In Conversation with The Changemakers:

Kayla Grey, Kathleen Newman-Bremang, and Amanda Parris

Presented by

Description

Presented for the first time in 2022, the Changemaker Award recognizes and honours those in the media community in Canada who are using their voice or platform to call out systemic racism and discrimination. This year’s inaugural recipients discuss supporting and amplifying the voices of those who are actively engaged in anti-racist work and seeking structural transformations in media organizations in Canada.

This conversation was recorded March 2022.

Date
Friday, April 8, 2022
Time
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM (EDT)
Session Day
Tuesday

Amanda Parris

Playwright / Columnist / TV & Radio Host
Amanda Parris is an award winning playwright, columnist and tv/radio host. Amanda was the host of the award-winning series, CBC Arts: Exhibitionists from 2015-2020. At the time, it was the only show on television dedicated to telling stories about Canadian artists across all mediums. She also created Black Light, an award-winning column for CBC Arts, that showcases, historicizes and critically engages art and popular culture created by Black people.
 
Amanda’s debut play Other Side of the Game (2019) was awarded the Governor General Literary Award for Drama and is currently being taught in classrooms across the country. Her latest theatrical work, The Death News (2020) was part of Obsidian Theatre’s groundbreaking project 21 Black Futures and in 2021 she made her directorial debut with her award winning short film The Death Doula.
 
Amanda has been named one of Grenada’s Top 40 individuals under the age of 40, one of Toronto’s Most Inspiring Women by Post-City, a Local Hero of Toronto Film by Now Magazine and received the Rising Star Award from AfroGlobalTelevision. In the spring of 2022, Amanda’s scripted digital series Revenge of the Black Best Friend (RBBF), which follows a self-help guru whose singular mission is to cancel the entertainment industry’s reliance on token Black characters, will premiere on CBC Gem.

Kathleen Newman-Bremang

Writer / Editor / Producer
Kathleen Newman-Bremang is a Toronto-based writer, editor and producer. Her writing has appeared in publications like Refinery29, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Lainey Gossip, Corduroy Magazine, The Toronto Star and The Kit. For six seasons, she was the celebrity and entertainment producer on Canada's #1 daytime talk show The Social and has contributed to many high-profile productions like eTalk: Live at the Oscars and co-created the Crave original series Cravings: The Aftershow.
 
She is currently the Deputy Director, Global at Refinery29 Unbothered, a vertical made for and by Black women. Through Unbothered, she oversees content across the UK, U.S., and Canada, and writes about pop culture, race, feminism and the intersection of all three, while championing other Black women writers to do the same. Her essay “For Black Women In Media, A Dream Job Is A Myth” was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. Her column What’s Good has spotlighted many Canadian creators of colour and their series and films. Newman-Bremang has profiled stars like Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Fefe Dobson, Angela Bassett, Issa Rae, Yara Shahidi and Joshua Jackson and furthered conversations about representation in Canadian television, accountability in Canadian media and the importance of hiring Black and Indigenous creators behind the scenes of film and TV productions. She’s a co-host of the popular R29 Unbothered podcast Go Off, Sis, a mentor for Canadian Journalists of Colour, and a frequent culture commentator for various national CBC and CTV broadcast programs. She was the 2021 winner of CBC's inaugural Canada Listens where she defended Kardinal Offishall's seminal album Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1 and advocated for more inclusion in Canada's music coverage.

Kayla Grey

Host / Reporter
Kayla Grey is the host and co-executive producer of TSN’s The Shift with Kayla Grey (Powered by DELL XPS), appears regularly as anchor of Sportscentre, and as a reporter on TSN’s live coverage of the Toronto Raptors.
 
Grey reported on the Toronto Raptors’ historic NBA championship run for TSN in 2019, and also joined CTV’s fan-favourite series The Amazing Race Canada as an official race correspondent for The Amacing Race Canada: Ride Along.
 
In 2019, Grey was awarded the By Blacks magazine People’s Choice Award in the TV Personality category. Grey was also honoured on Chatelaine’s 2020 Women of the Year list, named one of Refinery29’s PowerHouse Women of 2020, and Woman of the year in Post City Magazine. She has also been recognized by Women of Influence as one of the Top 25 Women of Influence in Canada for 2021. A graduate of Toronto’s College of Sports Media, Grey began her broadcasting career as an analyst for the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and various university varsity sports. She then moved to Winnipeg as a Digital Broadcast Journalist for Global News, and to Prince Rupert, BC to become a senior reporter for CFTK-TV news. The Toronto native joined TSN in 2015 as an on-air update anchor for TSN Radio 1050 in Toronto. She became the first Black woman to host a flagship sports highlight show in Canada when she made her Sportcentre debut in 2018.

Moderated by:

maxine bailey

Executive Director

maxine bailey is a dynamic member of Toronto’s arts community. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Canadian Film Centre (CFC). Previously, maxine served as the Vice-President of Advancement at TIFF where she founded Share Her Journey, a fundraising commitment to achieving gender parity both on and off screen. She also co-founded the Black Artists Network in Dialogue (BAND), which showcases Black cultural contributions nationally and internationally, and currently participates on the advisory boards and steering committees for the Toronto Arts Council/Foundation Advocacy Committee, the Canadian Academy, the Luminato Festival Toronto and the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund.

Telefilm Canada