Michener Awards Foundation announces Fellowship winners

OTTAWA, May 10, 2012 /CNW/ - The Michener Awards Foundation today announced the winners of the 2012 Michener-Deacon Fellowships.

The first Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education is awarded to Melanie Coulson, senior online editor at The Ottawa Citizen. She will spend the winter term in 2013 at Carleton University's School of Journalism.

Laura Eggertson, a freelance journalist based in Ottawa, is the winner of the Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Journalism. Ms Eggertson will investigate Aboriginal Youth Suicide as a significant health crisis in Canada.  A former Nieman Fellowship winner, she plans to research and write a series of print and on-line articles, and create a radio documentary, based on both positive and negative experiences of Aboriginal communities dealing with suicide.

Ms Coulson will teach an undergraduate reporting course at Carleton and will conduct research into the growing phenomenon of audience participation in the journalism produced by media enterprises and will share her research and experience with students. Having made the shift to digital media more than a decade ago, Ms Coulson has also been responsible for community engagement projects in the national capital region for her employer.

The Investigative Journalism fellowship is supported by the BMO Financial Group. It allows a journalist to devote up to four months for a reporting project. Applicants are required to undertake a project that aspires to the criteria of the annual Michener Award for journalism with its emphasis on making an impact for the public good.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education, supported by the Michener Awards Foundation and the Family of the late Paul S. Deacon, is dedicated to the advancement of the education of Canadian journalists. The winner will spend time at a Canadian university journalism school, teaching or mentoring students, and also pursue personal education interests.

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, will host the Michener Awards ceremony at Rideau Hall on June 12 where the Michener-Deacon Fellowships will be presented and the winner of the 2011 Michener Award will be announced. .

The Michener Award, founded in 1970 by the late Roland Michener, then Governor-General, goes to a news organization. The judges' decisions are heavily influenced by the degree of public benefit generated by the print and broadcast entries submitted for consideration.

Judges for the 2011 Michener-Deacon Fellowship
Lindsay Crysler (chair), former managing editor of The Gazette, Montreal, former director of journalism, Concordia University, Montreal; Clinton Archibald, associate professor, professor of public ethics, St. Paul University, Ottawa; Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Bishops University, Lennoxville, Quebec, and former publisher of The Gazette and the Toronto Star; Lynne Van Luven, associate professor of journalism and creative non-fiction, University of Victoria; Erin Steuter, chair of the sociology department, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB. 

Michener Awards Foundation :
Russell Mills
[phone],  x 5179
email: [email protected]

Web sites:
www.michenerawards.ca
www.prixmichener.ca 

Rideau Hall Press Office
(613)  998-0287
www.gg.ca