TORONTO, March 18, 2024 – Journalists whose papers publish in Chinese, Inuktitut and Italian are among the finalists for the 2023 National Newspaper Awards announced today.
Joe Volpe, Francesco Veronesi and Mariella Policheni of Corriere Canadese, David Venn of Nunatsiaq News, and a team of journalists from Singtao are finalists for the Special Topic Award: Journalism in a Language other than French or English.
It’s the first time in the 75-year history of the Awards that journalists have been able to submit work in a language other than French or English.
Corriere Canadese publishes in Italian and Singtao publishes in Chinese, while journalists at the Nunatsiaq News work in English but many articles are translated into Inuktitut to promote the fading language and make stories more accessible.
Those newspapers are among seven publications nominated for the first time. The Brockville Recorder and Times, Canadian Affairs, IndigiNews and The Trillium also received their first nods this year.
Entry rules were modified for the 2023 calendar year to allow smaller news organizations who typically publish at least five times a week online, but don’t always reach that threshold, to apply.
Three-judge panels selected three finalists in each of the 23 NNA categories. Judges considered a total of 892 entries, all published in 2023, from 64 news organizations.
A total of 75 individual journalists representing 26 publications are finalists this year, up from 18 publications last year.
Some highlights of this year’s nominations include:
- 26 journalists are first-time finalists
- The Globe and Mail’s Grant Robertson (Bob Levin Award for Short Feature) and Brian Gable (Editorial Cartooning) are finalists for a record 19th time. Robertson is the most-decorated journalist in NNA history, with nine wins.
- Eight-time winner Bruce MacKinnon (Editorial Cartooning) is a finalist for the 15th time
- Three journalists received two nominations: Robert Fife and Steven Chase (jointly nominated for Sustained News Coverage and the John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics) and Jesse Winter (News Photo and Photo Story)
The Globe and Mail led all papers with 20 nominations, followed by the Toronto Star with eight (including one shared with The Narwhal) and La Presse, with seven. Postmedia papers also received eight nominations across the country, led by the Vancouver Sun/The Province and the London Free Press, with two each.
Five other organizations received multiple nominations: Canadian Press (4), the Winnipeg Free Press (4), The Narwhal (3, including joint entries with the Toronto Star and IndigiNews), the Brandon Sun (3, including a joint entry with the Winnipeg Free Press) and the Halifax Chronicle Herald (2).
The full list of finalists can be found below.
Winners will be announced at a live gala at The Chelsea Hotel in Toronto on Friday, April 26.
The 2023 Journalist of the Year, chosen from this year’s individual winners, will also be announced on April 26, as will the winner of a Special Citation recognizing work that doesn’t necessarily fit into the other 23 categories.
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.
Eleven of the 23 category awards are named after important figures in the news industry:
- George Brown Award for Investigations (sponsored by the Globe and Mail)
- Mary Ann Shadd Cary Award for Columns
- John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics (sponsored by Ron Stern)
- E. Cora Hind Award for Local Reporting
- Joan Hollobon Award for Beat Reporting (sponsored by the Globe and Mail)
- John Honderich Award for Project of the Year (sponsored by the Honderich family)
- Bob Levin Award for Short Feature (sponsored by the Globe and Mail)
- Stuart M. Robertson Award for Breaking News (sponsored by Paul and Lauraine Woods)
- Claude Ryan Award for Editorial Writing (sponsored by Le Devoir)
- William Southam Award for Long Feature (sponsored by the Fisher, Bowen and Balfour families)
- Norman Webster Award for International Reporting (sponsored by the Webster family)
Tickets for the awards gala are available at a cost of $250. Sponsorship opportunities also remain available for the gala and for named awards. For ticket information, contact [email protected]. For sponsorship information, contact [email protected].
Note: An earlier version of this release incorrectly stated the number of nominations for Postmedia.
Finalists in all categories are:
Arts and Entertainment
- 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
- 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
- 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 that other time Luciano Pavarotti almost did
Joan Hollobon Award for Beat Reporting
- 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
- Ariane Lacoursière, La Presse, for her work on the significant inequalities in health care in the 14 villages of Nunavik in northern Quebec
Stuart M. Robertson Award for Breaking News
- Canadian Press, for their comprehensive coverage of the McDougall Creek Wildfire in West Kelowna, the largest fire in the city’s history
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Mary Ann Shadd Cary Award for Columns
- 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
- 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-LGBTQIA+ protests within the vicinity of queer events
Editorial Cartooning (portfolio)
- Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald
- Brian Gable, Globe and Mail
- Bruce MacKinnon, Halifax Chronicle Herald
Claude Ryan Award for Editorial Writing (portfolio)
- Matt Goerzen, Brandon Sun, for editorials on Brandon’s growth on LGBTQIA+ rights, the changes required after the deadly Carberry crash, and why deficit numbers can’t always be trusted
- 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
- Amy Dempsey, Toronto Star, for her look at how Toronto, over the last 100 years, became a haven for a large and bold raccoon population
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Tim Smith, Brandon Sun, for his colourful photo of women on a forklift washing windows at the CanAm Hutterite Colony
News Photo
- Ashley Fraser, Ottawa Citizen/Ottawa Sun, for capturing the raw emotions of police officers who were standing guard as the casket of slain OPP Sgt. Eric Mueller was taken to a funeral home
- 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
- 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.
Norman Webster Award for International Reporting
- Katharine Lake Berz, Toronto Star, for her series of articles on the Ukrainian women and children who survived Russian war-crime violence
- Isabelle Hachey, La Presse, for her reports from Ukraine: the killings, the stolen children, the attempts to destroy the identity of the nation
- 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
George Brown Award for Investigations
- 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
- 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
- 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
Cora Hind Award for Local Reporting
- 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
- 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
- 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
William Southam Award for Long Feature
- 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
- 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
Photo Story
- Steve Russell, Toronto Star, for his story on a retired couple in their late 80s — one with dementia; the other caring for her — in the final chapter of their lives
- 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
- Robert Fife and Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, for their months-long investigation into Chinese interference in the 2021 federal election
- 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
- Jeremy Agius, Globe and Mail, for his portfolio of work on migration routes, the electric vehicle battery business, and Inuit survivors of tuberculosis
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Special Topic: Journalism in a Language other than French or English
- Singtao, for their four-part series Embracing Canada, on the challenges faced by the second wave of immigrants from Hong Kong
- 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 their work, including the harrowing story of a Toronto couple across a series of hospitals after their baby was born
Sports
- 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
- 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
Sports Photo
- Andrew Lahodynskyj, Canadian Press, for his photo of Adam Hadwin being tackled at the Canadian Open as Nick Taylor celebrated his historic win
- Melissa Tait, Globe and Mail, for her euphoric photo from the sparkly, high-energy world of competitive cheer.
- 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
- 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 and James Griffiths, Globe and Mail, for their year-long commitment to exposing foreign interference by China and other countries
- 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.
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National Newspaper Awards name four Vancouver Sun and Province reporters as finalists
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