Maureen Googoo
Maureen Googoo is a proud Mi’kmaq and an award-winning journalist.
Maureen was born in Truro, Nova Scotia and raised in the nearby Mi’kmaq community of Indian Brook First Nation. She has spent the better part of her 22-year career in journalism covering Aboriginal issues mostly in Atlantic Canada.
Maureen landed her first journalism job in the summer of 1987 as a reporter for the Micmac News, a monthly newspaper published in Nova Scotia. Throughout the years, Maureen has worked for other news media outlets such as the Chronicle-Herald newspaper in Halifax and CBC Radio in Halifax, Sydney, Toronto and La Ronge, Sask.
In early 2000, Maureen joined the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and was part of the original news team that launched the first ever television news show solely dedicated to news coverage of Aboriginal issues across Canada. Maureen opened the Halifax News Bureau for APTN in the spring of 2000 and ran it for more than six years.
During her time with APTN, Maureen covered news stories such as:
- Assembly of First Nations election for National Chief in 2000
- Innu children from Sheshatshiu, N.L. addicted to sniffing gasoline fumes who were sent to treatment centres in St. John’s and Alberta.
- 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Que.
- Conflicts between Mi’kmaq fishermen and Department of Fisheries conservation officers in Burnt Church, N.B. in 2000-2001.
- North American Indigenous Games held in Winnipeg, Man. in 2002.
- First degree murder trial of former American Indian Movement member Arlo Looking-Cloud for the 1975 shooting death of Anna Mae Aquash from Indian Brook First Nation, N.S. The trial was held in Rapid City, South Dakota in 2004.
- Trial of 35 Mi’kmaq loggers from Nova Scotia charged with harvesting timber on crown land with a permit, which included coverage of the loggers’ appeal hearing at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005.
- Continuing coverage of survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School seeking compensation from the Roman Catholic Church and the Canadian government for the abuse they suffered while attending the school.
In 2004, Maureen was part of the news team at APTN that received an award from the Native American Journalists Association for a two-hour television special that aired in September 2003 on the 4th anniversary of the landmark 1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Donald Marshall, Jr. fishing rights case.
In May 2009, Maureen received the Adrienne Clarkson Diversity Award from the Association of Electronic Journalists (RTNDA Canada) for a documentary she produced for CBC Radio in 2008 on two groups in Nova Scotia who are seeking legal recognition as Aboriginal people.
Maureen is among a handful of Mi’kmaq people who have earned graduate degrees from Ivy League universities.
In 2006, Maureen was awarded a full tuition scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. She graduated with a Master of Science in Journalism in May 2007 in which she specialized in New Media.
Maureen also holds undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degrees in journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, Ont. and in political science from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, N.S.
