Where Research and Storytelling Meet: Graduand Maeve Ellis
Maeve Ellis was interested in journalism long before she started as an undergraduate at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. Instead of starting a program in journalism once she left high school, the class of 2026 graduand chose a pair of Faculty of Arts and Sciences majors that would prepare her for the contemporary newsroom.
“I chose economics and history because I wanted to understand how the world works,” Ellis said in a recent interview. “Economics taught me how to analyze information and data, and history taught me how to read texts critically and analyze source material. Together, they gave me a really strong foundation for research and storytelling.”
In a world where the term ‘evidence-based’ is often just a catch phrase, Ellis knows exactly what it means and has already started applying to her trade. Three years on the staff of the Varsity, combined with an internship at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, gave Ellis an audience for sharing data-driven work that centres what is factual, methodologically sound and proven.
“I’ve written several articles that were built entirely on the data analysis skills I learned in U of T economics courses,” she said. For one piece, I analyzed City of Toronto data on waterfowl counts at beaches and found a significant decline in bird populations. The process involved doing the analysis myself and then speaking to experts to verify it, which is very similar to what we do in investigative journalism.”
While Ellis admits she doesn’t know what journalism, or longstanding media outlets, will look like in the future, she believes the skills she has learned over the course of her degree can be applied to a variety of professions and contexts using emerging tools and technologies.
“At the Investigative Journalism Foundation, we used AI tools to summarize vast amounts of information,” she remembered, “but the most important part was still having journalists verify everything afterward. Using data tools efficiently while keeping human judgment at the centre is something my economics training prepared me well for.”
In a competitive job market, Ellis focused on applying what she has learned in class and demonstrated in newsrooms to set herself apart.
“My economics degree was integral to how I presented myself in job interviews,” she remembered. “Skills like data analysis from ECO220, working with R and Stata, and being comfortable with numbers, budgets, and spreadsheets really helped set me apart. Even in journalism, where economics isn’t always expected, it gave me a distinct advantage.”
This spring, Ellis started her career as Reporter and Associate producer for CBC Saskatchewan. She is preparing for smaller town life under the bigger prairie skies.
“I’ve only ever lived in Toronto, so moving to Saskatoon will be a big change,” Ellis said. “I’ve heard people are more outgoing and open to conversation there, which I think will be helpful for journalism. A lot of the job is talking to people, building trust, and finding story ideas, so I’m excited to experience that.”
This article was originally published on the Department of Economics website.