-School associate professor and a member of the editorial board points to the need for the journal.
“There are a lot of Canadian researchers, but there are not many Canadian academic journals,” Blanchett said. “None are specifically focused on journalism.”
The editorial board hopes Fact and Fictions can broaden the voices behind academic journals, Blanchett said.
Gene Allen, TMU J-School professor emeritus and an editorial board member, agrees.
“The practices of journalism are changing and expanding. And researching and analyzing these practices are incredibly important.”
The process of publishing the journal is different from news media publications, since, like many academic journals, scholars review articles before they are published.
“It is what we call a blind submission,” says Allen. “The person who wrote the submission doesn't know who's doing the assessment.”