Hi everyone, my name is Max Leighton. I’m a ComDev student from Canada’s Yukon Territory. On a map, you’ll find me just below the Arctic Circle (although it’s still a 14 hour drive north of me!), just next to Alaska.
At 37, I have been a journalist for most of my adult life.
I began my career with the Whitehorse Star daily newspaper. Back then I was a general assignment reporter covering everything from territorial politics to northern environmental science and Indigenous self-government.
Since 2013, I have mostly worked for the CBC. I started working in current affairs radio production while living in Toronto. I have also worked with CBC in Iqaluit in Canada’s eastern arctic, as well as my home region of Kitchener-Waterloo.
I was once the guy who wrote the scrolling ticker at the bottom of Winnipeg’s morning TV news show. I also worked a stint as a dis/misinformation trainer for the NGO Journalists for Human Rights, where I trained reporters across Canada to help identify misinformation. One of my favourite non-reporter jobs was doing legal outreach work in rural Southern Ontario in a mobile legal clinic we called the “Law Van.”
A couple of years ago I returned to the Yukon for a job working in communications for the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, a self-governing First Nation in the Southern Lakes region of the Yukon. Now I am back at CBC working as a current affairs radio producer in charge of three daily radio shows.
I am a student of communications for development because I believe that communications and journalism are skill sets that can be put to use working for social, economic, and political justice.
When I am not working, I am hanging out with my kid and my wife, or doing activities on the land like fly fishing, harvesting edible plants, and hunting. I am a huge music lover who listens to a lot of old soul, blues, and American roots music.
With this blog, I plan to explore my interest in the intersection of technology and journalism and communications, especially where those themes crossover with development, human rights, and justice.