Postmedia wins 5 national awards

Postmedia journalists took home five awards on Friday at the annual National Newspaper Awards, with a reporter from the London Free Press recognized as both journalist of the year and best in local reporting.

The Ottawa Citizen’s reporters and photographers won three awards.

Randy Richmond of the Free Press was selected as the 2019 journalist of the year by a panel of three former NNA winners. He also won the local reporting category for a story about how a police officer assaulted a woman while his fellow officers stood by and then “spun it all into a misleading story about a dangerous suspect who had assaulted an officer.” The story was also a finalist in the investigative reporting category.

“Judges noted that extraordinary journalistic efforts over nearly two years were needed to bring the incident to light,” said the Awards. “This represents a clear public service, with the journalist as watchdog.”

Richmond, who has worked for Postmedia News for 22 years, has won several national awards, including the Michener award for public service journalism.

“It is strangely appropriate to be celebrating the best of Canadian journalism in the midst of a pandemic,” said Lucinda Chodan, senior vice- president, editorial, of Postmedia. “It’s a time when millions of Canadians are turning to printed newspapers and news websites to find credible information about COVID-19.”

“The NNA winners and nominees represent just how good that journalism can be.”

Julie Oliver, an Ottawa Citizen photographer who’s won the national award twice before, also received a win for her feature photo of three swimmers preparing for a swim at a nudist colony.

Wayne Cuddington, also of the Citizen, won the breaking news photo category for his shot of a woman with police after a man was shot dead in the city’s Byward Market neighbourhood.

Andrew Duffy of the Citizen won the William Southam award for long feature reporting for his narrative on the passengers who were on a city bus that crashed, killing three and injuring 23. He was a joint winner in the investigations category in 1996.

Unlike previous years, there was no gala. Instead they were announced via webcast on Friday.

Postmedia, which owns major dailies across Canada, including National Post, Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun, had numerous finalists up for awards.

In the sports category, Toronto Sun photographer Stan Behal was nominated for his iconic photo of Kawhi Leonard’s series- winning shot for the Toronto Raptors, a heartbeat before the ball went in. He’s won that category twice before, and the news photo category once.

But the award went to Rick Madonik of the Toronto Star for his photo of Raptors guard Kyle Lowry in Game 6 of the same series.