Ten boxes of written works, photographs and journalism awards from late Nunatsiaq News editor Jim Bell’s collection have been donated to the Nunavut Archives, Culture and Heritage Minister Joanna Quassa announced on Tuesday. Bell, who died in August 2021 after leading the paper for 35 years, is pictured here in an undated photo holding a Quebec Community Newspaper Award won by Nunatsiaq News. (File photo by Sarah Rogers)
Late Nunatsiaq News editor’s papers donated to Nunavut Archives
Historical materials, photographs by Jim Bell part of historic archives
Some writings and photographs of the late journalist and former Nunatsiaq News editor Jim Bell are now housed in the Nunavut Archives.
Ten boxes of historical material including papers, photographs of Nunavut, manuscripts and journalism awards that were part of Bell’s personal collection have been donated to the Nunavut Archives program, Culture and Heritage Minister Joanna Quassa said in the legislature Tuesday.
It means the records will be preserved as part of Nunavut’s history and that they will be available to researchers.
Bell was the longtime editor of Nunatsiaq News and a reporter in Iqaluit. He died in August 2021 at the age of 69, in Ottawa.
“These records reflect his 35-year history with Nunatsiaq News,” Quassa said.
“The manuscripts also included in this donation demonstrate his passion for education in Nunavut and the journalism courses he taught at the Nunavut Arctic College.”
Quassa remembered Bell as someone who had a keen interest in Nunavut politics and who “kept us all on our feet.”
“His dedication to journalism was admirable and we appreciate his contributions to the territory,” the minister said.
Let’s hope that the paper will return to its former practices of allowing alternate news and views to be aired. Right now it is failing a bit and with what is deemed allowable to print and be read is restricted by the corporate, government conglomerate. As the USA Empire fails there is little too little push-back; we are being given half the story as war is promoted as norm and acceptable. People asking for diplomacy, dialogue, and asking for peace, harmony, living together have to speak up to the status quo, the mongers of war.
Please, consider getting some help
Too many people taking the hook line sinker and hoping things will improve with zero involvement in the matter. Governments supposedly represent us, you and me, as for me I say we have no business taking up the endless American initiated wars. And you?
Every conflict is different and needs to be analyzed with its unique characteristics in mind. Be mindful that blanket statements of principle appeal to our desire for simpler modelling of the world, but they also gloss over the nuances that differentiate the unique circumstances they mean to describe, rendering them something much worse than useless.
Chris Hedges the intrepid journalist/author/activist and Pulitzer Prize recipient has published a new book about war being the greatest of evils, FMI.
“It means the records will be preserved as part of Nunavut’s history and that they will be available to researchers.”
-How does a researcher access the Nunavut Archives? Is there an address? a website?
-Is a researcher someone with a degree and a lot of money to travel to the warehouse where “Nunavut Archives” keeps their mountain of bankers untouched bankers boxes?
-Will the list of newspapers be indexed and will that index be publicly available so that people can look it up and make requests to access articles or volumes?
Most of us who’ve had to deal with Nunavut Archives know the answers to these questions. Culture and Heritage have swept archives under the rug for years and until they get organized they have nothing to show for it.
It is a shame that there are no truly local journalists working for this publication anymore (at least that I am aware of, forgive and correct me if I am mistaken); or at least people who live in and have lived in the community for many years, even decades. Local perspectives on our own issues offer the potential of considerably more depth than we sometimes, even often, get from a writer who lives in Ottawa or who has only lived in Iqaluit for a short time.
Not to say the perspectives of outsiders are necessarily less valid on every issue, or not useful, they can be. But they can also be constrained by a lack of insight that results from superficial connection to the people involved or to local histories. They are also more likely to apply a more context specific lens, imported from a completely different intellectual or experiential background that may not be the best explanatory ‘fit’ to an issue.
Jim also taught Journalism at ARCTIC College in 1987-88.
Graduates of that program still work in the northern media.