Elizabeth is an avid traveller and loves to work on the road. She started her career working in media development in Sierra Leone, and years later worked as a stringer East Africa. Since 2012, she has lived in four countries, reported from 10, and covered news in five Canadian provinces. She most recently worked in Tunisia as a trainer with Journalists for Human Rights, sharing investigative research skills with reporters across the country.
Her travel blog, Elizabeth Around the World, has a global readership of more than 16,000 people, and chronicles her adventures as a journalist and traveller.
Getting the scoop on Ugandan cinema. Photo by Thierry Bal.
OTHER TRAVEL WRITING
- Scaling Simien: Budget mountains for beginners in Africa – The Globe and Mail, Aug. 2015
- Lights, camera, action: Uganda’s film scene – British Airways High Life magazine, June 2015
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT
Elizabeth has seen firsthand the devastating — sometimes deadly — effects of media suppression in developing countries. Lack of resources, training and political co-operation threaten democracy and endanger reporters all over the world. Elizabeth has made it part of her mission to advocate for press freedom wherever she can and has been a director of World Press Freedom Canada since 2022.
In Sierra Leone, Elizabeth worked with Search for Common Ground and the Independent Radio Network to build the capacity of local radio stations by strengthening their online presence, offering social media workshops to staff, and developing a corporate strategy to resolve various ethical, technical, and production-related barriers.
Knowledge-sharing with radio journalists in Tozeur, Tunisia.
As a recipient of the prestigious Aga Khan Foundation Canada YPM Fellowship, she later worked alongside top reporters at Nation Media Group in East Africa, and in 2015, lectured a class of journalism hopefuls at Moi University in Nairobi about the trials of being an international journalist.
Between 2018 and 2020, she focused on media development at home, working with Indigenous reporters in Canada through Journalists for Human Rights, and equipping East Coast journalists with tricks for investigating mis/disinformation online.
She recently completed a third contract with JHR, training Tunisian journalists on best practices for human-rights based reporting, story development and investigative journalism through the Canada World: Voice for Women and Girls program.
Feel free to contact her with any project or story she may be interested in.
ELIZABETH MCSHEFFREY 