National Newspaper Awards announce new prize for journalism innovation

TORONTO, October 28, 2025  — The National Newspaper Awards is introducing a new award to highlight innovation in journalism in its 2025 National Newspaper Awards.

The Innovation in Journalism category is among several changes approved by the Board of Governors at a meeting on Sept. 25. The changes — which include a new category, rebranded and broadened categories and the introduction of newsroom-size brackets for one category — are part of an ongoing commitment to broadening the awards to better reflect journalism across the country.

Another change will, for the first time, allow classifications within the Local Reporting category for Small, Medium and Large outlets based on newsroom size, levelling the competition and removing previous restrictions on a number of city newspapers across the country.

Other changes this year include:

• Changing the name of the Presentation and Design Category to Digital Storytelling to better reflect the entries and the focus of newsrooms;
• Broadening the Editorial Cartooning Category to include a wider range of comics journalism and longer graphic journalism in addition to editorial cartoons. This category is called Illustrated Commentary.

The awards will continue to allow submissions in a language other than French or English in its Special Topic category and will continue to welcome submissions from Canadian journalists or organizations who would otherwise be ineligible in its Special Recognition Citation. The awards will also extend eligibility to allow non-journalists to be included in entries for Project of the Year and Sustained News Coverage, where  the bulk of the work is by eligible journalists.

“Journalism is always changing and as the preeminent awards for Canadian newspapers, we remain focused on reflecting the work that newsrooms are doing now. That’s why I’m excited about these latest changes to our categories,” said Paul Samyn, Chair of the NNA Board of Governors, and Editor-in-Chief of the Winnipeg Free Press.

“The new Innovation in Journalism award, for example, allows us to showcase the broad range of non-traditional tactics and approaches deployed by newsrooms to better engage audiences and serve communities across this country.”

In keeping with longstanding practice, any changes approved by NNA Governors are in effect for the 2025 competition, which covers work published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025.

The cost to enter this year’s competition, which opens on Dec. 1, remains at $30 per submission. Award winners will be announced at an in-person gala on April 24, 2026 in Toronto. For information on sponsorship opportunities for this premier event in Canadian journalism, contact Amanda Hansen at promotion@nna-ccj.ca.

The Board of Governors was also pleased to welcome two new board members at its September meeting.

Naoko Asano joins the board representing digital/online journalism outlets. She is a senior managing editor with The Athletic. Her previous roles include reporter, at Sportsnet, and magazine editor, at Sportsnet Magazine and Chatelaine; she began her career in journalism working at the Literary Review of Canada.

Linton Garner joins the board representing the Canadian Association of Black Journalists, where he is the Quebec director. His decades-long career includes leadership roles in community and economic development, education and race relations. He hosted and produced a weekly interview show on MAtv Outaouais for nine seasons.

This is the 77th year for the awards program, which was established by the Toronto Press Club 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. Canadian non-daily newspapers that typically publish at least five days a week online — but may not always meet that threshold — are also eligible for the competition.

For more information, contact:

Anne Marie Owens
Executive Director
National Newspaper Awards
exec@nna-ccj.ca
438-366-1201

Mariana Soares
Program Director
National Newspaper Awards
info@nna-ccj.ca
438-366-1201

Amanda Hansen
Director of Sponsorship
National Newspaper Awards
promotion@nna-ccj.ca
819-583-9609