Fourth year goes undercover for CBC Marketplace

Tomi Joseph-Raji (external link)  ‘25 says her passion for investigative work arose from watching crime documentaries with her father as a child.

“I’m always on alert, I’m always paying attention to details, and I think that’s what a lot of investigative work requires…you’re willing to put in the work and effort to research something that not a lot of people would.”

Joseph-Raji chose to pursue an internship at CBC in her final year in J-school, where she pitched a story that she would work on for eight months.

Her accepted pitch led to a comprehensive investigation into the sexual exploitation of young women in need of housing and deep research on how young female university and college students are most at risk.

After working on the project, she was hired by the CBC Marketplace team as an associate producer to turn her researched pitch into a televised investigation (external link)  with an accompanying CBC digital article (external link) .

She joined a team with a host, producer and another associate producer.

“This was an advanced group of journalists, so I picked up a lot,” she said. “They were able to help me shape the story into what it ended up being, and that’s an experience I’ll always be grateful for.”

After its release, Joseph-Raji saw that one of the episode’s sources, Brampton City councillor Rowena Santos, shared the video on her social media (external link) .

“She was grateful that we were able to bring the story further into light,” Joseph-Raji said.

Joseph-Raji said she is grateful that her work made an impact on viewers.

(Courtesy of Tomi Joseph-Raji)

Her advice to students looking to pitch stories while in or even outside of an internship is not to be afraid but to do their research on the subject and the potential publishers.

“Know the type of program, the type of broadcast company you’re pitching to,” she said. “I watched a lot of Marketplace videos. I was a fan of the show before I got to work on the show.”

Looking back on her experience as an intern at CBC, she said it showed how you have to prove yourself, not only to the people around you, but to yourself.

“As a journalist, you don’t only have to be passionate about something, you also have to work to take it from an idea to its final product.”