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The academy and the media are two institutions that thrive on explaining, analysing and criticising the world.

Sometimes they meld into a similar entity. More often than not, they operate as two solitudes, sceptical of each other’s analyses and competence to accurately describe or analyze the other.

The solitudes aren’t that far apart. With so many journalist-turn-professors moulding eager minds, and so many academics relied upon to synthesize and analyze the news, the relationship looks more like a dysfunctional family than a set of warring neighbours.

The Worldviews Conference in Higher Education and Media is happening in Toronto starting tonight until Friday. Its goal is to examine this relationship, and, more specifically, the way in which the academy is portrayed in the mainstream press, and how these perceptions influence the way in which public policy and public opinion is formed,

Having studied journalism and having been deeply involved in the student movement, I find the questions posed by the conference organizers and expressed through its program to be profound: are we as a society making the best choices about how to structure, fund, operate and deliver a higher education system? Are real options being presented by politicians and bureaucrats? Are journalists able to accurately report on these options, their implications and the manifestation of political pressure?

In many cases, the answer is no. So, how can we bring these solitudes closer together to build consensus around creating a higher education system that benefits society as a whole?

In its modern incarnation, higher education in Canada has never been so expensive and the differences in systems from province to province have never been so vast. Students are rewarded or punished when choosing where to study university or college, based solely on their province of birth or proximity to a school or to money.

Or, increasingly, their access and capacity to absorb student debt.

For journalists, accurately reporting on the challenges facing higher education is not just a question of good journalism. The implications of a restricted, expensive system are far reaching. And journalists themselves, many who scraped their way through gruelling and competitive college or university trainings, have an interest in living in a society enlightened enough to value the synthesis, analysis and transfer of knowledge: even if it just means an end to the unpaid internship.

As one of the journalism fellowship winners for this year’s conference, I’ll be writing about the debates and discussions that I attend throughout the course of this conference.

The conference themes are varied and vast: from debates about online education and internationalization of universities, to university public relations during the age of austerity and national security.  The panels, stacked both with professors and journalists from Canada and around the world should provide the space to host the necessary conversations required to offer insight into the questions posed by the themes and the ones I posed earlier.

Click here to find out more information about the conference agenda or follow the discussion on Twitter at @worldviewscon. You can reach me directly at @nolore.

Nora Loreto

Nora Loreto is a writer, musician and activist based in Québec City. She is the author of From Demonized to Organized, Building the New Union Movement and is the editor of the Canadian Association...