Two weeks ago, nearly 100 people gathered outside of the Toronto Stock Exchange and marched through downtown Toronto to protest the North Dakota Access Pipeline and express solidarity with the blockade at the ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

The police were there from the get-go, corralling the group and blocking traffic. Led by a group of five Indigenous women, we waded through the streets, chanting, drumming and singing.

The media, on the other hand, showed up only after we proved newsworthy: when the rally collided with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

It started with a CP24 reporter. She showed up with a cameraperson at King and Duncan, demanding TIFF guards let us continue marching down King Street.

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As a journalist in my mid-20s, I should have plenty to feel confident about. After getting a masters degree in journalism from an Ivy League university, I moved to China, where I worked for a national newspaper and went on to my current job as a foreign correspondent at an international news wire.