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T HE C A N A D I A N A SSOCIAT ION OF JOURN A LIS TS • L’A S S O CIATIO N CA N A D IEN N E D ES J O U R NAL I ST E S
2016 AWARD S ED ITIO N • V O L.18, N O . 7
A PROUD MOM AND
HER SON
The 2016 awards edition
2016 AWARDS EDITION • VOLUME 18, NUMBER SEVEN
MEDIA
Table of contents
MEDIA
A PUBLICATION OF
THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF JOURNALISTS
L’ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES JOURNALISTES
EDITOR
David McKie
1-613-290-7380
LEGAL ADVISOR
Peter Jacobsen, Bersenas
Jacobsen Chouest, Thomson
Blackburn LLP
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
ART DIRECTION and DESIGN
David McKie
Renata Aliesio; Kathryne Blaze Baum; Natalie Clancy; Karissa Donkin; Bruce MacKinnon; Shannon Proudfoot; Jim Rankin; Melissa
Ridgen; Kate Taylor; Jon Wells; Karin Wells; Jesse Yardley
5 The First Word: Storytelling at its best
6. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Open Media and
National Newspaper Award: Project of The Year
A Toronto Star multi-disciplinary team used data to bring a unique understanding to an issue on the radar of journalists and politicians
alike: missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
8. The Canadian Association of Journalists/CNW Group Student Award of Excellence
Jesse Yardley and Amara McLaughlin’s multi-media project probed the difficult choices Canadians face when battling cancer.
PHOTO ABOVE
Maryanne Panacheese and her niece Melissa Skunk in the clearing where Charnelle was found. They were featured in the Toronto Star’s CAJ and
NNA-winning Gone: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
SUPPLIED PHOTO / TANYA TALAGA
COVER PHOTO:
National Newspaper Awards – News Feature Winner
Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau hugs his mother Margaret Trudeau as he makes his way on stage for his acceptance speech at Liberal party headquarters in Montreal on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015 after winning the 42nd Canadian general election.
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10. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Open Broadcast Feature
Karin Wells’ documentary featured the plight of an Alzheimer’s patient and the spoon that’s keeping her alive against her wishes.
12. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Labour Reporting
Melissa Ridgen noticed young workers on garbage trucks hoisting large bins, prompting questions about safe-lifting practices.
PHOTO AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE:
CAJ – Photojournalism , John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
A sub-adult grizzly bear chases down a salmon near Klemtu, B.C. August 29, 2015. When salmon runs dwindle on the B.C. coast, the stress levels in
grizzlies climb, say researchers who examined hair samples collected from more than 70 bears.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
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2016 AWARDS EDITION • VOLUME 18, NUMBER SEVEN
14. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Community Broadcast
Natalie Clancy and Paisley Woodward of CBC Vancouver uncovered a real estate investment scam that cost people their life savings.
The First Word
Storytelling at its best
16. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Text Feature
For Shannon Proudfoot, the story of Jo Aubin’s early onset of Alzheimer’s disease presented unexpected reporting challenges.
By David McKie
18. Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Photojournalism
20. National Newspaper Award: Investigations
Renata D’Aliesio used old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting to uncover the number of Canadian Forces members who had recently
killed themselves.
22. National Newspaper Award: News Photo Finalist
23. National Newspaper Award: News Photo Feature Winner
24. National Newspaper Award: Editorial Cartooning-Caricature
Bruce MacKinnon walks the line between the poignant and the maudlin.
26. National Newspaper Award: Explanatory Work
For Jon Wells, writing about medical students dissecting cadavers was an unforgettable exploration of mortality and spirituality.
28. National Newspaper Award: Local Reporting
The two-year battle that Karissa Donkin and Adam Huras waged for New Brunswick daycare inspection reports paid off, big time.
30. National Newspaper Award: Arts and Entertainment/Culture
The Globe and Mail probed the Royal Ontario Museum’s fundraising practices, proving the value of hard-news techniques in arts
reporting.
32. National Newspaper Awards: Beats
Kathryn Blaze Baum embraced the challenge of telling the stories behind the headlines about missing and murdered indigenous
women and girls.
34. National Newspaper Award: Feature Photo Winner
35. National Newspaper Award: Sports Photo Winner
O
nce again, it is time to honour some
of the finest journalism to grace our
pages, computer screens, mobile devices
and airwaves. In 2016, the Canadian
Association of Journalists (CAJ), the National Newspaper Awards (NNA), and the
Michener Award recognized outstanding
work for the previous year.
The stories were compelling, dominated by a topic long ignored by too many
Canadian newsrooms -- the plight of
Indigenous peoples. The issue of missing
and murdered Indigenous women and girls
features prominently in stories that won
the CAJ and National Newspaper Awards.
The Michener went to Société RadioCanada’s Enquête for “its investigation
into the ongoing physical and sexual abuse
of Indigenous women in Val d’Or, Quebec”, by local Sûreté du Québec officers.
Though no charges were laid, public outrage forced Quebec’s Liberal government
to heed calls for an inquiry into the allegations. This story was yet another shining
example of Enquête’s excellent work, an
investigative television program that has
done much to expose the corruption in the
province’s construction industry.
The Toronto Star’s multi-disciplinary
team won the CAJ’s Open Media and the
NNA’s Project of the Year awards for its
stories on murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. The Globe and
Mail dug deeply to reveal poignant stories
behind the headlines.
The Aboriginal People’s Television Network won the CWA Canada-CAJ Labour
Reporting Award for its tale about garbage
collectors in Winnipeg forced to work under hazardous conditions made even worse
by lax safety rules.
Stories covered many other issues, too.
The Globe and Mail put the Royal
Ontario Museum’s fundraising practices
under a microscope, proving that applying
a hard-news treatment to arts reporting
yields results beyond celebratory stories.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
Maclean’s magazine brought us the
poignant story of Jo Aubin, who at the age
of 38 learned that he had Alzheimer’s disease, an illness typically associated with
people much older, not vibrant individuals
in the prime of their lives.
Pictures and illustrations also told tales
that words alone could never convey.
The Halifax Herald’s Bruce MacKinnon
deserves a special shout-out for not only
winning another NNA -- he was the first
editorial cartoonist to win that organization’s overall award for his illustration
of statues coming to the aid of a dying
reservist near Parliament Hill in the wake
of 2014’s deadly shooting – but because
he has also been awarded the Order of
Canada. It’s also worth reminding everyone that Bruce and his colleagues are still
on strike, and have launched their own
publication that’s worth checking out.
They deserve our support.
Photographs told the stories of Syrian
refugees, iconic moments in sports, both
professional and amateur, and the stunning come-from-behind election victory of
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.
Also, featured on these pages are listings of the finalists. As any journalist who
has ever entered a contest will tell you,
becoming a finalist is hard to do.
It may sound like a cliché, however, it
does ring true: just being nominated is an
honour for the finalists’ stories like the
Georgia Straight’s tale of the challenge for
caring for Vancouver’s severely mentally
ill and addicted residents; or the Brandon
Sun’s piece about runaways, children like
Emma who at 14 found herself in a prisoner’s dock, “her jailhouse-grey sweatshirt”
drooping over “her slight frame.”
Not only are these finalists listed for
each category, but there are links to their
stories, which I would also encourage you
to read.
What was common in all the accounts
of these award-winners – and no doubt the
finalists -- is the time it took to tell their
stories, an important reminder that there
are no shortcuts when getting to the bottom of things.
In the case of larger outlets such as The
Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and CBC/
Radio-Canada, they employed large teams,
freed up beat reporters, and cleared the
decks for specialists.
Not so for smaller publications such
as the Hamilton Spectator and the New
Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. For two
years, two of its dogged reporters juggled
the filing freedom-of-information requests
for daycare inspection reports with daily
assignments.
In the end, all these stories made a difference.
The Telegraph-Journal forced daycare
operations to fire dubious employees, and
become more diligent in their criminal
background checks. The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network’s work prompted
Winnipeg’s mayor to begin asking tough
questions about working conditions. And,
as we learned at the beginning of this
column, Radio-Canada’s Enquête, forced
Quebec’s Liberal government to hold an
inquiry into the treatment of Indigenous
women in Val d’Or.
As an added bonus the journalists who
wrote accounts of what it took to get their
stories also shared tips for those of us who
want to do similar work.
So please read their accounts. Read,
watch and listen to their stories. Be inspired. Make a difference. These folks did.
David McKie edits Media magazine.
He’s an award-winning Ottawa-based
producer in CBC News’ Parliamentary
bureau, co-author of five books including
The Data Journalist and Digging Deeper
3rd edition. He also teaches journalism
part-time at Carleton University and the
University of King’s College in Halifax.
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Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Open Media
National Newspaper Award: Project of The Year
Gone: Missing and
Murdered Indigenous Women
Team, Toronto Star
Series URL: http://on.thestar.
com/1NfZdks
Front row:Joanna Smith, Randy Risling, Jennifer Wells,
Andy Bailey.
Back row: David Bruser, Astrid Lange, Jim Rankin, Rick
Sznajder, Taylor Shute, JP Fozo
KEITH BEATY/Toronto Star
T
he story is one of a nation’s shame:
the ceaseless tragedy of Canada’s
missing and murdered indigenous women.
The question for a group of Toronto
Star reporters and researchers was this:
How to bring a unique and urgent understanding to a subject that was on the
radar of multiple media organizations?
We would not be the first to report on this
issue. We knew we would not be the last.
We understood we had to find a “pointy
edge” for the series that would spur
legislators, law enforcement bodies and
readers to take notice.
We started with a database. That
sounds simple enough, but it belies the
painstaking scrutiny our team brought to
the examination of thousands of media
and police reports, some of which may
have revealed nothing more than an
occurrence, a date, a location. Over the
course of a year, five reporters along with
librarians Astrid Lange and Rick Sznajder
pieced together each account before sending the data to analyst Andy Bailey and
reporter-photographer Jim Rankin. From
this grew a database of 1,129 cases.
In building the victim profiles — date,
location, background, circumstance
etc. — we paid particular attention to
the relationship between perpetrator
and victim. The phrase “known to” had
become part of the lexicon, reinforced by
politicians who reinforced the perception
that the vast majority of victims had been
in a relationship with their killers. In this
framing, the tragedy was largely domestic
in nature: boyfriends, spouses and so on.
In truth “known-to” is a statistician’s
phrase that covers a wide range of relationships from close friends to business
dealings to casual acquaintances.
The Star’s analysis shattered the perception that the victims knew their killers
well. Assembly of First Nations National
Chief Perry Bellegarde has called for the
definition of “known to” to be clarified.
“It could be the corner store grocery man,
or whoever brings milk to the door. It
doesn’t necessarily mean the boyfriend,”
he told The Star.
That was one pointy edge. Here’s
another: In its 2014 report on murdered
and missing women and girls the RCMP
asserted that 88 per cent of all aboriginal
female homicide cases had been solved;
The Star’s analysis suggests a near 20 per
cent differential with a solve rate of 70
per cent.
The fine print in the RCMP report says
Maryanne Panacheese and her niece Melissa Skunk in the clearing where Charnelle was found.
SUPPLIED PHOTO / TANYA TALAGA
solved cases include those in which the
police recommended the prosecutor lay
charges but a charge may not have been
laid. In December 2015, the Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner agreed that
the definition should be changed.
The resulting eight-part series, Gone:
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, was built on a foundation of data. But
it is the stories that lie beneath that carry
the full weight of the project. In reporting from Northern Ontario, David Bruser
gained the trust of the families of Kathleen McGinnis, Sarah Mason and Edith
Quagon who discovered for the first time
how their mothers and aunts had died. His
story “Three Sisters” is about a family
ripped apart by violence and then brought
together by a search for answers.
Reporter Tanya Talaga investigated the
overt racism plaguing the small Ontario
city of Thunder Bay where the mayor has
become so overwhelmed with the lack of
social services — shelters, housing and
addiction centres — he has called in the
Guardian Angels to curb racist attacks
on the increasingly youthful indigenous
population.
The quest for closure was beautifully
told by Jennifer Wells who spent time on
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CAJ Finalists
Nahlah Ayed, Tracy Seeley, Richard
Devey
Refugee crisis: Walking across a continent
CBCNews.ca
Harvey Cashore, Frederic Zalac, Dave
Seglins, Alexandra Byers/KPMG – The
Isle of Sham
CBC News
Dylan Robertson
The Radical Reality: Canada and Homegrown Terrorism/Calgary Herald
Kathryn Blaze Baum, Renata D’Aliesio,
Matthew McClearn, Kristy Hoffman,
Laura Blenkinsop, Christopher Manza
A Country’s Crisis: An Investigation into
Canada’s Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women/The Globe and Mail
NNA Finalists
Olivia Carville, Melissa Renwick and
Kelsey Wilson/Toronto Star/The Game
Kathryn Blaze Baum, Matthew McClearn/The Globe and Mail/The Taken
2016 AWARDS EDITION
the small boat that relentlessly plies the
Red River in Winnipeg in search of clues
to the fate of their loved ones who have
never been found.
Finally, as Joanna Smith reports,
the impact of a mother’s murder on the
surviving family members often ends in
yet more tragedy, more victims. Her story
echoes a traditional Cherokee saying: “If
you want to defeat a nation, destroy the
women first.”
The series was presented on three platforms — print, web and The Star’s tablet
app. Unquestionably, multimedia played
a large role in maximizing the impact of
Gone. Associate editor Lynn McAuley and
digital projects editor JP Fozo were central
to the project’s execution.
Lessons and tips
When building a database from scratch,
or from a compilation of existing lists,
be mindful at the outset about which data
points you want to record. Ask yourself,
what details do you want to later analyze?
Best to know early. For example, we knew
we wanted to look at manner of death and
relationship to the killer. Those fields were
top of mind and were clearly delineated on
our spreadsheets.
Think about your organizing principles
when collecting that data. Segregating data
sets by, say, geographic location will make
life easier as you inevitably re-research
the same names, the same occurrences for
something you may have missed.
When working in a group, create a
research check sheet — Factiva, archives,
etc. — so that each team member is following the same research protocol.
Be patient — and be relentless. Jim
Rankin was dogged in his ATIP (Access
to Information and Privacy) filings with
the RCMP. The responses often gave new
meaning to the word “stonewalling.”
Be judicious in choosing the life stories
that will underpin your data, trying to
ensure their storytelling and multimedia
potential in advance.
Here’s something for the wish list:
uniformity in creative — photos, video,
etc. — goes a long way in taking a project
from good to exceptional. Beg for this.
Good luck.
Andrew Bailey (data specialist), David
Bruser (reporter), Astrid Lange (librarian), Jim Rankin (reporter-photographer),
Randy Risling (photographer), Joanna
Smith (reporter), Rick Sznajder (librarian), Tanya Talaga (reporter), and Jennifer
Wells (reporter), JP Fozo (digital projects
editor), Taylor Shute (Assistant Art Director for Star Touch)
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Finalists
The Canadian Association of Journalists/CNW Group Student
Cameron Perrier
A Generation Taken: Stories of the Sixties Scoop
in Alberta and aboriginal child welfare today
Calgary Journal / Mount Royal University
Award of Excellence
Risky decisions for Canadian cancer patients
Calgary Journal / Mount Royal University
Jacqueline Gallant, Alex Vautour, Paige LeClair,
Nicole Munro, Kevin Lemieux, MacKenzie
Riley, Mary Fahey, Pat McCullough, Michael
Bourgeois, Scott Hems, Dylan Hackett, Jan
Wong, Pat Richard
The Fog of Rape: Normalizing a Campus Crime
The New Brunswick Beacon / St. Thomas
University, Fredericton
Jesse Yardley & Amara McLaughlin
Malone Mullin
Is this the radical road to prosperity?
The Varsity Magazine / University of Toronto
Stephanie and Tim Dobbie brave cold October weather in Calgary to participate in the 2015
Run for the Cure.
Photo credit: Jesse Yardley
T
he “Choosing Treatment” project is
a microsite featuring a collection of
stories focused on the difficult decisions
Canadians struggle with after receiving a
cancer diagnosis. Craig Hruska, one of the
project’s primary sources, encapsulated
this issue perfectly. Hruska was diagnosed
with prostate cancer in September 2015,
just two weeks before he was interviewed.
He was at the crux between diagnosis and
treatment, a time when hard decisions
must be made. The project, which was delivered online in multimedia format, was
an investigation into the various treatment
options available to patients like Hruska,
with particular attention to what factors
influence a patient’s decision to opt for
one course of treatment over another.
Like many Canadians, both Amara
and I were personally affected by cancer.
Amara’s grandfather was diagnosed with
lung and rectal cancer in 2014 and pursued
traditional treatments. In contrast, my
father, who was diagnosed in 2015 with
prostate cancer, opted for a combination
of herbal remedies, like apricot pits and
dandelion roots. We wanted to know why
people make the decisions they do about
which course of treatment they are going
to pursue. What compels someone to deviate from the conventional cancer treatment
path?
Since so many Canadians are affected
by cancer, the potential audience for the
“Choosing Treatment” project was significant. Our primary goal was to provide
valuable information to patients and the
families of patients through personal
stories and expert opinion. Since selecting an appropriate treatment is critical for
survival, the information presented on the
microsite had the potential to influence
life-and-death decisions. It was a fact we
took seriously, and ultimately, the raison
d’être for the project.
How the story was producted
The initial idea for “Choosing Treatment” centered on the decision-making
process. We were interested in exploring
the difficult emotions following a cancer
diagnosis and the questions patients, family members and care providers take on
while fighting the disease. A multimedia
approach allowed us to share information
in a variety of mediums including video,
photography, graphics and animation.
Since there was much ground to cover,
Amara and I sought out sources for the
project independently. We also divided
tasks, such as interviewing, transcribing,
photography, videography, graphic design
and website design to optimize our pro-
duction. To produce the website, we opted
to use Wordpress because of our familiarity with the platform and the ability to edit
or add to it after its initial publication.
Obstacles and challenges
The biggest challenge was accessing
sources willing to discuss their use of
complementary therapies, such as meditation, cannabis oil, vitamins and unique
supplements. As we discovered, many
people use alternative and complementary
methods when battling cancer for many
reasons, including the desire for personal
control. Our investigation revealed that
alternative treatments sometimes leave
patients vulnerable to misinformation and
fraud; however, when used as part of complementary treatment – in co-operation
with a qualified physician – these methods
can provide psychological and physiological benefits.
Another major challenge was how to
interview patients who were not feeling
well. Stephanie Dobbie, one the project’s
main sources, was fighting her third battle
with cancer at the time the story was produced. Dobbie agreed to talk to us, despite
her recent throat cancer diagnosis.
Her chemo treatments were taking
quite a toll on her body, and a number of
interviews were cancelled because of her
8MEDIA
poor condition. We told her we understood
her situation and that it would be perfectly
okay if she wanted to back out. She assured us she wanted to do the interview,
but that it would have to wait until she was
having a good day.
We were very sensitive to the ethical
implications of interviewing someone
right in the midst of chemotherapy. By
providing her with the choice of opting
out, and by working to find the optimal
conditions and timing for an interview, we
ensured our source was being treated fairly
and respectfully. We’re happy to report
that in the months that followed, Dobbie
continued with conventional treatment and
was well on the road to recovery.
Impact
One of our primary concerns was producing reporting that would be of help to
others facing tough treatment decisions.
Our reporting would explore why individuals make the decisions they do, but
would also serve as an accurate source of
information about the different treatment
options — conventional, non-conventional
and complementary cancer care.
Since the microsite was launched, more
than 2,000 people have viewed its pages.
Winning a CAJ Award for the project also
provided an opportunity to re-share the
stories and, ideally, inform more Canadians about this important issue.
Ultimately, our project combined
personal, emotional stories with expert
analysis in a unique package.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
Tips
Producing a multimedia story involves
assembling a variety of elements to create
a cohesive package. It certainly involves
more work, but including a variety of
mediums allows for a richer, more engaging product. The following are three useful
suggestions for journalists seeking to
develop a multimedia story.
Be strategic about your medium. When
telling a story, or communicating some
salient bit of information to your audience, ask yourself, “what medium makes
the most sense for this particular element
of the story?” For example, numbers and
values might best be delivered as an infographic; a touching, emotional story may
work best as video; and a series of events
may work best as a graphical timeline.
Develop a Q-line. Know what critical
questions you want to ask each particular
source in advance. But be careful that
your line of questioning is flexible enough
to allow the source to explore areas you
hadn’t foreseen. Try to ask open-ended
questions and be prepared to ask followup questions, especially if you didn’t
understand the answer. If a source answers
your question with technical jargon, ask
him or her to explain it in layman’s terms.
Most importantly, be attentive to how your
questions relate back to the central issue of
your story.
Share it. A multimedia story has the
advantage of being sharable in a multitude
of mediums on a variety of platforms.
For example, videos can be shared on
YouTube with links back to the central
hub, often a website. Photos can be shared
on Instagram or Facebook. Important
interview quotes can be shared on Twitter.
Each sharable snippet can be linked to the
project to build a wider audience and improve the overall impact of your project.
Jesse Yardley is a communications consultant with more than 15 years developing branding and marketing solutions for
a variety of industries. In 2016, he earned
a Bachelor of Communication from Mount
Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.
Jesse enjoys writing, design and photography. His work has appeared in the Calgary
Journal, the Common Sense Canadian,
Condo Living Magazine, Alberta Views,
Notice Magazine, J-Source, TradesLife,
CTV and the Reflector. Follow Jesse on
Twitter: @jesseyardley
Amara McLaughlin is a full-time journalist with the CBC in Toronto. In 2016,
she earned a Bachelor of Communication
from Mount Royal University in Calgary,
Alberta. She has written in the West Bank,
Israel, the United States and across Canada. Her work has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Powder Magazine, the Common
Sense Canadian, CTV, Moment Magazine,
J-Source, and the Calgary Journal.
Follow Amara on Twitter: @amaramclaughlin, and check out more of her work
at: http://www.amaramclaughlin.com/
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Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Open Broadcast
Karin Wells
‘In the presence of a spoon’
CBC Radio One – The Sunday Edition
M
argot Bentley’s story had been
told as it unfolded in British
Columbia over the preceding year. It was
surprisingly an untold story outside Bentley’s home province.
Margot Bentley is a retired nurse who
had worked with Alzheimer’s patients.
She is the daughter of a British Columbia judge and very aware of the need to
carefully spell out her end-of-life wishes.
In 1991, coincidentally the year that Sue
Rodriquez was diagnosed with ALS, the
disease that resulted in her assisted-death,
Margot Bentley wrote her own advance
directive.
She was specific. “If I am unable to
recognize my family, then no assisted
breathing, no resuscitation, no anti-biotics
and no food or water.”
Margot Bentley wanted to make sure
she died when she wanted to. Eight years
later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
and went into a public nursing home run
by the Fraser Health.
Margot Bentley deteriorated and, long
after she could no longer recognize them,
her daughter, Katherine Hammond, and
her husband went to the nursing home
and asked that Margot Bentley’s wishes be
carried out. The nursing home said no and
the case went to court.
The BC court ruled in favor of the
nursing home shortly before The Supreme
Court of Canada came down with the
Carter decision that opened the door for
physician-assisted death in Canada.
There was plenty to talk about with the
Margot Bentley story.Katherine Hammond, Bentley’s eldest daughter, also a
nurse, wanted to get her mother’s story
Left: Margot Bentley as a young nurse. Right: Margot Bentley today. She continued to open her
mouth to be fed “in the presence of a spoon”. (Credit: Katherine Hammond)
out. She spoke to me at length, showed
me her “Statement of wishes”, by now
yellowed with age. Katherine Hammond
was articulate, understood the issues and
spoke with passion.
I had made three previous radio documentaries on assisted-dying over the past
20 years, and followed the moral and legal
arguments in some detail. The most recent,
a story out of Belgium revolved around
the assisted-suicide of deaf twins and
included Belgian discussion of request
for assisted-dying by a woman suffering
from severe depression. That request was
granted, but an elderly man suffering from
dementia who had requested assisteddeath was not granted. He seemed to have
changed his mind.
That was the question in the case of
Margot Bentley. She continued to open
her mouth to be fed “in the presence of
a spoon”. The court found that was a
sign that she did not wish to die. The
major journalistic difficulty was finding
someone to present the argument of the
Fraser Health authority. It was not talking.
However, a previous CEO, Bob Smith,
now retired, talked with conviction of the
uncertainty of the health care authority
and the biggest tripping point – the act of
depriving a patient of food and water.
This was a piece where the task was
not digging for the story. It was all there.
Rather, it was putting it all together, laying
out Margot Bentley’s place in the 20-year
history of assisted-death in this country,
and giving fair play to Katherine Hammond’s passion. Margot Bentley died last
November, having lived 17 years with the
illness.
In the Presence of a Spoon was about
telling a story whose time was right.
Karin Wells is a storyteller. Although
she trained as a lawyer, it quickly became
clear that she’d rather work in radio.
Over her 40 years at CBC Radio she
developed a passion for producing documentaries. She travelled the world to find
stories, about Chinese immigrants and the
Vancouver housing crunch, a man who
makes bassoons, anti-Semitism in Sweden,
women making a mark in their mosque,
and as they say, many, many more. Karin
retired recently.
NOTE: To see the finalists, please click
here.
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Visit online for details about
how to apply and enter.
michenerawards.ca
2016 AWARDS EDITION
11
Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Labour Reporting
Young men riding on the backs of these
garbage trucks, hopped off to ‘handbomb’ the large bins into the vehicles with
little attention to safe-lifting practices or
safety gear. All of these workers were
aboriginal.
ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: APTN
Melissa Ridgen
Hurting for work
APTN Investigates
T
he city of Winnipeg privatized residential waste collection in 2012 to
save taxpayers $4.5 million a year. Part of
the city’s new contract with Emterra Environmental was that new large waste bins
would be emptied by mechanical arms
on trash and recycling trucks. In her own
neighbourhood, reporter Melissa Ridgen
noticed young men riding on the backs of
these trucks, hopping off to ‘hand-bomb’
the large bins into the trucks with little
attention paid to safe-lifting practices or
safety gear. And she noticed all of these
workers were aboriginal.
Ridgen filed a freedom-of-information
request with the Workers Compensation
Board to see how many workers made
claims since the city privatized trash collection. The answer was a staggering 118.
And so she began what would be a fourmonth investigation.
Ridgen and camera operator Andy
Mojelsky spent dozens of hours covertly
filming “swampers” at work, hoisting
bins meant to be lifted by trucks. Ridgen
eventually uncovered that these highrisk, hard-labourers didn’t even work for
Emterra. Rather, they were sub-contracted
though a day labour agency frequented
by indigenous men who are desperate for
work after getting out of jail.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents Emterra workers,
had sat idly by as this happened. The
advocacy organization that should have
been a natural ‘helper’ in this story ended
up being a ‘hinderer.’ Another reminder to
never assume anything while you’re working on a piece.
Given the WCB claims, Ridgen approached Manitoba Workplace Safety and
Health to see if Emterra’s work conditions were on safety inspectors’ radar. She
found there had been 58 improvement
orders and 12 stop-work orders issued to
Emterra by Manitoba Workplace Safety
and Health. And while government departments are often stingy with details, Health
and Safety was only too happy to provide
information for this piece.
The department was frustrated, concerned about the poor working conditions,
and fed up with having to issue repeated
notices for violations.
As Ridgen hung out around the temp
agency, talking to people who have
worked for Emterra, she heard about a
worker who had been run over by a garbage truck while working as a swamper.
She tracked him down -- in jail. Being
run over had launched an investigation
by Winnipeg police who discovered their
‘victim’ had arrest warrants. So, from
hospital, he was sent to jail to finish a
sentence for car theft.
Ridgen also tracked down in Victoria,
BC, a former Emterra truck driver who
would paint an ugly picture of what life is
like for those doing the city of Winnipeg’s
dirty work.
Emterra owner Emily Leung initially
agreed to open her home to APTN Investigates to talk about how she built a multimillion-dollar empire out of trash. A business she started by collecting recyclables
herself. And she was to talk about giving
work to those who need a second chance.
But two days before an investigates crew
was to land in Vancouver, she canceled
the interview and refused to reschedule,
or have someone else from her company
be interviewed. That left several holes in a
story that was to go to air in mere weeks.
In the end, Ridgen spliced bits of a speech
Leung gave at a business awards banquet
into the story to show who she was and
what she stands for. Using clips from an
old speech wasn’t ideal, but it was better
than nothing.
As for the city of Winnipeg, it had no
idea any of these safety infractions and
temporary labor work was going on until
Melissa Ridgen approached mayor Brian
Bowman with her findings. He ordered an
investigation into possible contractual violations for use of temporary day laborers.
Hurting for Work aired on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network on Oct.
30, 2015.
Because Maclean’s magazine had
declared Winnipeg to be “Canada’s Most
Racist City”, it was important to tell
this story whose main characters – the
swampers -- are indigenous men. The
question remains: do cost savings for Winnipeggers justify the working conditions
endured by these men?
The city’s investigation resulted in
little more than warnings to the garbage
contractor. But provincial safety inspectors continue to keep a close eye on the
company and stop-work and improvement
orders continue to be issued regularly.
The waste removal contract was up for
renewal this year. It remains to be seen
what impact this investigative piece will
have on the company’s bid to retain the
12MEDIA
contract.
Story URL: http://aptn.ca/
news/2015/10/30/hurting-for-work/
Melissa has been a journalist for 20
years, covering everything from crime and
courts to politics, Aboriginal affairs and
business. Melissa joined APTN in 2009
after more than a decade writing for newspapers including the Kenora Daily Miner
and News, Calgary Sun, and Brandon Sun.
She won the Edward Dunlop Award for
Investigative Journalism in 1998 and in
2014 was named a finalist for investigative
reporting by the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network. She is a proud
Red River Métis.
Finalists
Nick Purdon, Leonardo Palleja
Up close: Prison guards
CBC News – The National
Yutaka Dirks
What’s at stake in the fight for $15?
Freelance / Briarpatch
Krysia Collyer, Robert Cribb, Hannah James
Code White
Global 16X9 / Toronto Star
Lee-Ann Goodman
Badly backlogged Social Security Tribunal
The Canadian Press
For exclusive content, stories, interviews about journalism
turn to Media.
Visit
http://caj.starchapter.com/media
Issues date back to the spring of 1998
2016 AWARDS EDITION
13
Canadian Association of Journalists Award:
Community Broadcast
Real estate seminars exposed
CBC News – Vancouver
By Natalie Clancy
C
BC Vancouver went undercover to
expose one of the many “Trump
U”-style sales seminars, where investors are lured into expensive investment
training programs with false promises and
misleading marketing. The promotional
material promises to teach how to get rich
buying U.S. real estate. These companies
heavily market “free seminars”, offering
insider secrets. They often use a celebrity
name in marketing, like U.S. President
DonaldTrump, but that person rarely
shows up.
Marco Kozlowski is the front man in
this case, and he has left a trail of furious
investors across Canada. We discovered
several of the people who filmed testimonials about how much money he helped
them make and later revoked their endorsements. The videos were made during
a $3500-weekend training course, before
their deals closed. Most fell through due to
lack of financing.
A closer look at his newspaper advertisements revealed factual errors, and
photos of people he claimed were “success
stories” when they in fact were not successful investors. We contacted one woman whose photo was used in an ad claiming she made $130 thousand in profit. She
told us she took Kozlowski’s weekend
course but decided not to proceed with any
investments. Another former student told
us they paid as much as $150 thousand
dollars for premium mentorships, believ-
Paisley Woodward
ing it included access to financing, and in
the end got no access to funds.
The reason for telling the story
This is a “buyer beware” story that
many readers have thanked us for doing
because we kept them from parting with
large amounts of money. There are so
many versions of this sales pitch operating
in cities across Canada that we thought
it was worth showing potential investors how it works. The front salesman is
always a master at building excitement
and convincing people they will get rich
quickly. It is very easy to get caught up in
the excitement and that is what they count
on. However, we found several people
who claim they lost their life savings, and
were not able to invest in any real estate.
The free real estate seminar is to sell you
on the $3500-dollar course, which is designed to sell “mentorships” for thousands
of dollars.
How you put it together
For more than a year we attended and
recorded several “free” introductory
seminars and the promises made at each
one. With the help of a former real estate
lawyer who tracks these schemes, we
uncovered how it works. We fact-checked
many of the claims made at the seminars.
For example, they showed a photo
of Marco Kozlowski with Sir Richard
Branson, founder of Virgin Inc., and made
various claims that Kozlowski “worked
closely” with the well-known billion-
aire. In fact, Branson told us he does not
remember meeting Kozlowski and has no
association with him.
We contacted people who appeared in
YouTube videos to fact-check whether
they did make money, as stated in the
videos. We learned Kozlowski tapes those
videos after getting an accepted offer to
purchase during a weekend training session, but before the deals closed. In most
cases the former students told us the deals
fell through. One man repeatedly requested his testimonial not be used, but to
no avail. We confronted one salesman in
Vancouver who said he had no idea he was
playing misleading video testimonials.
Obstacles we faced
One of the mistakes we made is using
our real name on a sign-in sheet at one of
the last seminars we attended. By then we
had requested an interview with Marco
Kozlowski and asked several questions
about the discrepancies we found in his
marketing materials. The staff were on the
lookout and Googled Paisley Woodward’s
name. She was asked her to leave the seminar, and escorted out the door. The sales
guy brazenly told the audience that Kozlowski had talked to our boss at CBC and
that our story was bogus. He also made a
YouTube video to attempt to discredit the
story, which is featured prominently whenever his customers Google his name.
The impact
We published this story in the fall of
14MEDIA
2015 and subsequently heard from dozens
of Canadians who told us they felt they
had been ripped off with promises that
were never fulfilled. Several complained
to the federal Competition Bureau about
misleading marketing practices. The testimonials we showed to be inaccurate are no
longer used, but the company has changed
its name and is still operating.
The Montreal Gazette and a UK paper
followed the story. Some of our sources
were given refunds. Kozlowski told CBC
the errors in his advertising materials were
the fault of a marketing company, which
had since been fired. He said he never
promised financing. Two of Kozlowski’s
sales staff members quit and contacted us,
saying they no longer believe what they
were selling. We continue to hear from
former students on a weekly basis and
may be doing a follow-up story.
Tips
When doing consumer stories, factcheck all marketing claims. In Canada,
businesses are not allowed to mislead or
lie when making a sale. By contacting the
people whose photos were used, we determined that some of the marketing claims
were false.
Compare advertising in different cities.
In Kozlowski’s case, he would claim a
student named Steve was from Montreal
in Quebec ads, or Surrey in Vancouver
newspaper advertisements. We also noticed a photo of a so-called profit cheque
was repeatedly used for several different success stories. Mistakes or errors in
advertising are not only misleading, they
are a good way to evaluate the credibility
of a business.
Links to our stories:
Part 1
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/marco-kozlowski-investor-seminars-testimonials-1.3325211
Part 2
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/marco-kozlowski-s-promise-of100-financing-not-kept-former-studentssay-1.3335818
Natalie Clancy is an investigative reporter based in Vancouver with a 25-year
track record for breaking stories. This is
Natalie’s 4th CAJ Award for investigative
reporting.
Paisley Woodward is an award-winning
investigative producer with CBC’s investigative unit in Vancouver.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
Manuela Noel says she and her husband Mike
did not get her money’s worth after paying for
Marco Kozlowski’s (pictured below) mentoring
program. Credit:CBC
Marco Kozlowski is the front man in this case,
and he has left a trail of furious investors across
Canada. Credit: CBC
Natalie Clancy in studio with Marco Kozlowski and Sir Richard Branson (left) on the plasma.
Finalists
Jennie Russell, Charles Rusnell
Smoked out
CBC News – Edmonton
15
Canadian Association of Journalists Award: Text Feature
Maclean’s
Shannon Proudfoot
Slipping Away
S
lipping Away told the story of
Jo Aubin, a 38-year-old London, Ont. man with early-onset
Alzheimer’s disease, and his wife, Robin
Giles. Alzheimer’s is brutal no matter who
it strikes, but Jo’s age raises so many compelling and difficult questions: How rare is
this? How does the disease progress? How
does a young couple cope with this, dayto-day and in a much bigger sense? There
was clearly a substantial story to tell.
The idea for the piece originated with
my friend Chazza, who is mentioned briefly in the story; her husband, Shawn, has
been one of Jo’s best friends since Grade
nine. She suggested a story to Robin and
Jo as a way to raise awareness and feel
like they were making a difference, given
that there wasn’t a lot that could mitigate
the devastation of Jo’s prognosis. When
they decided they wanted to go ahead with
it, Chazza put them in touch with me.
Robin and I did a long preliminary
phone interview. It was in that first conversation that she mentioned the Christmas
morning when she first realized something
was wrong with Jo. That stuck with me—
an ordinary, happy moment when something just turns sideways with someone
you love and know so well—and it was
clear almost immediately that’s where the
story would begin.
I made plans to visit Jo and Robin in
London a few weeks later, and my hope
was to spend lots of time doing interviews, and also to follow along as they
went about their usual errands. I wanted to
be able to convey the pragmatic, everyday things you have to think about with
Alzheimer’s. Then it became clear that
Jo’s illness had reached a point where they
were spending most of their time at home,
so we changed course.
The three of us ended up spending virtually the entire weekend in Jo and Robin’s
apartment, doing long, intense interviews.
At one point, we went out for dinner with
their friends, and that helped me understand how outsiders were oblivious to any
difficulties Jo was having, and what that
was like for him and Robin. Except for
that scene and another with Robin and her
friends at lunch, nearly everything in the
story is reconstructed from interviews.
The biggest reporting challenge was
exactly what Jo faces every day: the toll
Alzheimer’s has taken on his memory.
I was very conscious of giving him the
respect of telling his own story as much
as possible, but there was no ignoring the
progress of his illness. The three of us
developed a pattern where I would ask
questions, and Jo would answer as much
as he could, but sometimes flatly tell me
he couldn’t remember. Then Robin would
chime in to fill in the blanks and offer
her own impressions, often bouncing her
replies back to Jo for confirmation.
Robin is everything you could wish for
in an interview subject, particularly on a
story this fraught: she’s articulate, insightful, bluntly honest and recalls everything. I
relied on her heavily as a tour guide, but as
a result, I felt like I needed to work hard to
keep the story balanced and make sure Jo
wasn’t sidelined. Ultimately, I decided that
this was a profile of two people: one living
with a disease, and one living alongside it.
The one thing I hadn’t found by the
time I finished my interviews with them
in London was where the story would
end. Normally, my instinct would be
for some note of uplift, but that seemed
glib and dishonest. But I also felt like it
would be too hard on the reader—and on
Jo and Robin—for the ending to be very
dark. Right before I left their apartment, I
wandered around looking at the items on
their living room walls, which Robin had
curated with obvious care. That is the only
reason why, when I went to Dr. Borrie’s
office the next morning, I recognized the
phrase “I am mine” in Jo’s memory test.
As soon as I left there, I knew that’s where
the story would end.
The story would be primarily a profile
of the human side of this disease, but I
wanted to weave through it key medical and scientific background. Dr. Borrie had sent me a paper from the New
England Journal of Medicine that traced
the biomarkers of early-onset Alzheimer’s.
I used that study as a framing device to
intertwine the earlier years of Jo’s life with
the disease.
Aside from unique reporting challenges,
the other major difficulty with this story
was an emotional one. These people had
trusted me with the most intimate details
of some of the hardest moments of their
lives, and I really, really wanted to get it
all right. At the same time — and it feels
frankly self-indulgent to mention this,
because this is someone’s real life, and all
I did was write about it — this story had
a profound effect on my own emotions
while I was working on it. It continues to
live under my skin.
After the story was published, a number
of people with family histories of Alzheimer’s disease contacted the doctors in
the story to volunteer for ongoing studies,
and others wrote to say they were donat-
16MEDIA
The biggest reporting challenge was exactly
what Jo faces every day: the toll Alzheimer’s
has taken on his memory.
Photograph by Dillan Cools
ing to research and support organizations.
I know that ripple effect meant a lot to Jo
and Robin.
There was also a wonderful epilogue
this spring. Quite a few people sent the
story to Pearl Jam and their fan club.
When the band played in Toronto in May,
Robin and Jo got a call just before the
show, inviting them backstage. Eddie
Vedder had a long chat with them and
wrote out the lyrics to “I Am Mine” on
his personal stationary, and he dedicated a
song to them during the concert. It sounds
like it was a huge, joyful moment for Jo
and Robin.
Tips
It’s okay—and important—to ask
awkward questions. I wanted to make sure
I understood things from Jo’s perspective, so I asked him to explain how things
appeared to him, how he felt in certain
moments, the limits of what he could
recall and how people communicated with
him that made things better or worse. I
was almost apologetic about it, but in the
end, I realized that asking people to help
you understand their experience is just
respectful.
You always need that clear-eyed,
technical, editorial voice in your head
dictating the strongest way to tell a story.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
These people had trusted me with the most intimate details of some of the
hardest moments of their lives, and I really, really wanted to get it all right.
Photograph by Jessica Deeks
But it’s counter-productive — and probably impossible, on a human level — to
maintain emotional distance when writing
something like this. When our subjects
are opening the most painful moments of
their lives to us, I think we owe them our
empathy.
Take note of and ask about the objects
people surround themselves with: on their
walls, in their bookshelves, on their desk
or fridge. Most of those details won’t
make it into your final draft, but it’s a great
way to help understand someone, because
most of us surround ourselves with things
that point to what’s important to us.
Give people their full humanity, beyond
the disease or circumstance that is the
reason you’re writing about them. I went
a little too far in that direction initially—
most of the 2,000 words I cut from my
first draft were earlier chapters of Jo and
Robin’s lives—but I think it’s important to
give your subjects three dimensions.
Link to the story: http://site.macleans.
ca/longform/alzheimers/
Finalists
Althia Raj
How Trudeau Won
Huffington Post Canada
Angela Sterritt
A Movement Rises
OpenCanada.org
Matthew Pearson
The Passenger
Ottawa Citizen
Andrea Hill
Who is it now? When sirens wail in
La Loche, people can’t help but wonder if it’s yet another suicide
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Shannon Proudfoot is an Ottawa-based
writer for Maclean’s magazine.
17
Canadian Association of Journalists Award – Photojournalism
John Lehmann
Portfolio entry
The Globe and Mail
As photojournalist I’m always looking for a
moment in time which best tells a story visually.
Often, those moments come before or after an
event. I was in Fort McMurray for a story on
the growing Islamic community and how it was
taking root in Canada’s oil patch. A group of
Muslim women living and working in Fort McMurray had come together to celebrate World
Hijab Day in Fort McMurray at a local mall.
The international event put on around the globe
is a day of education for non-muslims and a
day to celebrate their faith. The group of proud
Muslim women stopped and posed for a group
photo just before the start of the event. I love
the sea of colourful hijabs and how as a group
they’re not focused on me, but their friend who
climbed the stairs to take their photo.
The finalists
Larry Wong
Portfolio entry
Edmonton Journal
Darryl Dyck
Portfolio entry
Freelance / The Canadian Press
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy provides the opportunity for an experienced
Canadian journalist to pursue a one-year, in-depth examination of an emerging or
challenging public policy issue.
The Atkinson Fellow is provided with a one-year research stipend of $75,000 and
up to $25,000 for expenses beginning September 1, 2017.
The fellowship culminates in a series of published articles in the Toronto Star in
the fall of 2017. The deadline for applications is Monday, February 6, 2017 no later
than 5:00 p.m. (EST).
For more information on this opportunity and our selection process, please visit:
Steve Russell
Portfolio entry
The Toronto Star
www.atkinsonfoundation.ca/grants/atkinson-fellowship-in-public-policy/
A COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE ATKINSON CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, THE TORONTO STAR AND THE HONDERICH FAMILY SINCE 1988.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA: MAY 13, 2015 Romy Weatherall walks throught the stable
with her horse at the Whitemud Equine
Centre in Edmonton on May 13, 2015.
Tima Kurdi, touches a photo of her nephews
Sarah Wells weeps on the track after stumAlan, left, and Ghalib Kurdi outside her home in
bling on the final hurdle of the women’s 400
Coquitlam, B.C., on September 3, 2015. Alan’s
metres at the Ontario Provincial Track and
lifeless body put a human face on the crisis of
Field Championships at the University of
Syrian refugees who died trying to reach Europe.
Windsor in Ontario. June 14, 2015.
18MEDIA
2016 AWARDS EDITION
19
National Newspaper Awards- Investigations
Darrell and Brenda McMullin, whose son Corporal Jamie
McMullin was being treated for PTSD before he took his
life in June, 2011, at their home in Lincoln, New Brunswick,
on June 2, 2015. Darrell, who is a former member of the
military, is also being treated for PTSD.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michelle Siu for The Globe and Mail
Renata D’Aliesio
The Unremembered
The Globe and Mail
O
ver eight days in late 2013, four
veterans of the Afghanistan war
were dead. They didn’t die on the battlefield. They died back in Canada, each
taking their own lives after serving in the
country’s longest military operation. The
soldiers’ suicides stung the nation, raising
myriad questions about the trauma they
experienced in Afghanistan and about the
military medical system that is supposed
to help them heal.
Their deaths also sparked a simple
query from The Globe and Mail to the
Canadian Forces in early 2014: How many
other soldiers had killed themselves after
returning from Afghanistan?
I, of course, wanted to know more.
I asked for their ranks, the bases they
worked at, their marital status, when they
had deployed to Afghanistan, whether
they had a mental illness, and whether
they received treatment. Aware of how
difficult it was to pry information out of
the Forces under the former Conservative
government, I was willing to settle for just
an answer to the question of how many.
That, however, turned out to be a number
that the military didn’t want Canadians to
know.
The Forces’ communications department
handled my request for about two months
without sending a response, so I turned to
the Access to Information Act, asking for
all records created in response to my query
for suicide statistics. I submitted more
than two dozen access-to-information
requests to National Defence and Veterans Affairs, seeking, among other things,
reports on suicide reviews and inquiries,
audits of health clinics, reports on mentalhealth wait times and addictions treatment,
and data on attempted suicides.
In some cases, it took more than a year
for the records to be released, and many
were heavily redacted. I had already faced
numerous other obstacles in my bid to
delve deeper into the issue. My request for
information beyond the suicide number
-- ranks, bases, illnesses and so on – was
denied because it was not releasable under
the Privacy Act, the Canadian Forces told
me.
I contacted provincial coroners and
medical examiners, hoping they tracked
military service among suicides, but they
don’t. This left me in a quandary. Even
if I was successful in getting suicide data
through the access-to-information legislation, the numbers wouldn’t include names
of former soldiers.
Neither the Canadian Forces, nor
Veterans Affairs regularly monitors how
many military members kill themselves
after they are released, a troubling data
gap. Could I find a way to fill it? I spoke
with researchers, but no one was hopeful.
The information I sought required linking
Statistics Canada’s mortality database
with military personnel records. Neither
was accessible to the media. Stumped, I
resorted to the only other avenue I could
think of: I began searching death notices
for possible military suicides.
It was a painstaking task. No single
online repository captures all death notices
in Canada. I scoured more than a decade’s
worth of obituaries using at least 10 different websites, both military and media
– an exercise made even more daunting by
the fact suicide is almost never disclosed
publicly as a cause of death. Some notices
made no reference to Afghanistan or
the military at all. I searched the notices
for words and phrases such as “PTSD,”
“Wounded Warriors,” “Soldier On,”
and “died suddenly” to pinpoint military
deaths that appeared to be suicides.
Bit by bit, my spreadsheet grew. I
identified more than 50 probable cases
and began reaching out to families for
confirmation and to ask them to share their
stories – stories that touch on some of the
last remaining taboos in both the military
and in journalism.
The Unremembered series, published
in the fall of 2015, revealed that at least
54 Canadian soldiers and veterans had
taken their lives after returning from their
Afghanistan tour. Part of that number -- 42
-- was contained in military records created in response to my suicide query and
obtained under the access-to-information
legislation. The other dozen – veterans
and more recent suicides -- were identified
through the obituary search.
The toll has since grown. While uncovering the suicide number was vitally
important, it was only part of the story.
The Globe’s investigation included an
examination of the lives and deaths of four
infantrymen from the Gagetown base in
New Brunswick. They were all husbands
and fathers, all tough soldiers who returned from Afghanistan mentally frayed.
Our probe of their suicides found that
questionable decisions were made in their
medical care and in the handling of their
army careers. A shortage of mental-health
staff and support programs was also a
persistent problem, as was the military’s
process for releasing mentally wounded
soldiers from the Army. Documents revealed military brass had rejected recommendations to improve mental-health care
that stemmed from an inquiry into one of
the suicides. In another case, the military
forgot to give a family the inquiry report, a
mistake rectified after The Globe’s queries.
The Unremembered series included
other revelations. Documents obtained
under the access-to-information legislation and further reporting showed that the
Canadian military was expelling wounded
members at an ever-higher rate and had
rejected an internal recommendation
to expand its addictions program, that
Veterans Affairs had yet to adopt an expert
group’s recommendation to regularly re-
20MEDIA
Helene Bilodeau, centre, with her daughters Cloe, left, and
Elody, right, pose for a photo at their home in Geary, NB
on June 2, 2015. Her husband Sgt. Paul Martin, 37 took his
life in September 2011 and was being treated for PTSD.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michelle Siu for The Globe and Mail
view veterans’ suicides, and that a military
support unit created to help ill soldiers had
been chronically understaffed and underresourced.
The Globe series helped trigger significant commitments to improve mentalhealth care and reduce suicides. Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau directed National
Defence and Veterans Affairs to work
together on a suicide-prevention strategy.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan ordered the
military’s top commander to make suicide
prevention a priority and to examine why
an increased number of soldiers have
taken their lives in recent years. An expert
panel was to be assembled to review the
military’s mental-health programs.
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr
pledged to improve veterans’ care and to
find a way to commemorate soldiers who
died by suicide after serving in Afghanistan.
Also, The Globe revealed that Veterans
Affairs is planning to report on suicides of
former military members annually starting
in late 2017 – a first for Canada.
Tips
Before diving into an investigation
involving the government, check what
2016 AWARDS EDITION
auditor and ombudsman reports have
been done on the issue and read them
thoroughly to identify specific queries to
pursue through interviews and access-toinformation (ATI) requests.
Go after records created in response to
your questions. The ATIs take time to get
back, but can contain critical information
that was initially withheld.
Think about impact. A story on the
suicide statistics alone would not have
resonated. The voices of families were
crucial, along with other documentation.
Be patient and sensitive when dealing
with families coping with suicide, one of
the most difficult types of death.
Links to the stories
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/
veterans/article26499878/
http://tgam.ca/unremembered
Renata D’Aliesio is a reporter with The
Globe and Mail’s investigative team. She
has received five National Newspaper
Award nominations and two Michener
citations for her work at The Globe and
Mail, Calgary Herald and Edmonton
Journal.
The finalists
Gabrielle Duchaine, Caroline Touzin and
Olivier Jean,
La Presse, for an examination of coroners’
reports into the violent death of minors in
First Nations communities
Jayme Poisson and Jesse McLean,
Toronto Star, for a look into how an
alarming number of police officers in the
Toronto area are seemingly out of control
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/18/disciplined-opp-memberstill-a-high-ranking-cop.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/19/hundreds-of-officers-inthe-greater-toronto-area-disciplined-forserious-misconduct-in-past-five-years.
html
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/20/to-swerve-and-protect.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/21/police-officers-caughtusing-their-position-for-personal-gain-inrecent-years.html
21
National Newspaper Awards – News Photo Winner
National Newspaper Awards – News Feature Photo Winner
Dave Chidley
Justin Tang
The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
Pierre George, the brother of killed
protester Dudley George, is engulfed in
flames after attempting to pour gasoline on a fire during a protest against a
community march intended to “walk
home” to the gates of the former Camp
Ipperwash on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015, in
London, Ontario. The land is being returned to the Kettle and Stony Point First
Nation after being expropriated by the
Federal government during the Second
World War.
National Newspaper Awards – News Photo Finalists
Jim Young
Reuters
Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau is embraced by
his mother Margaret Trudeau (R) as he arrives to
give his victory speech after Canada’s federal election in Montreal, Quebec on October 19, 2015.
Mark Blinch
The Globe and Mail
Toronto taxi driver Suntharesan Kanagasabai clings to a moving car as he accuses the driver of working for Uber, during a
protest against Uber held by Toronto taxi drivers in Toronto,
Wednesday December 9, 2015.
22MEDIA
Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau hugs
his mother Margaret Trudeau as he makes
his way on stage for his acceptance speech
at Liberal party headquarters in Montreal
on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015 after winning
the 42nd Canadian general election.
National Newspaper Awards – News Feature Photo Finalists
Chad Hipolito
The Canadian Press
The bow of the Leviathan II, a whale-watching boat carrying 21 passengers and three crew members, capsized after
being hit by a rogue wave near Plover Reefs. Six people died.
The 20-metre vessel was towed to calmer waters near Vargas
Island looking towards Cat Face Island as it waited for inspection in Tofino, B.C., Tuesday, October 27, 2015.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
Ivanoh Demers
La Presse
Guy Turcotte, whose eyes are visible through a glass door,
is waiting to attend his ex-wife Isabelle Gaston testimony at
his second trial for the murder of his two children in the St.
Jerome, Que., court house on September 28, 2015.
23
National Newspaper Awards: Editorial Cartooning/Caricature
Bruce MacKinnon
Halifax Chronicle Herald
C
artoonists whose work is entered
in the NNAs are asked to submit a
package of five cartoons covering a range
of key issues from the year. 2015 produced
many events that had a profound impact,
not just on Canadians generally, but especially on those of us who make our living
in journalism and satire.
It was a big news year, culminating in
a federal election in late October. But the
year started out huge overseas, with the
shocking terrorist attacks in January on
the offices of the satirical French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. I always find such
disturbing events daunting and difficult to
address, though they seem to be happening
with increasing frequency. As a cartoonist and satirist my first impulse and most
desired goal is to make people laugh in the
process of delivering a strong message.
These types of issues make that goal difficult if not impossible to achieve. Many of
us turn to pathos and solemn or emotional
statements to react to such stories, but
there is a fine line between poignant and
simply maudlin. This is what makes these
issues such a challenge. But the gravity of
this story, in terms of the direct attack on
cartoonists, journalists and free speech,
increased the pressure to meet that challenge.
In the days following the attack, when
shock and sorrow gave way to anger and
outrage, I went with a metaphor that used
the simplistic fundamentalist idea of an
“afterlife waiting room” in the clouds,
where martyrs wait for judgement day to
find out if they will enter paradise. In the
cartoon, the attackers, still dressed in their
black face masks, are seated and looking
around at the coffee tables on which the
only reading material is Charlie Hebdo
magazines. It was a way for me to attack
and ridicule fundamentalist extremism and
make the point I wanted, using humour
rather than sadness or pity.
For Canadians, in particular, the biggest
event of 2015 was probably the federal
election. The remaining cartoons in my
submission addressed some of the major
issues which had a part in shaping the
outcome of the campaign.
One issue was a growing public outcry
over government bullying of the Canadian
scientific community fuelled by funding
cuts, the elimination of research programs,
and an increasing number of government
restrictions on communications policies.
Another depicted the plummeting price
of oil and resulting economic turmoil as a
way for the government to distract people
from the scandal and criminal trial surrounding Senator Mike Duffy.
Then there was an idea I had been saving for election night. Always a pressurepacked time for a cartoonist when the
election is too close to call, I had at least
four different cartoons ready for the various possible outcomes, several of which
had been created in spare moments before
election day. Several nights previous,
Toronto Blue Jays outfielder José Bautista
was captured in an iconic photo triumphantly tossing his bat in the air after
hitting a crucial home run against the
Texas Rangers in the 2015 MLB playoffs.
The next day I told my editor I was going
to use that image in a concept on election
night. The only downside was having to
wait till election night to combine what
would be two of the most memorable
moments of 2015. In the end, the image
I drew was Justin Trudeau dressed as the
batter, tossing not a bat, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper, directly into a garbage
can.
The cartoon which got the most response, however, was one I did as the
election began. I wanted to present a
general overview of my impression of the
four leaders of the major parties to kick
off the campaign. The general sense that
Stephen Harper was a machine-like leader
with limited ability to empathize or connect with people emotionally; the feeling
that Justin Trudeau was an inexperienced
leader with the style and political pedigree but not necessarily the intellect of
his father; the impression of NDP leader
Thomas Mulcair as an angry man lacking the charisma that it takes to win the
heart of a population; and the view of the
Green Party’s Elizabeth May as a wellintentioned leader unlikely to make an
impact with her fledgling party, all seemed
a comfortable fit for a metaphor based on
the classic film, the Wizard of Oz.
24MEDIA
Despite the four word balloons that
made it necessary to bring that cartoon
to fruition, I still feel that a single wordless image is the ultimate goal in editorial
cartooning. That said, sometimes a good
punch line or wordplay can carry the
day. For me, making people laugh, while
making a strong point, is one of cartooning’s greatest rewards. Three of the five
Finalist
André-Philippe Côté
Le Soleil
2016 AWARDS EDITION
cartoons in my submission were wordballoon-free, and all five used humour to
drive home the point.
The industry is changing and while editorial cartooning careers in the traditional
sense appear to be diminishing, I believe
in the power of a concise, hard-hitting,
gut-splitting, well-drawn cartoon. These
will always have value and an audience.
Bruce MacKinnon is an award-winning
editorial cartoonist for the Halifax
Chronicle-Herald. On June 30, 2016, he
was appointed to the Order of Canada,
“For his contributions as one of Canada’s
most skilled, empathetic and provocative
editorial cartoonists.”
Finalist
Michael de Adder
Chronicle Herald/BNI
25
National Newspaper Awards: Explanatory Work
Body and Soul
Jon Wells
Hamilton Spectator
W
hen I emailed a list of story
pitches to Cheryl Stepan, my editor at the Hamilton Spectator, I wanted to
include an idea that I wasn’t sure I wanted
her to approve.
That might sound odd, but I think it’s
good to tackle a story that feels out of
your comfort zone. A nice example of that
was years ago when I pitched witnessing
an execution. The editors accepted – gulp
– and I flew down to Virginia. At the last
minute, as I waited with several other
witnesses to enter the death house – that’s
what they actually called it -- the governor
stayed the execution. Which was probably
just as well.
The idea I pitched to Cheryl also
involved death, but in a very different
sense: a piece about the anatomy lab at
McMaster University. It would fall into
the category of places that a rare few in
the community ever see, offering a chance
to pull back that curtain and write what I
found and felt.
She said yes, and I instantly felt trepidation, which had to be a good sign. Apart
from the novelty of it, and challenging
myself, I felt it could be a powerful story
explaining what goes on in the lab where
students dissect cadavers, and just as
important, discovering who the donors had
been.
I figured the biggest hurdle would be
getting approval from McMaster for me to
get into the lab, a secured area open only
to instructors, staff and students. One card
I had in my favour, though, was that I had
written fly-on-the-wall medical stories in
Hamilton in the past, about Hamilton General Hospital’s Emergency Department,
Injected pink latex allows blood vessels in the brain to pop with colour on
the monitor, as though this male cadaver is a living patient.
Photo Cathie Coward/Hamilton Spectator
and the Intensive Care Unit. Both series
came off well (ICU was nominated for
a National Newspaper Award), and with
both projects patient confidentiality was
respected and I did not burn any bridges.
McMaster gave me the green light,
although the university insisted that a
public relations official be present for my
visits. That was fine. Actually, it felt good
to have someone there who had also never
seen cadavers dissected.
The second obstacle was mental: how
would I cope with what I saw? I was in the
lab in the winter of 2015 for several sessions, watching dissection and also neurological surgical skills practice on cadavers.
It was jarring at first, absolutely. But then
fascinating, and enlightening.
In the spring, I attended McMaster’s
Service of Gratitude for the donors, and
found family members who agreed to
talk to me, and in addition Mac’s people
lined-up others for me. The service was
moving, and as I took notes I knew this
scene would be how I opened the story,
and closed it.
My experiences in the lab, and at the
service, inspired me to not only explain
the program, the people involved, and
anatomy education in general, but to touch
upon notions of mortality and spirituality -- and I asked students and anatomy
lab staff questions about these things.
That aspect of the story kind of evolved
organically, and it prompted me to title the
project “Body and Soul.”
Meanwhile, I used interviews with families to draw portraits of the lives lived by
the cadavers: this is who they were, this is
where they have ended up, “teaching from
the dead,” as I titled part two. For the science, I exchanged dozens of emails with
the anatomy program’s engaging director,
Bruce Wainman, and attended one of his
lectures. If the director had been anyone
less energetic or helpful than Bruce, I
don’t know how the series would have
turned out. After it was over he told me he
found my constant questions a bit exhausting. But he never stopped answering them.
The series ran in the fall of 2015. Spec
photographer Cathie Coward did a terrific
job with visuals, John Bullock shined as
always with the design. Cheryl as always
provided great encouragement, suggestions, and the time I needed to get it right.
As far as the impact goes, I was told
that the anatomy program received many
calls from residents wanting to sign up as
donors, and I received tremendous feedback from readers. It felt good, because I
had wanted to deliver a story that offered
learning and a lively and inspiring journey.
My goal had been to convey the emotion
and illumination I had felt in the lab, about
this vessel we are travelling in.
In the end it felt to me like a gift, having
the opportunity to research and write a story of this nature – and that’s what I said at
the podium in Edmonton, when I accepted
my NNA in the Explanatory category.
A few tips for journalists or students
tackling similar stories:
Get access: Make a strong pitch to
whoever you need to get on board for a
fly-on-the-wall type piece. Take great care
writing up the email, let them know you
will not burn them, but don’t misrepresent
what you’re after, either.
Read and watch everything you can
26MEDIA
Andrew Palombella injects latex into the cadaver’s carotid artery
the day before a surgical skills session in the lab.
PHOTO CREDIT: Cathie Coward/Hamilton Spectator
Finalists
Philippe Mercure,
La Presse, for his series on the centennial of the theory
of relativity
Pamela Jamieson and her mother Iris Jamieson with a photo of their father/
husband Bill Jamieson, a former police officer who donated his body to
science.
PHOTO CREDIT: Cathie Coward/Hamilton Spectator
even remotely related to your topic to
inspire and contextualize: Watching the
sci-fi movie Ex Machina, for example,
gave me the title for part three of the series
(“The Machine”).
“Over-research/underwrite”: This was
golden advice from my former editor,
Dana Robbins, many years ago. Flood the
2016 AWARDS EDITION
Mary Agnes Welch
Winnipeg Free Press
The dissolution of devolution
An analysis of the crisis in Manitoba’s child-welfare
system
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/cracksinthesystem/The-dissolution-of-devolution-361591361.html
zone on research, and then carve the story
out of your best stuff.
Don’t overwrite a powerful story: If the
material is compelling, get out of the way
of the story and just roll it out there for
readers to experience.
Jon Wells is an award-winning journalist at Hamilton Spectator and author of
seven books, including Death’s Shadow,
Poison, and Heat. Here are the different ways to check out his work: jwells@
thespec.com, https://www.facebook.com/
Jon-Wells-Spec-author-344275660597/,
https://twitter.com/jonjwells
27
National Newspaper Awards – Local Reporting
Finally, on the Friday before Labour Day in 2015,
we got hundreds of pages of inspection reports from
every daycare in the province. It was nearly two
years after we first started fighting for the records.
Illustration credit: Adam Huras
Karissa Donkin and Adam Huras
Daycare stories
New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
By Karissa Donkin
‘Y
our child isn’t in here. What’s it
to you?’
It started with a no.
Curious about daycare safety after a
death inside an unregulated facility in
Ontario, reporter Karissa Donkin started
asking questions about daycare standards
in New Brunswick nearly three years ago.
Those questions, and requests to see
copies of daycare inspection reports, were
met with a brick wall.
The government said the inspection reports had to stay private because releasing
them could hurt a daycare’s business.
Hurt their business? What, we thought,
do they have to hide?
We wouldn’t know the answer to that
question for nearly two years, after a
protracted battle that spanned two governments. All for information that’s available
within about 30 seconds online in Ontario.
The battle started in October 2013,
when Donkin filed a right-to-information
request asking for three years’ worth of inspection reports from Saint John daycares.
The government took the request and
asked every daycare in Saint John if it was
OK to give an unnamed applicant copies
of their reports.
Several daycare owners in Saint John
had a meeting and talked about it, one
owner later told Donkin. They collectively
said no.
“Your child isn’t in here,” an owner
said. “What’s it to you?”
After we got a no, we appealed the decision to the province’s Access to Information and Privacy Commissioner, Anne
Bertrand.
Premier Brian Gallant, then the leader
of the Opposition, publicly called for the
release of inspection reports. But getting
full, uncensored copies was not much
easier once his Liberal government took
power.
In the spring of 2015, Bertrand decided
we should have access to the records.
Soon after, government officials couriered a giant box of hundreds of pages of
reports to the Telegraph-Journal’s Saint
John office.
They showed that most daycares
couldn’t prove they properly screened employees and volunteers, and the problem
was happening year after year for many
facilities.
Without proper background checks,
there was no way to prove these people
were fit to work in a daycare.
Inspectors knew. The department knew.
Still, people were allowed to work with
kids without proving they are capable of
doing so.
The documents also showed that government was censoring the records being
posted on the new online daycare inspec-
tion registry. The registry entries lacked
detail, and were posted after daycares
were given several chances to fix problems
inspectors found.
That initial story prompted a crackdown. The education minister vowed to
get tough on daycares that broke the rules.
He ordered inspectors to send employees
without proper screening home and vowed
to hire more inspectors.
One employee was fired from a daycare
after inspectors determined he or she never
should have been working with children.
We still don’t know what turned up on that
person’s late background check.
To see if the problems were widespread,
we asked for daycare inspection reports
from every New Brunswick daycare from
2014.
We figured it wouldn’t be a problem. A
new government with a premier who had
called for the information to be public was
in power. And Anne Bertrand had already
ruled on the issue.
Instead, we found ourselves locked in
another protracted battle with government
over access to daycare inspection reports.
Even though Bertrand said the documents should be public, the government
sent a letter to every daycare in the province, asking if it was OK to release the
information.
The battle went back to Bertrand’s
28MEDIA
office. She told the department it should
have never asked the daycares for permission, and set a June 2015 deadline to
release the documents.
The government ignored her, continued asking daycares for permission, and
missed the deadline.
We wrote stories about the missing
documents nearly every day for weeks to
remind our readers that government disobeyed Bertrand’s advice and continued to
withhold the documents we were obligated
to see.
Finally, on the Friday before Labour
Day in 2015, we got hundreds of pages of
inspection reports from every daycare in
the province. It was nearly two years after
we first started fighting for the records.
A team of reporters spent the weekend
inside the tiny New Brunswick Legislature Press Gallery office poring over these
documents.
We found a range of problems. Onethird of daycares couldn’t prove they properly screened employees. We found issues
with cleanliness, poor record-keeping and,
in one case, an owner who kept guns at the
facility.
The woman who owned that daycare
didn’t see any issues with keeping her
guns in the same place as her daycare.
“They’re all registered and licensed
properly,” she said.
Our series prompted more change. The
education minister said our findings left
him “shocked and disappointed.”
He ordered more than 100 daycare
workers to be sent home. Another person was fired. A week later, a daycare in
Moncton closed its doors.
We believe our stories have made it
safer for New Brunswick parents to leave
their children in daycares.
2016 AWARDS EDITION
But we’re just as excited to have won an
access-to-information fight.
We spend a lot of time in New Brunswick fighting for basic information that’s
already public and easily accessible in
other provinces.
There were, and maybe still are, people
in New Brunswick who don’t think this
should be public.
That’s because there isn’t a culture of
open information in our province. It is
often secrecy by default.
But it helps every time we win a fight
like this. It’s a precedent we can use when
fighting for documents in other cases.
Slowly but surely, it picks away at that
secretive culture.
Getting to that point wasn’t easy. The
Telegraph-Journal doesn’t have an investigative team. Like most newspapers, it can
be a struggle to fill the pages and a project
like this was not a priority every day of
those two years.
But once we realized the change we
could make, it became our top priority.
To us, the story is proof that investigative journalism matters. Real change
can happen if you push hard enough, ask
the right questions and look in the right
places.
That kind of digging and persistence
is needed in small provinces like New
Brunswick more than anywhere else.
People are nice, but that doesn’t make it
free of corruption, government scandal
and, in this case, standards ensuring the
proper care of children going unmet.
Nearly three years later, the uncensored
daycare inspection reports still aren’t
online. Getting them still requires a rightto-information request and, likely, months
of waiting.
The battle continues.
Tips for young journalists
Don’t take no for an answer when you
ask for information from a government
body. Just because they give you 400 reasons for the no, doesn’t mean it’s justified.
Know your rights. Know your province’s right-to-information legislation so
you can fight back when you get a no.
File freedom-of-information requests
often, but file smart. Do research before
you file and know what kind of records the
public body keeps.
Stick with it. It can often take months
(or, in our case, years) to see the product
of your work or to see change unfold. But
it’s worth it in the end.
Link to stories: You can read them by
clicking here.
Karissa Donkin @kdonk is a journalist
in CBC’s Atlantic investigative unit. Before
that, she worked at the New Brunswick
Telegraph-Journal and the Toronto Star.
She is a 2012 graduate of St. Thomas
University’s journalism program.
Adam Huras @adamhuras is the
provincial editor and Fredericton legislative bureau chief of the New Brunswick
Telegraph-Journal. He previously worked
at the National Post. He is a graduate of
Ryerson University’s school of journalism,
class of 2008.
Finalists
The Brandon Sun
The Runaways
Ian Hitchen
https://s3.amazonaws.com/bsunproduction/runaways/index.html
Stratford Beacon Herald
Laura Cudworth
For coverage of a teacher denied time
off to accompany his 90-year-old
father to the 70th anniversary of the
liberation of the Netherlands
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.
com/2016/01/01/two-2015-storiesleft-lasting-impression-on-reporterlaura-cudworth
29
National Newspaper Awards - Arts and Entertainment/Culture
The Globe and Mail
Jacquie McNish
Greg McArthur
Kate Taylor
Crystal Myths: Behind the ROM’s philanthropic façade
B
y the spring of 2014, journalists in
the arts section of The Globe and
Mail had been hearing the rumours for
months: there were leading donors to the
Royal Ontario Museum’s 2007 renovation
who had never paid. Lavish public recognition had been granted to donors who had
failed to make good on their pledges to the
$300-million capital campaign that added
the Michael Lee- Chin Crystal to the
museum’s historic Queen’s Park building.
Yet, all the reporters had managed to get
into print was one small story politely noting the ROM’s official explanation that,
after the 2008 financial crisis, museum
administrators had worked with some
unnamed donors to adjust their payment
schedules.
When investigative reporter Greg
McArthur heard the same story from
another source, he came to his colleagues
in Globe Arts with an idea. The Ontario
government had taken over the museum’s
$72-million construction loan from a
bank: a request under Ontario’s Freedom
of Information Act for documents held
by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and
Sports, which oversees the museum, might
expose the true state of finances on the
project.
Five months after the request was made,
The Globe received 290 pages of ministry
briefs, e-mails and financial statements.
These documents painted a disturbing
portrait of a publicly funded institution
that was financially handicapped by debts
accumulated as a result of uncollected donations it continued to trumpet. They also
revealed that Ontario bureaucrats were
losing patience with an institution that had
repeatedly deferred scheduled payments
on a loan backed by the taxpayer.
But the delinquent donors either weren’t
named in the documents, or their names
had been redacted. Over the next months,
McArthur, Globe Arts journalist Kate Taylor and Report on Business writer Jacquie
McNish worked multiple sources until
they felt secure enough they could produce
a story that would name three names.
Eight years after the building had
opened and 12 years after he made the
commitment, lead donor Michael LeeChin, for whom the ROM’s Crystal is
named, still owed about $10-million of a
$30-million pledge, but was on a payment plan. Food magnate Shreyas Ajmera,
for whom a gallery inside the new ROM
was named, had made no significant
contribution towards a $5-million pledge.
The Russian-Canadian billionaire Alex
Shnaider, who appeared alongside his wife
Simona in a large photo panel celebrating
the major donors, had never paid anything
on a pledge worth between $5-million and
$10-million.
McArthur eventually contacted all
three donors: Lee Chin declined to comment – although after the story appeared
he told Globe and Mail reporter Tim
Kiladze that he felt it was his duty to make
lead pledges to both the ROM and, more
recently, the Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington, Ont., to get fundraising campaigns
rolling. Ajmera told McArthur there had
never been any deadline for making good
on his pledge, but before The Globe could
publish the story he did finally contribute
$1.25-million. Shnaider explained through
a lawyer that his pledge had been conditional on a business deal that had yet to
materialize.
The final story cast a dark light on the
Crystal project, which the ROM continues
to celebrate as the “largest and most successful cultural fundraising campaign in
Canada’s history.” It raised troubling questions about charitable fundraising practices, exposing how the ROM had solicited
philanthropists for lead donations that it
labelled “gifts received” in an attempt to
draw out others – even if the philanthropists would be given no deadline to pay
and could be expected to take years to do
so. And it revealed that Lee-Chin, Ajmera
and Simona Shnaider had all sat on the
ROM’s board of governors, the sister
organization which oversees fundraising,
and thus were responsible for enforcing
their own payments.
The legwork
Documentation cracked this story,
making confidential sources much happier to talk. When Globe reporters first
approached sources, asking if they knew
30MEDIA
of delinquent donors, they got no useful responses. When they returned with
documents obtained through provincial
freedom-of-information requests that
proved the government was concerned
about unpaid pledges and asked sources
for explanations rather than revelations,
the sources loosened up, relieved not to be
cast as the whistleblowers.
Cross-disciplinary teamwork was also
key to getting the story. McArthur lead
the investigative work; Taylor provided
knowledge of the ROM, the history of the
building project, and sources in the cultural community, and McNish researched
the original bank loan and worked her
contacts in the business community to
bolster the sourcing.
As in any investigative project, patience
and persistence were extremely important
after initial inquiries to the ROM were
met with resistance. The more phone calls
the team made – the journalists conducted
more than 30 interviews for the story – the
more the ROM was forced to address The
Globe’s questions while sources outside
the museum also became more forthcoming as research progressed.
On the other hand, strategic timing
was also necessary. In an investigation
that lasted eight months, there were often
moments when the team had to be poised
to move quickly. McArthur knew that
as soon as he called a donor asking for
comment, the donor would alert the ROM
and the museum might step in and attempt
to manage the communication. Early in
their research, Taylor got a tip that the
ROM was planning to quietly cover or
remove the lobby photo panel celebrating
the donors because philanthropists who
had paid up did not feel it was fair; she
promptly put in a photo request and Globe
photographer Fred Lum successfully shot
the panel without alerting the museum to
his presence. The panel was covered over
soon after.
The impact
The story became one of the most talked
about pieces of Canadian arts journalism in 2015, surprising readers with the
realities of big-budget cultural fundraising while warning cultural executives
about the necessities of transparency and
accountability on building projects. The
journalists heard that it became a hot topic
on non-profit boards as hospitals and arts
institutions discussed the need for safe2016 AWARDS EDITION
Eight years after the
building had opened
and 12 years after he
made the commitment,
lead donor Michael
Lee-Chin, for whom
the ROM’s Crystal
is named, still owed
about $10-million of a
$30-million pledge, but
was on a payment plan.
PHOTO CREDIT: J.P.
Moczulski for The
Globe and Mail
guards against the kind of mess in which
the ROM found itself. Crystal Myths
proved that when traditional hard-news
techniques are applied, the arts can be
a source of stories with wide social and
political relevance.
Story Link
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/
toronto/crystal-myths-behind-the-romsphilanthropic-facade/article23653032/
Greg McArthur @McarthurGreg is a
member of The Globe and Mail’s investigative team. His reporting has been recognized by all of Canada’s major journalism
awards: He has won two National Newspaper Awards, several National Magazine
Awards and the top prize awarded by the
Canadian Association of Journalists.
Kate Taylor @thatkatetaylor is a columnist and now lead film critic in Globe Arts.
The ROM story was her third National
Newspaper Award nomination and first
win. She is also the author of three novels,
Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen, A
Man in Uniform, and her new title Serial
Monogamy.
Jacquie McNish @jacquiemcnish currently works as a senior correspondent
with The Wall Street Journal after a long
career as a senior writer with The Globe
and Mail. She is the recipient of seven National Newspaper Awards and the author
of four books, two of which won National
Business Book Awards.
Finalists
Simon Houpt,
The Globe and Mail,
For his coverage of English-language
Canadian films, Canadian TV and
CBC Radio’s “Q”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
arts/books-and-media/and-then-therewas-shad-inside-the-search-for-thenew-host-of-q/article23447219/
Kevin Prokosh
Winnipeg Free Press
For coverage of the Royal Manitoba
Theatre Centre
http://www.winnipegfreepress.
com/arts-and-life/entertainment/
arts/Taking-the-show-on-theroad-294273291.html
31
National Newspaper Awards: Beats
Judy Maas’, whose sister was killed by serial killer Cody
Legebokoff, works at Splatsin Health Services, on a B.C.
reserve.
PHOTO CREDIT: Shawn Talbot for The Globe and Mail
Kathryn Blaze Baum
The Globe and Mail
W
hen Tina Fontaine’s body was
pulled from Winnipeg’s Red River in August of 2014, the lead investigator
said society would be horrified if a litter of
kittens had been discovered in such a state.
“This is a child,” he said. “Society should
be horrified.”
It was.
Two days later, a vigil was held in
Tina’s honour in the Manitoba capital,
and I was there. It was my first story as
The Globe’s beat reporter covering the
issue of Canada’s missing and murdered
indigenous women (MMIW)– a topic that
would inevitably involve an exploration of
indigenous issues more generally.
Tina’s case captured the nation’s attention, a tragic example of the trauma
experienced in the indigenous community
and the myriad ways in which governments and systems fail to protect children
like her.
Her story would bring me back to Winnipeg and to her Sagkeeng First Nation reserve on many occasions over the next two
years. Other MMIW stories would take me
to places such as Edmonton, Regina and
Garden Hill First Nation, a fly-in community in northern Manitoba.
Advocates had long championed a
national inquiry into Canada’s missing and
murdered indigenous women, and Tina’s
case – along with an RCMP study that
found there were 1,181 police-reported
homicides and long-term missing person
files involving indigenous women between
1980 and 2012 – renewed those calls.
As the Globe’s dedicated MMIW reporter, my NNA-winning coverage in 2015
included an investigation into Manitoba’s
dangerous reliance on hotels for emergency foster-care placements, an in-depth
profile of an Edmonton woman named
Cindy Gladue whose death and subsequent
court case sparked rallies across the country, a story on the killing of an 11-year-old
girl in Garden Hill, revelations about the
night a Winnipeg teen was attacked and
left for dead (the identity of the girl, who
survived and is today a high-profile advocate, is now under a publication ban), and
an exploration of how trauma reverberates
through indigenous communities with
sometimes deadly consequences.
The investigation into Manitoba’s use of
hotels for foster-care placements involved
repeated queries of the government for upto-date data, as well as spending time in
the lobbies and parking lots of downtown
Winnipeg hotels so I could meet foster
children and third-party caregivers as they
came and went. I walked hotel hallways
and door-knocked rooms in an attempt to
get a true sense of the government’s reliance on hotels.
We wanted to bring readers into these
establishments and into the lives of the
vulnerable children living there. We also
wanted to hold the province to account.
One day in March of 2015, several months
after the government promised to end its
hotel usage, I found 10 indigenous foster
children living in a single downtown Winnipeg hotel. By November of 2015, the
province announced it had officially ended
its use of hotels for temporary placements,
including in remote and northern areas.
The profile of Ms. Gladue was borne out
of a conversation with an editor about the
case. Ms. Gladue had bled to death in a
motel bathtub from a wound to her vaginal
wall, and her preserved pelvic tissue was
brought into the courtroom as evidence.
The Ontario trucker who had paid for her
sexual services the night she died was acquitted of first-degree murder, and rallies
ensued across the country.
Protesters said the 36-year-old had
been a victim, in her death, of racism and
sexism. All the while, next to nothing was
known about Ms. Gladue. We wanted
to change that. We wanted Canadians to
see she was more than an indigenous sex
worker found dead in a bathtub. Above
all, she was a daughter and mother to three
children.
When it came to the 11-year-old’s death
in Garden Hill, I first obtained permission
from the chief for myself and a photographer to enter the community, which was
two flights and a boat ride away from
Toronto, where I am based.
A killer was on the loose and we had to
tread lightly, as we knew some community
members had reservations about the media
coming to the reserve, let alone at such
a difficult time. We frequently checked
in at the band office and did not take for
granted that the council had trusted us to
be respectful as we pursued interviews and
photographs.
We made it clear that if family members
decided they no longer wanted us on the
reserve, we would leave immediately.
Instead, we were invited to the victim’s
father’s solemn birthday gathering one
evening; he had turned 41 years old just as
he searched the woods for his daughter’s
scattered remains.
In the case of the assault on the highprofile advocate whose name is now under
a publication ban, I located the mother of
one of the co-accused in Winnipeg and
interviewed her briefly during one of my
trips to the city. I could not immediately
report much of what she told me because
32MEDIA
the matter was still before the courts. Still,
based on the interview with the mother, as
well as conversations with the attacker’s
sister and a family friend, I painted for
Globe readers a clearer picture of what
had transpired the night of the assault.
I encountered so much trauma in my
reporting that, on the one-year anniversary of Tina’s killing, I felt it important
to explore its ramifications deeply and
scientifically. The crux of the feature was
the notion that trauma begets trauma –
that deaths and disappearances can ripple
through families and communities with
devastating force. I had spoken with so
many victims’ relatives who had lost a
sister, mother or daughter, and then found
themselves suicidal or turning to drugs to
escape.
My beat coverage over the past two
years has been the most challenging work
I have ever done, and might ever do.
Beyond the extensive travel, deadline demands and access-to-information denials
and redactions, it was impossible not to be
deeply impacted by the violence and grief
at the centre of the stories.
Top of mind for me was doing right by
the victims’ families and not re-traumatizing them with disrespectful or insensitive questions or coverage. I kept in close
touch with families and indigenous leaders, reaching out not just when I needed
something or had an interview to do. I
did my best to keep sources updated on
the progress of a story, knowing some felt
tremendous anxiety and anticipation after
sharing their stories.
I have spent countless hours with victims’ loved ones, and their heartbreak is
not lost on me. I am grateful to those who
2016 AWARDs EDITION
have opened their hearts and homes to me.
It is to their credit that these stories were
told.
Story links:
Story that was part of my Manitoba
hotels investigation: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/manitoba-foster-children-still-being-left-in-last-resorthotels/article23576306/
Profile on Cindy Gladue: http://www.
theglobeandmail.com/news/national/
the-death-and-life-of-cindy-gladue/article24455472/
Story on trauma: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/traumascalamitous-echoes/article25968124/
Story on the Garden Hill killing: http://
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/
father-spends-bitter-birthday-searchingfor-remains-of-daughter/article24585438/
Story about the night of a high-profile
attack: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
news/national/family-of-co-accused-inrinelle-harper-attack-describe-the-day-ithappened/article23910390/
My author page: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/kathryn-blaze-baum
Kathryn Blaze Baum is a national Globe
and Mail reporter who has spent the past
two years covering the issue of Canada’s
missing and murdered indigenous women.
Previously, Ms. Baum was a parliamentary reporter in the Globe’s Ottawa bureau.
Before joining the paper in 2013, she was
a reporter for the National Post and a
stringer for The New York Times. She has
covered major news events, including the
2014 Moncton shooting, the 2013 Boston
Marathon bombing, the 2010 earthquake
in Haiti and two U.S. presidential elections. Ms. Baum hails from Winnipeg.
The finalists
David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen
For coverage of the military
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/kenneys-claims-about-canadassmart-bombs-questioned
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/up-to-400-canadian-d-day-veterans-miss-out-on-french-honour
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/sexual-assault-crisis-centre-formilitary-personnel-to-have-limitedhours
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-coming-war-with-russia
Ivan Semeniuk
For coverage of science
The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
life/health-and-fitness/health/
scientists-unleash-the-power-ofimmunotherapy-on-stubborn-cancers/
article22371088/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
technology/science/500-millionyears-ago-this-critter-had-a-bad-day/
article22984858/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
technology/technology-video/videothe-true-meaning-of-outer-spacelatest-pluto-images-and-what-theymay-mean/article25554564/
33
National Newspaper Awards - Feature Photo Winner
National Newspaper Awards – Sports Photo Winner
Tim Smith/Brandon Sun
Fred Lum/Globe and Mail
Ice skaters take advantage of the smooth-as-glass ice covering Clear Lake as the sun sets in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, on Monday
December 15, 2015. The lack of snow created a great opportunity for winter enthusiasts to enjoy the clear ice.
National Newspaper Awards - Feature Photo Finalists
Mark Blinch/Reuters Canada
John Rennison/Hamilton Spectator
Seven-year-old Keegan
Saila (Left) and David
McKay, also seven, fall in
behind re-enactors as they
parade following the Battle
of Stoney Creek re-enactment. Saila’s grandfather
and McKay’s parents were
re-enactors at the event on
June 7, 2015.
34
MEDIA
Toronto Blue Jay Jose Bautista throws his bat in the air after hitting a three-run homer in the seventh inning against the Texas Rangers in game five of
the American League Division Series Oct 14, 2015 in Toronto.
National Newspaper Awards – Sports Photo Finalists
Steve Russell/Affiliate Toronto Star
A group of joggers
calling themselves the
“Black Lungs Toronto”
runs across the Humber
Bay Arch Bridge during
extreme cold temperatures, -25C, in Toronto,
February 16, 2015.
Team Canada’s Peter Orr celebrates after scoring the winning
run with a slide into home as Team
Canada beats Team USA in extra
innings in the Pan Am Games
baseball gold medal game at President’s Choice Ajax Park in Ajax,
Ontario, July 19, 2015.
2015 AWARDS EDITION
Gord Waldner
Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
Jordan Lloyd Carlier is
bucked off by Jaw Breaker
at the PBR Canadian Finals
Bull Riding in Saskatoon on
November 20, 2015. Jordan
was uninjured.
35