When the Board of Governors at Algonquin College announced in February it was ending the college’s journalism program, it joined a growing list of journalism program closures across the country. 

Both the news industry and post-secondary institutions are facing dire financial circumstances. Many colleges are responding by targeting their j-schools, but professors and students worry about the long-term impact on news gathering in Canada.

Early in the new year, when Algonquin faculty learned the program might be cut, they created a website, LoveForJournalism.ca, where students, alumni and faculty share what the program meant to them. 

In a joint message, professors Julie McCann, Jon Willing and Patrick Smith wrote that their time with students has mattered, emphasizing that the skills graduates acquire — the ability to produce “clear, fact-based, reported stories that support our communities” — remain essential.

While journalism jobs are disappearing, students say the program prepared them for the broader employment market.

Kate Playfair, a member of the class of 2024, wrote that “the journalism program at Algonquin isn’t just about learning how to report on the news. It teaches students how to collaborate as a team, communicate in various formats, meet strenuous deadlines, and operate in a world fraught with uncertainty and shifting dynamics.”

Leah Miller, a 2004 graduate, said her education “did not simply teach me how to write a news story,” but rather how to think critically, verify information and understand the responsibility of shaping narratives that affect real people. 

Several institutions across the country have either closed or suspended their journalism and media programs, including Durham College, Cambrian College, Fleming College and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology’s broadcast news program. Other schools, such as Humber College, Loyalist College, Wilfrid Laurier University, Centennial, Sheridan, Fanshawe and Mohawk College, have also scaled back or eliminated offerings. 

These cuts to journalism programs across the country are raising concerns about the future of journalism education overall and the impact this is having on the industry itself. 

Algonquin’s announcement comes at a time when the industry itself is under increasing pressure. In February, Bell Media announced another round of layoffs, affecting newsrooms across the country.

Former journalism professor at Algonquin College, Chris Ralph summed up the end of this program by quoting Václav Havel, who once asked whether a promised “brighter future” can ever justify “the sacrifice of the present.” 

“Defunding and shutting down this journalism program is precisely that kind of sacrifice, and it will weaken our community, our democracy, and our future,” Ralph wrote.