AJAs celebrated with the 2015 CAJ Charles Bury Award

HALIFAX, June 6, 2015 /CNW/ - It was a night where the Atlantic Journalism Awards were on the other side of the presentation equation.

The AJAs, as they're lovingly known by many journalists who've worked in the Atlantic provinces, were the recipients of the 2015 CAJ Charles Bury Award at the #CAJ15 conference banquet and awards gala Saturday night.

The CAJ Charles Bury Award was created and is awarded at the president's discretion to any individuals or organizations that have made exemplary contributions to Canadian journalism. The AJAs were created in 1981 to honour journalistic excellence and achievement in print and electronic news in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland/Labrador.

Excellence in journalism has been honoured by the AJAs, with close to 1,400 individuals honoured across 28 categories. AJAs executive director Bill Skerrett was present at the CAJ Awards gala to accept the award on behalf of the organization, which is run by a volunteer board of directors from media outlets across the Atlantic provinces.

"One of the CAJ's main annual programs is recognizing the best in Canadian journalism across all platforms through the CAJ Awards – an objective shared with the AJAs," CAJ president Hugo Rodrigues said. "Awards recognize and celebrate the high-quality journalism that continues to take place in newsrooms across the Atlantic and Canada. It also, for some, drives them to do better in their own work to earn the recognition of their industry peers.

"The Canadian public always wins when journalists are able to do high-quality work and recognizing that work helps show the public how hard we work in their interest."

The CAJ Charles Bury Award is given under circumstances of exceptional merit to those people or organizations that have made a significant contribution to Canadian journalism. Previous recipients include the Jack Webster Foundation, Massey College in The University of Toronto, the Canadian Journalism Project, Canada's media lawyers, the now-defunct independent Carleton Free Press weekly newspaper from Woodstock, N.B., murdered photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, crime writer Michel Auger, journalist Tara Singh Hayer and Canada's media lawyers.

The Canadian Association of Journalists is a professional organization with over 600 members across Canada. The CAJ's primary roles are public-interest advocacy work and professional development for its members.

SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists

Hugo Rodrigues, CAJ president, 613-330-8396 cell, [email protected]; www.caj.ca | www.facebook.com/CdnAssocJournalists | www.twitter.com/CAJ