Citizen reporter nominated for award

The Citizen’s James Bagnall has been nominated for a prestigious business journalism award for his investigative story examining how the federal government’s plan to modernize its email, data centres and telecommunications went so badly awry.

Bagnall’s story is nominated in the investigative category of the annual Best in Business awards sponsored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Canada.

There were 27 finalists in nine categories for the awards.

“Selecting finalists was an especially challenging task for our 27 judges, highlighting not only the depth and quality of business journalism in Canada, but also the valuable role it plays,” said the organization’s chairperson, Dawn Calleja, in a statement.

Bagnall’s 5,437-word feature, called Built to Fail, chronicled how politics undermined the introduction of a new government department, Shared Service Canada, which was created to manage about one-third of the federal government’s $5-billion-a-year technology services budget.

Bagnall explained how cabinet ministers and bureaucrats underestimated the complexity and risk of the department’s mandate to simultaneously streamline and modernize the government’s electronic backbone while keeping the old technology running.

When his article was published in November 2016, all of Shared Services’ core projects were behind schedule. Not only had promised savings not materialized, but the agency was spending tens of millions of dollars more than forecast to maintain networks that should have been decommissioned.

The winners will be announced Wednesday in Toronto.