Peggy Lam interviews Nlaka’pamux elder Fred Henry for the Reporting in Indigenous Communities. (Photo: Alexander Kim)
Graduating student Peggy Lam has been awarded the Joan Donaldson CBC News Scholarship for 2017.
The scholarship is designed to provide aspiring journalists with valuable hands-on experience in all areas of multi-platform news. It is awarded to students who have a record for producing high-quality journalism and demonstrate academic rigour.
Lam will join CBC newsrooms across Canada this summer on a four-month paid internship working with the public broadcaster.
She follows in the footsteps of numerous UBC Journalism Graduates who have received the CBC scholarship.
Last year two graduates, Michelle Ghoussoub and Daisy Xiong, received the scholarship.
During their internship, Ghoussoub and Xiong worked for CBC radio in Toronto, at the digital desks for the Montreal and Vancouver bureaus and for CBC’s investigative and business units.
A dream mentorship
Lam originally came across the scholarship when finishing her undergrad in Human Geography at Simon Fraser University.
“I stumbled upon it years ago when I googled ‘how to become a journalist’ in the midst of a career change. I thought the opportunity sounded amazing and I still feel the same way today,” she said.
“To work in different newsrooms across the country and strengthen your reporting skills under great mentorship – that’s a dream.”
During her time at UBC Journalism, Lam has interned with CBC’s The Current, CBC News television and Global National. This year she has reported from China, as a fellow in the school’s International Reporting Program, and from Vietnam, where she travelled with her parents to tell the story of their journey to Canada as refugees.
She is also the recipient of the 2015 Jack Webster Award.
Lam hopes to continue developing her reporting skills during the internship.
“Reporting is always daunting and I feel you can never get enough experience, so my hope is to build more confidence in that arena,” she said. “I want to be thrown in every news situation and be able to say that I can do it, because I did. That’s the goal.”
