Torstar nominated for 12 awards
Finalists include journalists from the Star, three regional newspapers
Torstar has received 12 nominations for the 70th National Newspaper Awards, which honour the best in Canadian journalism from 2018, including six nominations for the Toronto Star.
Among the nods, Star journalists Rachel Mendleson, Diana Zlomislic, Robert Cribb, Marco Chown Oved, Andrew Bailey and Emma Jarratt are finalists in the project of the year category for the “Medical Disorder” series, an 18-month investigation in the discipline records of doctors permitted to practise on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.
The series, which showed how doctors can move to different jurisdictions to escape disciplinary rulings, analyzed 27,000 discipline records and 1.4 million licensing records of doctors in Canada and the U.S.
Dozens of Star journalists are also finalists in the breaking news category for the paper’s moment-by-moment and block-by-block coverage of the Yonge St. van attack.
Here are the Star’s nominations: Breaking News: A team of 42 journalists for the Star’s coverage of the Yonge St. van attack, which left 10 dead and 16 injured.
Project of the Year: A team of six journalists for the “Medical Disorder” investigation.
International: Washington bureau chief Daniel Dale, for his exhaustive coverage of the deceptions and lies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Presentation: Journalists Cameron Tulk, David Schnitman, Tania Pereira and Fadi Yaacoub, for their work on the Star’s fact-check of every question and answer over five days of question period.
Sports: Feature writer Mary Ormsby, for her sports reporting on how sprinter Ben Johnson’s positive drug sample from the 1988 Seoul Olympics had been mishandled 30 years earlier, and for a story outlining the cognitive decline and personal turmoil faced by legendary boxer George Chuvalo.
Photo essay: Photographer Carlos Osorio, for his work accompanying a feature story about a 77-year-old woman who was forced to move out of the publicly subsidized building she lived in when it was deemed unsafe.
“Star journalists go out every day motivated to report and break stories that make a difference to Canadians. It is always rewarding to see work recognized,” said Irene Gentle, Editor of the Toronto Star.
“Sincere congratulations to everyone nominated, a celebration of Canadian journalism.”
Three other Torstar newspapers received nominations, with the Waterloo Region Record nominated in three categories, the St. Catharines Standard in two and the Hamilton Spectator one. Their nominated works are:
Investigations: St. Catharines Standard reporter Grant LaFleche, for a yearlong inves- tigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Region’s top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars.
Local Reporting: The Standard’s LaFleche, for a yearlong investigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Region’s top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars.
Local Reporting: Waterloo Region Record reporter Greg Mercer, for a detailed probe into the serious health problems that afflicted workers from the region’s once-booming rubber industry, and the apparent reluctance of workplace safety officials to accept their compensation claims.
Editorials: The Record’s John Roe.
Politics: The Record’s Mercer, for exposing how the Ontario Conservative party concocted a story that a legislator had sexually harassed a former party intern, in order to nominate a more well-connected party insider.
Short feature: Hamilton Spectator reporter Jon Wells, for an engaging and poignant story about a couple’s determination to see a man freed from death row in the U.S. for a crime he said he did not commit.
Michael de Adder was also nominated for editorial cartooning for his work in the Toronto Star, Halifax ChronicleHerald and Brunswick News.
The Globe and Mail led all entrants with 20 nominations among the award’s 21 categories.
In total, 63 finalists were selected from 951 entries. The winners will be announced on May 3 in Toronto. The 2018 journalist of the year will be named from among this year’s winners. On Monday, two Toronto Star journalists also received an honourable mention for the prestigious 2019 Canadian Hillman Prize in investigative reporting.
Investigative reporter Moira Welsh and visual journalist Randy Risling were recognized for “The Fix,” a story about a Peel nursing home and the struggles that come with transformational change.
The investigation led to council-led changes at the City of Toronto and increased lobbying with the Ontario government to fund new emotion-focused programs at nursing homes.