National Newspaper Awards announce 2014 finalists

TORONTO, March 18, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - The Globe and Mail has 16 nominations to lead all entrants in the 66th National Newspaper Awards competition.

The Toronto Star has 11 nominations and Montreal's La Presse has eight finalists in the competition, which is open to daily newspapers as well as online news sites approved for entry by the NNA Board of Governors.

Other organizations with multiple nominations include the Canadian Press, with five, and the Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen and Moncton Times & Transcript, with three each.

Five other newspapers each have two nominations: Winnipeg Free Press, London Free Press, Halifax Chronicle Herald, National Post, and the Hamilton Spectator.

Twelve other organizations received one nomination each.

There are a total of 71 finalists in 22 categories, selected from 1,297 entries for work published in 2014. Of 63 newspapers and online sites to submit entries, 24 organizations have been nominated as finalists.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Friday, May 22. Winners will receive cheques for $1,000 and a certificate of award. Other finalists receive citations of merit.

This is the 66th year for the awards program, and the 26th year under the current administrative structure.

Highlights of this year's nominations:

• Of 71 finalists, 34 are first-time nominees. Nine of ten provinces are represented in the nominations.
• The Moncton Times & Transcript has been nominated twice for its coverage of the RCMP shootings – in Breaking News and Local Reporting. NNA rules allow entries in Local Reporting to be entered in other categories as well.
• There are two double nominees: Josh Wingrove of the Globe and Mail, in Breaking News and Explanatory Work; and Canadian Press photographer Peter Power, with both nominations in News Feature Photo. These are Wingrove's 2^nd and 3^rd nominations. For Power, these are his 7^th and 8^th nominations. He has won four times in the past.
• Brian Gable of the Globe and Mail is a finalist for the 15^th time. He has won six previous times.
• Michèle Ouimet of La Presse is a finalist for the 11^th time. She has won six previous times.
• The Globe and Mail's Grant Robertson, nominated in Business, and Mark MacKinnon, nominated in International, are both eight-time finalists who have won four previous awards.
• Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk, nominated in Feature Photo and the winner of three previous awards, has been a finalist seven times.
• In Editorials, two finalists have each won three previous awards in the category: La Presse's André Pratte, nominated for a sixth time, and Waterloo Region Record's John Roe, nominated for a fifth time.
• Other three-time winners nominated again this year include Canadian Press photographer Frank Gunn (Sports Photo), the Globe and Mail's Jason Chiu (Presentation), and the Halifax Chronicle Herald's Bruce MacKinnon (Editorial Cartoons).

The nominees:

Arts and Entertainment

• Simon Houpt, Globe and Mail, for his examination of parasitic enterprises, content thieves, and the online efforts of a former radio shock jock
• Vinay Menon, Toronto Star, for a profile of CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, a look at the Beatles' 1964 visit to Toronto, and Jeopardy! as a pop culture phenomenon
• Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail, for a profile of prison book clubs, the effects of the arts on the human brain, and boosting Canadian production with profits from sales of spectrum rights

Beat Reporting

• Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun, for coverage of crime
• San Grewal, Toronto Star, for coverage of urban affairs
• Nick Martin, Winnipeg Free Press, for coverage of education
• Jane Sims, London Free Press, for coverage of justice and the courts

Breaking News

• Canadian Press team for coverage of the shooting on Parliament Hill
• Globe and Mail (Josh Wingrove, Steven Chase, Ann Hui, Joe Friesen and Ian Brown) for capturing the drama of the shooting on Parliament Hill
• Moncton Times & Transcript team for coverage of the shooting rampage that left three RCMP officers dead and two wounded
• Montreal La Presse team for coverage of the deliberate ramming of two Canadian Forces soldiers in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

Business

• Tavia Grant, Globe and Mail, for her investigation into asbestos, the single-biggest workplace killer in Canada
• Martin Regg Cohn, Toronto Star, for his coverage of The Beer Store and its retail monopoly in Canada's biggest province
• Grant Robertson, Globe and Mail, for his series on the government's effort to move marijuana sales from the back alley to the capital markets

Columns

• Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun, for columns on marriage, playing catch, and weddings
• Russell Wangersky, St. John's Telegram, for columns on violent assault, memory, and journalism today
• Konrad Yakabuski, Globe and Mail, for columns on assisted suicide, the loonie, and Tim Cook

Editorial Cartooning

• Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald
• Brian Gable, Globe and Mail
• Bruce MacKinnon, Halifax Chronicle Herald

Editorials

• Sarah O'Donnell, Edmonton Journal
• André Pratte, Montreal La Presse
• John Roe, Waterloo Region Record

Explanatory Work

• Marie-Claude Malboeuf, Montreal La Presse, for her examination of the hidden marketplace within the web, often called "the deep web"
• Kevin Rollason, Winnipeg Free Press, for his study of bed shortages, clogged emergency rooms and the role racism plays in Manitoba hospitals
• Josh Wingrove and Chris Hannay, Globe and Mail, for their explanation of Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, which changes the rules for voters, candidates, parties and the people whose job it is to make sure elections are fair

Feature Photo

• John Lehmann, Globe and Mail, for a photo of staff and students watching a spectacular Aurora Borealis
• Lucas Oleniuk, Toronto Star, for capturing a dove landing and returning to its loft
• Julie Oliver, Ottawa Citizen, for an image that tells the story of a young boy's struggle with skin disease

International

• Mark MacKinnon, Globe and Mail, for coverage of the conflict in Ukraine and the angry resurgence of Vladimir Putin's Russia
• Scott Simmie, Toronto Star, for stories on the experience of migrants fleeing North Africa
• Jennifer Wells, Toronto Star, for revisiting the horror of Bhopal, site of the world's worst industrial accident

Investigations

• Kevin Donovan, Jesse Brown and Jacques Gallant, Toronto Star, for their investigation of allegations of sexual assault by CBC Host Jian Ghomeshi
• Katia Gagnon, Montreal La Presse, for her investigation into the permissiveness on the part of general practitioners and pharmacists in dispensing morphine
• Jennifer O'Brien, Kate Dubinski, Randy Richmond and Jonathan Sher, London Free Press for peeling back the layers of a group home fire story to reveal a shocking neglect of mentally ill residents in Ontario
• Jon Wells, Hamilton Spectator, for "Remorseless," a look into how a brutal murderer was created, and what led to his implosion and conviction

Local Reporting

• Tim Smith, Brandon Sun, for an intimate story of a family struggling with cancer
• Moncton Times & Transcript team, for coverage of a shooting rampage that left three RCMP officers dead and two wounded
• Christine Morris, New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, for a three-part series on Lyme disease in New Brunswick

Long Feature

• Christopher Curtis, Montreal Gazette, for "On Patrol in Opitciwan," shadowing a First Nation police force as it confronts poverty, substance abuse and crowded living conditions
• Sandra Martin, Globe and Mail, for "Kim's Choice," the story of a hardworking Ontario family beset by Huntington's Disease
• Barb Pacholik, Regina Leader Post, for "Betrayal: What do you do when you discover your friend is a pedophile?"
• Patrick White, Globe and Mail, for "Solitary: A Death Sentence," revealing a corrections system out of step with much of the developed world

Multimedia Feature

• Gabrielle Duchaine and Caroline Touzin, Montreal La Presse, for a three-part interactive look at crime in all its facets in Quebec and Montreal
• Teri Pecoskie, Hamilton Spectator, for a five-part series uncovering the connections between standardized test scores and a range of social and economic factors
• Toronto Star team, for coverage commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, including a walk of the Western Front

News Feature Photo

• Andrew Vaughan, Canadian Press, for a photo of the funeral procession for three RCMP officers killed in the line of duty in Moncton
• Peter Power, Canadian Press, for his photo of the son of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo waving a flag at the funeral of his father
• Peter Power, Canadian Press, for his image depicting two dogs peering out from beneath the fence at Cpl. Nathan Cirillo's house

News Photo

• Tony Caldwell, Ottawa Sun, for a photo of a topless protester confronting the archbishop of Quebec
• Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen, for capturing the willingness of strangers to help a fallen soldier
• Viktor Pivovarov, Moncton Times & Transcript, for a dramatic image of the shooter in Moncton

Politics

• Sean Fine, Globe and Mail, for digging deep to describe the selection process for Supreme Court justices
• Gloria Galloway, Globe and Mail, for looking into the dispersal of $200 million dealing with veterans' mental health issues
• Vincent Marissal, Montreal La Presse, for describing how the Parti Québecois came to adopt a radical Charter of Quebec Values

Presentation

• Jason Chiu, Globe and Mail
• National Post team
• Raina Toomey and Gayle Grin, Postmedia Central Hub

Project of the Year

• Susan Zielinski and Myles Fish, Red Deer Advocate, for a project on the Michener Centre, one of Canada's last large institutional homes for the mentally challenged
• Jessica Barrett, Calgary Herald, for a five-part series examining how the way our relationship to work in Canada is fundamentally changing
• Globe and Mail team for chronicling the physical, mental and financial toll of thalidomide, a Canadian public-health disaster that had faded from the public's memory
• Toronto Star team for creating an in-depth discussion with the citizens of Toronto to identify the civic issues they cared about most

Short Feature

• Michèle Ouimet, Montreal La Presse, for an intimate portrait of a former municipal politician stricken with cancer
• Shelley Page, Ottawa Citizen, for a reappraisal of what it was like to be a woman reporting on the Polytechnique massacre
• Michelle Shephard, Toronto Star, for shedding light on the ongoing tragedy that is Somalia

Sports

• Gabriel Béland, Montreal La Presse, for stories on the consequences of a concussion on a minor league hockey player, a triple-A midget team opening its locker room to seven First Nation players, and how a soldier wounded in Afghanistan kept a hold on life through hockey
• Jim Coyle, Steve Russell, Paul Hunter and Jim Rankin, Toronto Star, for stories that provided an up-close look at two local hockey teams and how the game is lived by the players and experienced by the communities in which they play
• Joe O'Connor, National Post, for his coverage of an African-American inner-city high school football team and its white coach, a story about race relations in America that needed to be heard above the roar of Ferguson

Sports Photo

• Stan Behal, Toronto Sun, for a photo capturing the desperation of a tennis player trying to get the ball over the net
• Ric Ernst, Vancouver Sun, for a photo showing how Canuck fans feel about fighting in hockey
• Frank Gunn, Canadian Press, for capturing the exertion and tension of a split-second play

Nominated entries can be viewed at the NNA website: www.nna.ccj.ca

To see Project of the Year entries, go to these web links:
Susan Zielinski and Myles Fish, Red Deer Advocate: http://bit.ly/1wI3nPt  
Jessica Barrett, Calgary Herald: http://bit.ly/1qttvoW
Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/topic/Thalidomide
Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/bigideas.html

Our thanks to CNW Group for sponsoring this announcement.

SOURCE National Newspaper Awards

Image with caption: "NNA Logo (CNW Group/National Newspaper Awards)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20150318_C6943_PHOTO_EN_13340.jpg

Raymond Brassard, Editorial Consultant, National Newspaper Awards, Concours canadien de journalisme, [email protected]