Big win/Big night for P.E.I. news
Atlantic Canada’s best journalism celebrated in St. John’s
A Journal Pioneer reporter, a retired editor from The Guardian, and The Charlottetown Guardian were honoured Saturday, at the Atlantic Journalism Awards in St. John’s. The Guardian won the Atlantic Journalism Award for Breaking/Spot News Reporting: Print and Online Category on Saturday night for its coverage of the provincewide school evacuation in Sept. 2016. Guardian managing editor Wayne Thibodeau said it was an honour to accept the award on behalf of the entire team, which included the Journal Pioneer.
He said that on the day, while every school in the province was being evacuated, every person in the newsroom was working hard to ensure students, parents and the people of P.E.I. had the information they needed as quickly as possible.
The other two finalists in the category were Heather Desveaux of the Chronicle Herald
for “the Hannah collection,” and Tim Jaques of The Tribune in Campellton, N.B., for “Chopper crash kills two.”
The award is not the only hardware returning to P.E.I. from the gala.
The event also honoured former managing editor of The Guardian Gary MacDougall with a lifetime achievement
award after working in journalism for 47 years.
Journal Pioneer reporter Millicent McKay received the 2017 student award for prize of excellence during the event. The Eastern Graphic’s Paul MacNeill also won the Best Community Newspaper News Story Award for “A place to call home.”