Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders
named Journalist of the Year
TORONTO, April 26,
2024 /CNW/ - A team from Sing Tao won the Special
Topic Award on Friday, becoming the first journalists in the
75-year history of the National Newspaper Awards to be recognized
for work done in a language other than French or English.
The journalists were honoured for the four-part series Embracing
Canada, which explored the challenges faced by the second wave of
immigrants from Hong Kong. Sing
Tao is a Chinese-language publication, with offices in Vancouver and Toronto.
The series included interviews with recent immigrants and
explored the shortcomings and future of Canada's immigration pathway program, while
also providing helpful information about entrepreneurship and
healthcare in the country. Judges said it provided a comprehensive
picture of what newcomers from Hong
Kong will face in their new home.
The category was created last fall as part of an ongoing
commitment to make the competition more diverse and inclusive,
better reflecting the range of publications and journalism across
the country.
The team from Sing Tao received one of 25 awards on the night,
which ended with Doug Saunders of
the Globe and Mail being named Journalist of the Year.
Saunders, who also won the Norman
Webster Award for International Reporting, was selected by a
panel of judges from among 17 winning entries submitted by one or
two individuals.
Judges said: "The time, energy, personal risk and extraordinary
ingenuity Doug Saunders put into
this assignment produced the most detailed and touching portrait of
migration on a global scale that our jury has ever seen. Saunders
brought 21st-century tools and old-fashioned reporter's instincts
to this compelling package of interdisciplinary reporting."
Two projects were also recognized. The Globe and Mail won
Project of the Year for Secret Canada, while the Climate Disaster
Project based out of the University of
Victoria received a Special Recognition Citation.
Secret Canada was the
culmination of an investigation into Canada's access to information system that
spanned more than 18 months. The Globe and Mail not only exposed
major problems within the system but humanized them. They also
created a solution to one of the system's major flaws: the vast
majority of public institutions don't publish completed FOI
requests online. As part of the project, the Globe built an online
portal to house completed access requests from across the country.
It can be accessed by anyone who is interested, including
freelancers and journalists in smaller newsrooms who may not be
able to afford FOI fees.
Judges called the project a win for journalists and for
democracy. Surveys of SecretCanada.com users show the site is being
used in newsrooms across the country and as a teaching tool in
journalism schools.
The Climate Disaster Project received a Special Recognition
Citation, which was handed out for just the second time.
Established in September 2021, and
led by founding director Sean Holman
out of the University of Victoria, the
project is essentially a teaching newsroom. So far, almost 200
journalism and writing students from across Canada have been trained to cover climate
change from the frontlines in an empathetic, trauma-informed way,
respecting the dignity of survivors.
The stories, which include investigative work and first-person
accounts, are preserved on the Climate Disaster Project website. In
2023, they were amplified by organizations such as The Tyee, the
National Observer, the Fraser Valley Current and the Royal B.C.
Museum.
Judges applauded the trauma-informed approach to journalism as
well as the structure of the project and the many partnerships
created. They said it was a model of cooperation that can be
replicated in other newsrooms as they shrink.
The citation was created as part of an effort to honour
journalism that doesn't fit neatly into the NNA's existing 23
categories, but had an exceptional impact on the Canadian news
industry. Room Up Front, a volunteer-run initiative seeking to
combat inequality in the Canadian photojournalism community,
received the inaugural citation last year.
Other highlights:
- There were 10 first-time winners this year: Matt Simmons, Cara
McKenna and Marty Clemens,
IndigiNews and The Narwhal (Arts and Entertainment); Sara
Mojtehedzadeh, Toronto Star (co-winner in Business); Max Fawcett, National Observer (Columns);
Matt Goerzen, The Brandon Sun
(Editorial Writing); Darryl Greer,
Canadian Press (Investigations); Tyler
Olsen, Fraser Valley Current (Local Reporting); Goran Tomasevic, Globe and Mail (News Photo);
and Jane Sims, London Free Press
(Short Feature).
- Sing Tao was one of four publications to win for the first
time, along with the Fraser Valley Current, IndigiNews and The
Narwhal.
- Editorial cartoonist Bruce
MacKinnon of the Halifax Chronicle Herald won his ninth NNA,
matching the all-time record set by Grant
Robertson of the Globe and Mail last year.
- The Globe and Mail led all organizations with seven wins among
the 23 regular categories. La Presse had three, as did the Toronto
Star, including one shared with The Narwhal. The Brandon Sun and
The Narwhal both won two awards. The Narwhal's second award was
shared with IndigiNews.
There were 69 finalists in 23 categories, representing 26 news
organizations. Thirteen organizations won at least one award.
Finalists and winners were selected by three-judge panels in
each category from 892 entries submitted for work published for the
first time in 2023. Entries were submitted by 64 news
organizations. Several of those organizations, plus an additional
five that would not otherwise have been eligible for the contest,
were also considered for the Special Recognition Citation.
This is the 75th year for the awards program, and the 35th under
the current administrative structure. The awards were established
by the Toronto Press Club in 1949 to encourage excellence and
reward achievement in daily newspaper work in Canada. The competition is now open to
newspapers, news agencies and online news sites approved for entry
by the NNA Board of Governors.
The complete list of winners and finalists:
Arts and Entertainment
Winner: Matt Simmons,
Cara McKenna and Marty Clemens, IndigiNews and The Narwhal, for
their feature about the return of a stolen totem pole to Nisga'a
Nation after almost a century.
Finalists: Marsha
Lederman, Globe and Mail, for her stories on the Vancouver
Art Gallery's celebrated Group of Seven oil sketches that turned
out to be fakes; Jon Wells, Hamilton
Spectator, for his portfolio of stories on a hidden gem recording
space in a former church, the time Pink Floyd played Hamilton, and the time Luciano Pavarotti
almost did.
Joan Hollobon Award for Beat Reporting
Winner: Ariane Lacoursière, La Presse, for her work on
the significant inequalities in health care in the 14 villages of
Nunavik in northern Quebec.
Finalists: Danielle
Bochove, Bloomberg, for her coverage of the Global Arctic,
as the region takes on heightened economic, strategic and
environmental significance; Alex
Boyd, Toronto Star, for her authoritative work on the
misinformation that is increasingly influencing our world.
Stuart M. Robertson Award for
Breaking News
Winner: La Presse, for their coverage of the day a bus
driver killed two children and injured six more when his
vehicle crashed into a daycare centre in Laval.
Finalists: Canadian Press, for their comprehensive
coverage of the McDougall Creek Wildfire in West Kelowna, the largest fire in the city's
history; Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun, for their
combined coverage of the Trans-Canada Highway crash near
Carberry last June that led to the
death of 17 seniors.
Business
Winner: Sara Mojtehedzadeh and Rachel Mendleson, Toronto Star, for their series
Work Forced, which revealed the inner mechanics of labour
exploitation and how Canada's
existing laws enable it to thrive.
Finalists: Joe Castaldo,
Globe and Mail, for his months-long look into artificial
intelligence and how it is reshaping society, not always for the
best; Tavia Grant, Globe and Mail,
for a year-long investigation into the lack of oversight of
Canadian companies working in extractive industries abroad.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary Award for
Columns
Winner: Max Fawcett,
National Observer, for his columns on conservative attacks on the
federal government's climate policy, the federal Liberals' carbon
tax communication problems, and the war on expertise.
Finalists: Niigaan Sinclair, Winnipeg Free Press, for his
columns on Manitoba politics,
including an introduction to Premier Wab Kinew with an eye to
Indigenous cultures and traditions and the significance of Kinew
taking on the role of Indigenous Affairs minister; Adam Zivo, National Post, for commentary on
controversial topics, including the problems with 'straight Pride'
and with the Ontario NDP's proposal to ban anti-LGBTQ+ protests
within the vicinity of queer events.
Editorial Cartooning
Winner: Bruce MacKinnon,
Halifax Chronicle Herald
Finalists: Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald;
Brian Gable, Globe and Mail
Claude Ryan Award for
Editorial Writing
Winner: Matt Goerzen, The
Brandon Sun, for editorials on Brandon's growth on LGBTQIA+ rights,
the changes required after the deadly Carberry collision, and why deficit numbers
can't always be trusted.
Finalists: Chris Hannay,
Globe and Mail, for editorials on the exploitation of temporary
foreign workers and students, the diminished influence of labour
unions, and why the federal government needs to act quickly on AI;
Lauren Heuser, Canadian Affairs, for
editorials on Pierre Poilievre's
documentary on Canada's housing
crisis, the federal dental-care initiative, and the need to
increase awareness about cannabis risks.
Explanatory Work
Winner: Marcus Gee, Globe
and Mail, for his explanation of how fentanyl became the king of
drugs, killing someone in Canada,
on average, nearly every hour of every day.
Finalists: Amy Dempsey
Raven, Toronto Star, for her look at how Toronto, over the last 100 years, became a
haven for a large and bold raccoon population; Melissa Martin, Winnipeg Free Press, for an
exploration of crime reduction that began by asking why people
commit crimes — then sought to find out, by interviewing five
people with an extensive history with the criminal justice
system.
Feature Photo
Winner: Tim Smith, The
Brandon Sun, for his colourful photo of women on a forklift washing
windows at the CanAm Hutterite Colony.
Finalists: Darren
Calabrese, Canadian Press, for his photo of a woman waving
goodbye to her husband while the HMCS Montreal readies for
departure in Halifax; Leah Hennel, Reuters, for her photo of a woman
in a mask walking her dogs on a smoky day in Calgary, when 90 wildfires were active in
Alberta.
Norman Webster Award for
International Reporting
Winner: Doug Saunders,
Globe and Mail, who spent weeks on each of the world's most
important and contested crisis migration routes to take a deeper
look at the world's migration crisis.
Finalists: Isabelle
Hachey, La Presse, for her reports from Ukraine: the killings, the stolen children,
the attempts to destroy the identity of the nation; Katharine Lake Berz, Toronto Star, for her
series of articles on the Ukrainian women and children who survived
Russian war-crime violence.
George Brown Award for
Investigations
Winner: Darryl Greer,
Canadian Press, for a months-long investigation into rape,
stalking and bullying at one of Canada's most secretive organizations: the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Finalists: Bill Curry,
Globe and Mail, for his investigation into federal government IT
procurement processes, which triggered Parliamentary hearings,
public servant suspensions, and prompted the federal government to
cut off contractors; Tristan Péloquin, La Presse, for dissecting
the environmental fallout of an illegal dump in the Mohawk
territory of Kanesatake, including
water contaminated by a toxic spill.
Journalist of the Year
Winner: Doug Saunders,
Globe and Mail
E. Cora Hind Award for Local
Reporting
Winner: Tyler Olsen,
Fraser Valley Current, for his exploration of how the promised
rebuild of Lytton, B.C. — almost
two years after the fire that destroyed it — has gone so wrong.
Finalists: Randy Richmond,
Calvi Leon, Rachel Gilbert and Brice
Hall, London Free Press, for their project The Boy With Two
Names: One Indigenous family's journey through the Sixties Scoop;
Sabrina Bedford, Brockville Recorder
and Times, for her exhaustive coverage of an OPP officer convicted
of multiple crimes, including raping an unconscious woman and
recording it on his cell phone.
William Southam Award for Long
Feature
Winner: Douglas Todd,
Vancouver Sun/The Province, for
his thought-provoking look at B.C.'s mental health system and
whether his dad — who was institutionalized for 20 years — would
have survived it.
Finalists: Lindsay Jones,
Globe and Mail, for her touching feature on two men — one of
Indigenous ethnicity, the other non-Indigenous — who recently
discovered they had been switched at birth at a small rural
hospital north of Winnipeg in
1955;
Tom Rachman, Globe and Mail, for
his well-researched feature on the quest to understand — and find —
happiness.
News Photo
Winner: Goran Tomasevic,
Globe and Mail, for his photo of the family of an accused ISIS
operative, taken during a counter-terrorism night raid by Syrian
Democratic Forces in Deir ez-Zor.
Finalists: Ashley Fraser,
Ottawa Citizen/Ottawa Sun, for
capturing the raw emotions of police officers standing guard as the
casket of slain OPP Sgt. Eric
Mueller is taken to a funeral home; Jesse Winter, Globe and Mail, for his image of a
firefighter using a drip torch to set a planned ignition on a
wildfire burning near a highway outside Vanderhoof, B.C.
Photo Story
Winner: Steve Russell,
Toronto Star, for his story on a retired couple in their late 80s —
one with dementia; the other caring for — in the final chapter of
their lives.
Finalists: Martin
Tremblay, La Presse, for documenting the fighting and the
fate of inhabitants living in the streets of Bakhmut, Ukraine; Jesse
Winter, freelance, for his harrowing images from the
frontlines of the worst wildfire season in B.C. history.
John Wesley Dafoe Award for
Politics
Winner: Robert Fife and
Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, for
their months-long investigation into Chinese interference in the
2021 federal election.
Finalists: Charlie
Pinkerton, Jack Hauen and
Jessica Smith Cross, The Trillium,
for their reporting on the influence of land developers in
Ontario politics; Althia Raj, Toronto Star, for her series of
podcasts on a range of topics, including the housing crisis,
Canada and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and how social media is changing politics.
Presentation/Design
Winner: Jeremy Agius,
Globe and Mail, for his portfolio of work on migration routes, the
electric vehicle battery business and Inuit survivors of
tuberculosis.
Finalists: Susan Kao,
McKenna Hart and Tania Pereira, Toronto Star, for their whimsical
presentation of Toronto's
century-old raccoon problem; The Narwhal, for a portfolio of work
on Ontario's proposed Highway 413,
the Ontario Greenbelt and a bird's eye view of Alberta's oilsands.
John Honderich Award for
Project of the Year
Winner: Globe and Mail, for Secret Canada, an
investigation into Canada's
problematic access to information system and the creation of an
online database to house completed access requests from across the
country.
Finalists: La Presse, for their work on the affordable
housing crisis in Quebec, where
the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says almost 1.2 million
homes need to be built by the end of the decade; St. John's
Telegram, for their investigation into the shocking living
conditions at Her Majesty's Penitentiary: rodent infestations,
health-threatening mould, cells with broken toilets and no running
water, and a shortage of staff and programs.
Bob Levin Award for Short
Feature
Winner: Jane Sims, London
Free Press, for her story on Salman
Afzaal, who along with his family was killed by a white
nationalist, and how the Afzaals touched so many lives in different
ways.
Finalists: Hiren
Mansukhani, Calgary Herald/Calgary Sun, for his short feature
highlighting the challenges faced by two families forced to flee
the wildfires in Yellowknife;
Grant Robertson, Globe and Mail, for
his story on a small Ottawa church
that began distributing naloxone to its congregation — and started
saving lives.
Special Topic: Journalism in a Language other than French or
English
Winner: Sing Tao, for their four-part series
Embracing Canada, on the challenges faced by the second wave of
immigrants from Hong Kong.
Finalists: David Venn,
Nunatsiaq News, for his four-part series from the Kivalliq region,
examining the old Government of the Northwest Territories' Homeownership
Assistance Program. Stories translated by Maaki Kakkik;
Joe Volpe, Francesco Veronesi and Mariella Policheni,
Corriere Canadese, for a portfolio of work, including the harrowing
story of a Toronto couple across a
series of hospitals after their baby was born.
Sports
Winners: Alexandre Pratt,
La Presse, for columns on: a group of Laurentian hockey moms who played in front of
hundreds in France, Quebec hockey players appearing on stamps
around the world without their knowledge, and a call for colleges
and universities to organize a major event around women's
sports.
Finalists: Rachel Brady,
Globe and Mail, for a trio of stories on under-reported aspects of
sports, including blind hockey, competing while menstruating, and
dealing with cancer as an athlete; Nancy
Macdonald, Globe and Mail, for her profile of teen surfing
prodigy Erin Brooks, a Texas-born phenom with Quebec roots who trains in Hawaii and competes for Canada.
Sports Photo
Winner: Melissa Tait,
Globe and Mail, for her euphoric photo from the sparkly,
high-energy world of competitive cheer.
Finalists: Andrew Lahodynskyj, Canadian Press, for his
photo of Adam Hadwin being tackled
at the Canadian Open as Nick Taylor
celebrated his historic victory; John
Woods, Winnipeg Free Press, for his photo of Dawn Neal after she won the Manitoba Marathon
women's division as a competitor dropped behind her.
Sustained News Coverage
Winners: Toronto Star and The Narwhal, for their joint
efforts in exposing crucial details about the Ontario government's plans to develop the
Greenbelt, including connections between the premier and
developers.
Finalists: Lori Culbert,
Katie DeRosa and Dan Fumano, Vancouver Sun/The Province, for their work on
the affordable housing crisis, which now impacts every facet of the
housing sector in B.C.; Robert Fife,
Steven Chase, Andrew Coyne, James
Griffiths and Patrick
Brethour, Globe and Mail, for their year-long commitment to
exposing foreign interference by China and other countries.
Special Recognition Citation
Climate Disaster Project, for their teaching newsroom
based out of the University of
Victoria, their investigations into climate disasters, and
their first-person accounts of survivors. Educators, partners and
students whose work was published in 2022 or 2023 include:
University of Victoria |
Sean Holman, Aldyn Chwelos, David
Leach, Jimmy Thomson,
Tim Black, Sarah Marie Wiebe, Patti
Sonntag, Kristen de Jager,
Josie Hjermstad, Sandy Ibrahim, Jordan
Kovacs, Alexandra Lainfiesta,
Ashlee Levy, Michael John Lo, Hannah
Seaton, Tosh Sherkat,
Sarah Suleman, Sophie Thomas, Paul
Voll
Humber College | Lara King, Terra
Ciolfe, Tessa Bennett, Maria
Kestane, Scott McLaughlin, Antonio
Peláez Barceló, James Westman
Campus Journalism Lab | Jhesset Thrina Enano, Kenneth Basilio, Alexandra Elicano, Eduardo
Fajermo Jr., AC Himaya Tupas, Melody Jade
Soriano
University of British Columbia |
Francesca Fionda, Sara Nelson, Aleisha
Langmann, Eleni Vlahiotis
First Nations University of Canada | Patricia
Elliott, Amber Bear,
Christina Gervais, Emilie Wren
Kwantlen Polytechnic University | Tracy Sherlock, Emma
Bolzner, Claudia Culley,
Jasna Rowse
Langara College | Erica Bulman, Effie
Klein, Samantha Holomay,
Nicholas Naylor
Mount Royal University |
Janice Paskey, Milena Radzikowska,
Meg Wilcox, Brad Clark, Gage
Smith
University of King's College | Terra
Tailleur, Lisa Taylor,
Leslie Amminson
Carleton University |
Trish Audette-Longo, Pippa Norman
MacEwan University | Steve Lillebuen, Julia Archelene
Magsombol
Toronto Metropolitan
University | Sonya Fatah, Geena
Mortfield
University of the Fraser Valley | Michelle Superle,
Sydney Marchand
Simon Fraser University |
Stuart Poyntz
University of Stirling |
Sandra Engstrom
Independent | Phil McLachlan,
Darren Schuettler, Dale Bass, Julia
Kidder, Edith Loring-Kuhanga
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network | Rob Smith, Paul
Barnsley
Asparagus | Jessie Johnston,
Sun Woo Baik, Christine Fwu, Avvai Ketheeswaran, Tommy Li
Canada's National Observer
| Adrienne Tanner, Linda Solomon Wood
Fraser Valley Current | Tyler
Olsen
Megaphone | Julia Aoki,
Paula Carlson
Neworld Theatre | Alen
Dominguez, Manuela Sosa,
Mary Ancheta
Royal BC Museum | Chris
O'Connor
The Tyee | David Beers,
Jens von Bergmann, Nora Kelly, Andrew
Monroe, Jen Osborne
SOURCE National Newspaper Awards