Finalists announced for the 70th National Newspaper Awards
TORONTO, March 18, 2019 – The Globe and Mail leads all entrants in the 70th National Newspaper Awards competition with 20 finalists.
Other news organizations with multiple finalists include the Toronto Star and La Presse with six each, the Canadian Press with four, and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and Waterloo Region Record with three each. The Winnipeg Free Press, St. Catharines Standard, Calgary Herald/Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal/Edmonton Sun and Ottawa Citizen each have two finalists in the competition. The Calgary Herald also has a joint nomination with National Post, and the Toronto Star has one shared with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and Brunswick News. Nine other organizations each have one finalist.
There are 63 finalists in 21 categories, selected from 951 entries for work published in 2018. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Friday, May 3.
The 2018 Journalist of the Year will be chosen from among this year’s winners, and revealed at the gala after all category awards have been announced.
This is the 70th year for the awards program, and the 30th 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 daily newspapers, news agencies and online news sites approved for entry by the NNA Board of Governors.
Thanks to donations from sponsors, seven of the 21 category awards will this year be named after important figures in the news industry. The Claude Ryan Award for Editorial Writing (sponsored by the Ryan family) and the Norman Webster Award for International Reporting (sponsored by the Webster family) were announced last year.
Added this year to the group of named awards are: the George Brown Award for Investigations (sponsored by the Globe and Mail), the John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics (sponsored by Ron Stern), the E. Cora Hind Award for Beat Reporting (sponsored by the Nellie McClung Heritage Site), the Bob Levin Award for Short Feature (sponsored by the Globe and Mail) and the William Southam Award for Long Feature (sponsored by the Southam family).
Highlights of this year’s finalists:
• Three individuals are finalists in two separate categories: Grant LaFleche of the St. Catharines Standard in Investigations and Local Reporting, Greg Mercer of the Waterloo Region Record in Local Reporting and Politics, and Andrew Vaughan of the Canadian Press in Feature Photo and Sports Photo.
• Brian Gable of the Globe and Mail, a seven-time winner, is a finalist for a record 17th time in Editorial Cartooning.
• Another seven-time winner, Stephanie Nolen of the Globe and Mail, has been named a finalist for the 16th time of her career, in International.
• Six-time winner Grant Robertson of the Globe and Mail is a finalist for a 12th time, in Long Feature.
• Three-time winners David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen, John Roe of the Waterloo Region Record, Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail and Jon Wells of the Hamilton Spectator are all finalists again.
• Isabelle Hachey of La Presse, a winner last year in International, is a finalist for an eighth time, this time in Long Feature.
• Russell Wangersky of the St. John’s Telegram is a finalist for the seventh time, as is Pugliese.
Finalists in all categories:
Arts and Entertainment
• Jonathan Dekel, Globe and Mail, for a feature about how the members of Radiohead continue to deal with the death of one of their crew members when a stage collapsed in Toronto almost seven years ago.
• Chris Hannay and Daniel Leblanc, Globe and Mail, for investigating the National Gallery of Canada’s botched attempt to sell a major piece of art by Marc Chagall in order to free up money to buy another artwork.
• Fanny Lévesque, Katia Gagnon and Véronique Lauzon, La Presse, for exposing how the head of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra used his authority to engage in psychological harassment and sometimes physical aggression against musicians.
Beat Reporting
• Zosia Bielski, Globe and Mail, for coverage of gender and sexuality.
• David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, for coverage of the national defence beat.
• Randy Richmond, London Free Press, for coverage of Ontario’s correctional system.
Breaking News
• The Canadian Press, for team coverage of the truck-bus collision that killed 16 members of the Humboldt Broncos organization.
• Le Droit, for team coverage of a tornado that struck the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
• The Toronto Star, for team coverage of a shocking incident when a man driving a van mowed down pedestrians on Yonge Street, killing 10 of them.
Business
• Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Jones, Renata D’Aliesio and Chen Wang, Globe and Mail, for digging deeply into the flourishing trade of aging wells, in which major companies routinely offload energy assets burdened with hefty cleanup costs onto smaller players with scant ability to pay the environmental bill.
• Paul Waldie, Globe and Mail, for an investigation that revealed how Canadian corporate money helped to finance Islamic State terrorism abroad.
• Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail, for finding evidence of questionable conduct and connections to corruption in South African business deals made by Bombardier and Export Development Canada.
Columns
• Nathalie Petrowski, La Presse.
• Niigaan Sinclair, Winnipeg Free Press.
• Russell Wangersky, St. John’s Telegram.
Editorial Cartooning
• Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle-Herald/Brunswick News/Toronto Star.
• Brian Gable, Globe and Mail.
• Garnotte (Michel Garneau), Le Devoir.
Editorials
• François Cardinal, La Presse.
• Heather Persson, Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
• John Roe, Waterloo Region Record.
Explanatory Work
• Carolyn Abraham, Globe and Mail, for “Cracks in the Code,” which explored how science’s ability to “read” DNA has far outpaced its capacity to understand it.
• James Bagnall, Ottawa Citizen, for a thorough explanation of how the federal government managed to end up with its deeply flawed, and very expensive, Phoenix employee pay system.
• Douglas Quan, National Post, for discovering how the municipal government in Richmond, B.C., was dealing with cultural challenges it faces as the “most Asian” city in North America.
Feature Photo
• Chris Donovan, Globe and Mail, for a photo of a woman saying farewell to a friend just before her medically assisted death.
• Andrew Vaughan, Canadian Press, for a photo of fog shrouding the waterfront during flooding in Fredericton.
• Gavin Young, Calgary Herald/Calgary Sun, for an image depicting an oasis of calm on the otherwise raucous Calgary Stampede midway.
International
• Daniel Dale, Toronto Star, for his exhaustive coverage of the deceptions and lies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
• Stephanie Nolen, Globe and Mail, for her reporting on Brazil, from environmental challenges to social and political developments.
• Nathan VanderKlippe, Globe and Mail, for an on-the-ground look at China’s crackdown on Uyghurs and repression of Muslim observance.
Investigations
• Aaron Derfel, Montreal Gazette, for uncovering shocking information about violent acts committed against health-care workers at Montreal General Hospital, and the institution’s attempts to cover up the incidents.
• Grant LaFleche, St. Catharines Standard, for a year-long investigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Region’s top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars.
• Wendy Stueck and Mike Hager, Globe and Mail, for a series exposing the deplorable conditions in many rental buildings in Vancouver’s low-income Downtown Eastside, and failed efforts by the city to enforce its bylaws.
Local Reporting
• Erin DeBooy, Brandon Sun, for an unflinching look at the personal and human toll caused by methamphetamine use in her community.
• Grant LaFleche, St. Catharines Standard, for a year-long investigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Region’s top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars.
• Greg Mercer, Waterloo Region Record, for a detailed probe into the serious health problems that afflicted workers from the region’s once-booming rubber industry, and the apparent reluctance of workplace safety officials to accept their compensation claims.
Long Feature
• Isabelle Hachey, La Presse, for a feature about an amazing medical feat: the first facial transplant in Canada.
• Jana G. Pruden, Globe and Mail, for a story on the aftermath of a fire that left three people dead, and a family destroyed.
• Grant Robertson, Globe and Mail, for a feature about an experiment in which three lab monkeys were quietly moved to a sanctuary to retire, instead of facing the death sentence that awaits most animals used in medical research.
News Photo
• Jonathan Hayward, Canadian Press, for a photo of a man who salvaged his friend’s prized electric guitars after a flood in Grand Forks, B.C.
• Darren Makowichuk, Calgary Herald/Calgary Sun, for an image of police officers tending to a fallen comrade.
• Kayle Neis, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, for a photo of hockey sticks stuck in a snowbank as a memorial to members of the Humboldt Broncos who had been killed in a bus-truck collision.
Photo Essay
• Carlos Osorio, Toronto Star, for photos accompanying a feature story about a 77-year-old woman who was forced to move out of the publicly subsidized building she lived in when it was deemed unsafe.
• Renaud Philippe, Globe and Mail, for pictures documenting the plight of the Rohingya and their escape from genocide in Myanmar.
• Melissa Tait, Globe and Mail, for an essay about a rugby league that strengthens relationships among its women players, and provides support for families.
Politics
• Lori Culbert, Dan Fumano and Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun/The Province, for an in-depth look at what governments had done and were promising to do about affordable housing in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
• Robert Fife, Steven Chase, Sean Silcoff and Christine Dobby, Globe and Mail, for looking into how Huawei fits in with Beijing’s global ambitions, and just how far Canada was willing to go to accommodate the technology juggernaut’s quest for expansion.
• Greg Mercer, Waterloo Region Record, for exposing how the Ontario Conservative party concocted a story that a legislator had sexually harassed a former party intern, in order to nominate a more well-connected party insider.
Presentation
• Laura Blenkinsop and Christopher Manza, Globe and Mail, for their work showcasing a Brazilian road trip, a major investigation and a true crime saga.
• Jean-François Codère and Maxime Jean, La Presse, for a highly interactive presentation accompanying a story about a nearly disastrous Air Canada flight.
• Cameron Tulk, David Schnitman, Tania Pereira and Fadi Yaacoub, Toronto Star, for bringing to life a research project in which reporters fact-checked every question and answer over five days of Question Period, to find out just how much federal politicians speak the truth.
Project of the Year
• Jessica Botelho-Urbanski, Melissa Martin and Katie May, Winnipeg Free Press, for “Ice Storm: Manitoba’s Meth Crisis,” a seven-part series documenting how methamphetamine was ravaging Winnipeg and destroying lives.
• Zane Schwartz, National Post/Calgary Herald, for “Follow the Money,” an 18-month project that gathered and analyzed more than five million records across Canada to create the first central, searchable database of political donations in every province and territory.
• A Toronto Star team for “Medical Disorder,” an 18-month effort to collect, analyze and report on 27,000 discipline records and 1.4 million licensing records for doctors practising in Canada and the United States.
Short Feature
• Jamie Ross, Globe and Mail, for a piece, in the wake of the fatal Humboldt Broncos bus-truck crash, that explained what playing junior hockey meant to him as he was transitioning from youth to adult and trying to find his way in life.
• Jon Wells, Hamilton Spectator, for an engaging and poignant story about a couple’s determination to see a man freed from death row in the U.S. for a crime he said he did not commit.
• Patrick White, Globe and Mail, for a story about a humble, rural attraction – a simple sunflower patch – that had been ruined by a social media mob.
Sports
• Dan Barnes, Edmonton Journal/Edmonton Sun, for reporting on the sad tale of Dorian Boose, who played in the NFL and won a championship with the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos, only to end up living on the streets and eventually taking his own life.
• Kevin Mitchell, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, for deep coverage, spanning a period of months, on the Humboldt Broncos bus-truck crash and its aftermath.
• Mary Ormsby, Toronto Star, for uncovering new information that suggested sprinter Ben Johnson’s drug sample had been mishandled 30 years earlier, and for a story outlining the cognitive decline and personal turmoil faced by legendary boxer George Chuvalo.
Sports Photo
• Bernard Brault, La Presse, for an image of an acrobatic competitor soaring above course workers at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
• Ed Kaiser, Edmonton Journal/Edmonton Sun, for a picture showing a Vancouver Canucks player flying through the air as he attempts a shot on goal.
• Andrew Vaughan, Canadian Press, for a photo of a downed fighter that captures the brutality of mixed martial arts.
Nominated entries can be viewed at the NNA website at www.nna-ccj.ca. The link to the nominated entries can be found on the right side of the home page, just below the photo of the 2017 Journalist of the Year.
For more information, contact:
Paul Woods
Executive Director
National Newspaper Awards
exec@nna-ccj.ca
905-719-8675