Emily Blake
Emily Blake reports on how money, policy and memory shape life in the North, with an emphasis on funding, compensation and cultural initiatives that affect Indigenous communities and local residents. She is a senior reporter and assistant editor at Cabin Radio, where she has filed thousands of stories since joining the newsroom in 2020, and she also curates the outlet’s Substack newsletter, The Outhouse, highlighting politics, arts and daily realities across the Northwest Territories.
Funding, settlements and survivor supports
Much of Blake’s recent work follows the flow of public and legal money into community-facing programs, explaining in concrete terms what new funds mean for people on the ground. She has covered the launch of a healing fund for Indigenous sterilization survivors, detailing the specific amounts available to individuals and groups, the types of supports that qualify — from grief counselling and cultural supports to assisted reproductive technologies — and the registration steps survivors must complete to access the program. In a separate report on the federal Indian hospitals class action settlement, she breaks down the claims period, the compensation range for different forms of abuse, and the structure of accompanying funds dedicated to healing, wellness, language protection, research and commemoration, again outlining how class members can tap into extended health and wellness supports.
Her business coverage is similarly grounded in practical impact rather than abstract economics. In reporting on a Yellowknife lottery ticket that won $2.5 million, she treats the windfall as part of the broader local story, connecting personal fortune to the territorial context rather than focusing on the lottery operator as a corporate actor. Across these pieces, she consistently spells out dollar figures, eligibility criteria and application mechanisms, making complex compensation schemes legible to people who might use them.
Arts, books and cultural memory
Blake covers arts and publishing through the lens of cultural preservation and the resources that sustain it. She has profiled a Tłı̨chǫ writer whose work is being featured in a national literary journal, situating the recognition within the wider landscape of northern Indigenous literature. In another story, she reports on Katłįà Lafferty joining an Indigenous writers’ mentoring circle, noting the program’s timeline, the availability of bursaries, and the absence of participant fees, while emphasizing its role in supporting emerging authors. Her coverage of a new children’s book by a Yellowknife author focuses on themes of resilience, kindness and friendship, presenting the story as part of a northern literary tradition that speaks directly to local experience.
She also follows projects that turn personal archives into public heritage. Blake’s piece on a retired pilot donating hundreds of photographs to the territorial archive traces how private collections become shared records, tying individual memory to institutional preservation. When she reports on federal funding for archival projects in Inuvik, she explains the nearly $120,000 investment in Indigenous heritage initiatives and what that support enables on the ground. Her article on the Giant Mine postcard project shows similar instincts: she describes how Alternatives North invites residents to submit artwork and written reflections on the mine’s past, present and future, and lists the range of emotions the organizers welcome — grief, hope, anger, healing, pride or uncertainty — alongside the practical details of how and where people can contribute.
Housing, policy and regional challenges
Beyond discrete funding announcements, Blake writes about structural issues that define daily life in the territories, especially housing. In a feature built around the argument that “this challenge needs to be faced by the region as a whole,” she draws on a book examining northern housing policy to explore how effective solutions must be contextually and culturally rooted. She highlights the importance of social networks and the non-profit sector, underscoring how organizations “doing so much, often with so little” fit into broader systems of support. Her reporting connects academic and policy work to the lived reality of residents, presenting complex frameworks in plain language.
These housing and policy pieces sit alongside coverage of health and justice that reflects her focus on long-term regional challenges. Stories about class-action settlements, healing funds and abuse at former Indian hospitals show her sustained attention to the legacies of colonial and institutional harm, and to the mechanisms — legal, financial and community-based — that aim to address them. Taken together, her work portrays a North where policy debates, court decisions and federal programs are inseparable from questions of housing security, health access and community resilience.
Newsletter curation and editorial leadership
Blake’s role extends beyond reporting into editorial and industry leadership. At Cabin Radio she serves as assistant editor, shaping coverage and voice, and she authors The Outhouse, the masthead’s Substack newsletter that recaps weekly news from across the Northwest Territories in concise, conversational dispatches. In those newsletters she threads together politics stories, cultural coverage and everyday developments, offering readers a curated view of how disparate events connect.
Outside the newsroom, she is active in the wider journalism community as the Canadian Association of Journalists’ national director for the Northern Canada (Territories) region, reflecting a commitment to representation and standards in a part of the country often underserved by media. Her professional history includes reporting roles at a national wire service, a public broadcaster and a regional daily newspaper, experience that informs her ability to translate complex policy and legal material into accessible, localised reporting. Across platforms, Blake’s through-line is clear: she brings rigor and clarity to stories where law, money and memory intersect, foregrounding the people and institutions that turn those forces into lived experience.
4 more business journalists.
Aarjavee Raaj
Aarjavee Raaj focuses on how corporate decisions, government warnings and economic trends affect everyday Canadians, using clear, data-driven business and related news coverage. She is a CTVNews.ca journalist with experience reporting on arts, culture, business and more, and her name is pronounced Aar-Za-Vee. Her work links institutional and corporate developments to practical consequences for workers, consumers and families, including corporate losses, retail restructuring, tax schemes and compliance warnings. She reports on workplace trends, economic strain, consumer recalls and health impacts, using survey data, charity reports, regulatory notices and clinical stories to show how macroeconomic and policy issues touch daily life. A digital journalist, she keeps to tight headlines, clear summaries of official statements or data, and a steady focus on what developments mean for people who work, shop and rely on public services.
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams reports human interest stories that follow how sudden conflict, loss and long-running mysteries reshape the lives of ordinary people in everyday settings. She is a writer-reporter on PEOPLE’s Human Interest team, a role she has held since joining the brand in June 2021. Her work centers on routine days that turn into major events, giving equal weight to what happened and the human cost. She covers minor disputes and errands that end in tragedy, sudden accidents, law enforcement and public safety incidents, and missing-person cases with new developments after years of uncertainty. Her reporting is concise, event-led and built around individual lives, often framed with clear emotional cues while staying grounded in verified facts. Business and workplace contexts appear as backdrops, but the person and their circle remain at the heart of the story.
Akshay Kulkarni
Akshay Kulkarni is a data-led reporter who explains how economic, policy and social forces play out in British Columbia through concrete numbers, records and local case histories. He has worked as a journalist at CBC British Columbia since 2021, focusing on business, labour and resource developments, including tariffs, trade rules, corporate strategies and regulatory decisions. His coverage of critical minerals, Amazon’s impact on jobs and wages, and responsible investment links market shifts to the lived experience of workers, consumers and small businesses. He also reports on infrastructure, energy and land use, such as the Site C project and high-value property disputes, and on policy and social systems, including Indigenous deaths in custody, social media use in harm reduction, and mandatory inquests. His stories are built around original interviews and quantitative detail that show how systems affect communities on the ground.
Allison Stephen
Allison Stephen stands out for connecting everyday life with money, work, and the built environment through vivid local examples instead of abstract business coverage. She is a staff writer at Daily Hive, where she covers how jobs, housing, major projects, and consumer experiences shape economic reality on the ground. Housing and real estate are central to her work, including detailed, accessible stories on distinctive homes, high-end rentals, and monthly shifts in home prices and cost of living. She regularly covers employment, especially public-sector and institutional hiring, highlighting well-paid roles and urging readers to act on new opportunities. Her reporting on major civic and recreational projects explains what is being built, how much it costs, and where it stands in approvals. She also writes about local businesses, food, and attractions, using concrete numbers, specific locations, and direct calls to action.