Award-winning journalist Michelle Cyca is joining the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media as the Asper Visiting Professor for 2025-2026.
With her extensive experience and expertise, she is looking forward to guiding and empowering the next generation of journalists.
Michelle Cyca is the bureau chief of conservation and fellowships at The Narwhal, and a contributing writer at The Walrus. She is the chair of tâpwêwin media, an Indigenous-led nonprofit that publishes IndigiNews. Her writing also appears in Maclean’s, Chatelaine, The Globe & Mail and many other publications.
“As a writer and editor, her voice and experience align with JWAM’s priorities and the Asper fund mandate to bring the best of today’s journalists to UBC.”
In term 2, Cyca will teach a new graduate course on freelance journalism.
“I’m delighted to welcome award-winning journalist Michelle Cyca as this year’s Asper Visiting Professor in JWAM, where she will teach a graduate course in Freelance Writing and share her expertise in environmental, investigative and cultural reporting with our students.”
“Michelle is no stranger to our school, having taught the Reporting in Indigenous Community course last year,” said JWAM Director Kamal Al-Solaylee.
“As a writer and editor, her voice and experience align with JWAM’s priorities and the Asper fund mandate to bring the best of today’s journalists to UBC.”
Learning the art of freelance journalism
Michelle Cyca
Cyca is looking forward to developing and teaching a new graduate-level course on freelancing. She will be distilling some of the hard-won lessons from her experiments with freelancing to help the next generation of journalists find their footing.
“I’m thrilled and honoured to be an Asper visiting professor. Working with new and emerging journalists has always been my favourite part of any role — from my early years at a little independent print magazine called SAD Mag, home to countless first-ever bylines, to my current position at The Narwhal, where I oversee our fellowship programs”.
She received a National Magazine Award for investigative journalism in 2023, and for her essays in 2024. Her work has been republished in the anthologies Points of Interest and Best Canadian Essays 2025.
“Pitching, developing story ideas, honing your news instincts, building relationships, crafting an online presence — all of these are invaluable skills regardless of what path you pursue in journalism,” she said.
Her recent experience as a freelance editor for The Walrus on the 10th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report, as well as her deep involvement at The Narwhal, where a huge part of her work is focused on developing relationships with Indigenous freelance journalists to cover environmental issues in their communities, will shape her lesson plans.
“Students are a bottomless well of optimism for the future of journalism. I’m excited to connect with students”
Journalism in the age of the internet
Her broad interests as a journalist cover topics such as housing crisis, Indigenous identity fraud, tarot, roller skating, conspiracy theories and misinformation. She is particularly interested in teaching journalism that is actively engaged with the internet.
“I think navigating online currents of conversation, as well as the rapid changes in online spaces and norms, are something a lot of students are conscious of, particularly as the line between influencers and journalists becomes more porous.”
One of her biggest stories — the award-nominated housing feature for Maclean’s — came from a tweet that went viral in 2022. Elsewhere, she has covered the way online discourse inflects and shapes media coverage, as in this Walrus column.
She is currently contributing to an anthology on Pretendians. Drawing from her experience as an ongoing contributor at The Walrus, she will also be teaching the process and particulars of writing memoir, essay and criticism — the more personal genres of nonfiction writing that new journalists find a little intimidating.
“It’s easy to feel jaded about this profession, but students are a bottomless well of optimism for the future of journalism. I’m excited to connect with students in the class I’m developing for Term 2, as well as other events and classes over the year. As the media landscape continues to transform dramatically, supporting journalism students to adapt and develop their ideas and instincts feels increasingly urgent.”
Cyca was born and raised in Vancouver, and is a member of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6.
