Torstar honoured with six National Newspaper Awards
Panama Papers probe, climate change project among Star winners
Torstar took home six prizes at the National Newspaper Awards, one of the highest honours in Canadian journalism. The Toronto Star won four and its sister papers the Hamilton Spectator and St. Catharines Standard took one each.
Investigative reporters Robert Cribb and Marco Chown Oved won the award for Best Business Reporting for their deep dive into the Panama Papers, a leak of more than 11 million financial and legal documents that revealed the inner workings of tax havens, which cost government coffers billions of dollars each year.
“This is a fine validation of the important work done by journalists across the country and the Toronto star newsroom, carrying on a great tradition of public service journalism,” said Michael Cooke, Editor of the Toronto Star.
Star science reporter Kate Allen won for Best Explanatory Work for her project on the effects of climate change: not on humans but on other inhabitants of the planet, from bumblebees to shrubs.
Jesse Winter, now a reporter for Star Metro Vancouver, won for Best Long Feature for a heartbreaking story he wrote for the Star of an Indigenous man failed by family, friends, government and the justice system after being raped by his uncle as a child.
Star photographer Andrew Francis Wallace won for Best Sports Photo for a jarring image of a rugby player with a badly mangled finger.
The Star’s sister papers also won big. Hamilton Spectator reporter Steve Buist won for Best Sports Reporting for “Collision Course,” a four-part series that exposed the impact of concussions on retired Canadian football players.
Grant LaFleche of the St. Catharines Standard won in the Local Reporting category for a series of stories on the effect of child abuse by a Roman Catholic priest.
In total, the Star saw 12 nominations in eight categories.
The Globe and Mail won six awards, from among 18 nominations in13 categories, including two awards for Robyn Doolittle. She won Best Investigation for her “Unfounded” series, which revealed how frequently Canadian police forces did not conclude investigations into sexual assault allegations. Doolittle also won Journalist of the Year, with the jury recognizing the effect her investigation had in changing police behaviour.
Other awards were won by LaPresse, which won four awards, the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, National Post, Edmonton Journal and Halifax Chronicle Herald.