Shireen Ahmed was born to immigrant parents who were both avid hockey fans, in particular supporters of the Montreal Canadiens. She spoke about how she grew up surrounded by sports but it was not until the Olympics that she saw women’s sports being presented on the same level as men’s. Ahmed received a MA in Journalism from Ryerson University (now TMU) and worked as a freelance journalist until she joined the CBC. In 2021 she was the first hijab-wearing and racialised woman to appear on TSN and remains one of only four hijab-wearing sports reporters in the US and Canada. 

In this essay, Nick Taylor reviews four films from this year's ReFrame line-up: Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, Writing With Fire, The Cost of Freedom, and The Viewing Booth. Weaving these disparate narratives together, Taylor meditates on the art of story-telling, ultimately identifying it as an antidote to nihilism.

In this editorial, Nick Taylor reminisces on the year that has been and all that it requires of journalism. They also attempt to weave a few seemingly-unrelated stories together: CAUT's censure on UofT, the bombing of Al Jazeera and Associated Press offices in Gaza, and the felling and beheading of a statue of Egerton Ryerson.