Massa recognised the personal career strides she had made after stepping out of the anchor desk, but she said it took her editor to point out the larger significance.
“It wasn’t until my editor said, ‘Hey, great job! Was that a first for Canada? A woman in a hijab?’ And I said yes.
“And so I tweeted about it. As much as I knew it was important, I didn’t expect the reaction that I received. My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing for the last week,” Massa said.
Massa’s achievement comes amid heightened concerns about anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and Europe. During the US presidential election campaign, Donald Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out” what is going on.
“I’ve talked to many women who are journalists in the US who work behind the scenes and they’ve told me that they face multiple challenges trying to get on air,” said Massa.
“They’ve been told because of their hijab, that’s not going to happen. That makes me really sad because they’re being held back by someone else’s idea of what the public can or cannot handle.”
