TORONTO (CCN) — When driven by passion and curiosity, great multimedia journalism knows no age limit or prior experience. Seven aspiring and early-career journalists at this year’s “God in the City” Catholic Journalism Seminar proved this to be true.
Canadian Catholic News (CCN) hosted its second annual seminar on Catholic multimedia journalism Aug. 9-15. A team of award-winning journalists taught participants about the fundamentals of newswriting and faith-based reporting, multimedia production, artificial intelligence and the ways journalism serves the Church.
They attended Mass each morning as a team before beginning their work. Mass was celebrated by Fr. Haig Chahanian, CEO of Salt + Light Media, who was among the instructors.
This year, instructors introduced two separate tracks: writing and video.
“Some people who have more writing experience can use more experience with the digital. So, we developed the two tracks,” said Barb Fraze, an award-winning editor from Virginia who specializes in international news and religion. Fraze won the St. Francis de Sales Award in 2023, conferred by the Catholic Media Association of the United States and Canada, a seminar sponsor, for outstanding contributions to Catholic journalism.
Participants from both the U.S and Canada had varied backgrounds: two young fathers, a retiree, a recent master’s degree graduate, an elementary school teacher, and two early-career professionals in Catholic journalism. The drive to master multimedia journalism spanned the group.
Participants chose a local event or topic to produce reports in print, photo and video or audio to emphasize the importance of multimedia fluency.
“Video makes or breaks a lot of the content that’s out there,” said instructor Paul Schratz of CCN, which is a fully digital news outlet.
CCN is not the only Canadian Catholic news outlet that has noted the importance of multimedia.
Mickey Conlon, editor of The Catholic Register in Toronto, attended CCN’s public event on Aug. 12 at the University of St. Michael’s College and spoke with CCN about his newspaper’s increased presence online. The Catholic Register is the only Catholic publication in the country to include both print and multimedia in its reporting.
“We are making our path into doing digital, in fact we are trying to stress that a lot more now than we have in the past,” he said.
For some seminar participants, the digital media component was uncharted territory. Others had basic multimedia skills they wanted to refine.
Mariela Sol Torroba Hennigen recently completed the graduate program in journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. Torroba Hennigen won a Gracie Award in June for a podcast she produced on the harassment women journalists face. Torroba Hennigen said the scope of multimedia and digital journalism is “on the rise.”
The stories covered reflected the participants’ wide interests. Topics included AI and its effects on higher education, children’s mental health, interviews with well-known Canadian journalists, and newly mitered priests in Eastern Catholic churches in Toronto.
Matthijs Kronemeijer, a Toronto local, reported on the French Canadian Catholic school system and the opening of the new Sainte-Kateri-Tekakwitha elementary school in Mississauga, a city 27 km west of Toronto.
“This is something I care about, I care about Christian education, so my hunch was that something must be going right here,” he said.
Lee Purcell of Griffith, Indiana, participated in both the 2025 and 2026 seminars. He won a journalism award for the article he wrote last year, “Pigment, prayer and grace: a bridge across traditions,” from the Canadian Christian Communicators Association.
This year, Purcell chose to dive further into the story he first produced, exploring sacred places in the midst of Toronto. He revisited Georgi Danevski and the artist’s floor-to-ceiling hand-painted icons at the Macedonian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Clement of Ohrid. He also interviews Catholic public intellectual Michael W. Higgins for an upcoming CCN podcast series.
In addition to the workshops, Mass, presentations and one-on-one time with instructors, seminar participants attended CCN’s second annual public discussion on religion and journalism. This year’s event, co-presented by the Sheptytsky Institute, Aug. 12 featured a conversation between former CBC foreign correspondent Brian Stewart and John Longhurst, national religion commentator for the CBC and former religion reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press.
They also attended a webinar on the future of religious journalism in Canada, which featured Higgins and Matthew Townsend, former editor of The Anglican Journal.
Longhurst was among the seminar instructors, as were Jermaine Bagnall, former producer for Salt + Light Media and independent documentary videographer, and Laura Ieraci, CCN vice president, who organized the seminar and public event.
CCN has been offering professional development opportunities in Catholic journalism since 2023. More than 80 people have taken their online or in-person classes.
Olivia Burtis is a writer and public relations professional for the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina.
This report was published as part of CCN’s “God in the City” Catholic Journalism Seminar in Toronto, Aug. 9-15, 2026.
