Todd, Sims receive national honours

Postmedia journalists win NNAS

Two Postmedia journalists have been honoured for their work at the prestigious National Newspaper Awards.

At a gala in Toronto Friday night, the judges announced that Douglas Todd, a Vancouver Sun/province columnist, and Jane Sims, a London Free Press reporter, had both won awards for their journalism.

Todd, a veteran Postmedia journalist, won the William Southam Award for Long Feature for his story about British Columbia’s mentalhealth-care system, and whether his father, who was institutionalized for two decades, would have survived the modern iteration of the system.

“This is my attempt to understand what would likely have happened to my father if he had gone through what he did, but in the past decade, given that most specialists believe B.C.’S housing and mental-health realms have deteriorated,” Todd wrote.

Sims won the Bob Levin Award for Short Feature for her story about Salman Afzaal, who, along with his family, was killed by a white nationalist terrorist in June 2021.

Sims chronicled the tragedy that befell the Afzaal family and wrote about what London, Ont., had lost as it struggled to come to grips with the aftermath and the trial of killer Nathaniel Veltman. “There were fears that the most personal details of the horrific crimes would inflame the emotions of the jury. Often, the facts seemed sanitized and stripped of the shock that galvanized this city to support our neighbours,” Sims wrote.

Six other Postmedia publications had been nominated for the awards, for their reporting on topics ranging from commentary to news photography to lengthy journalistic explorations of wildfires, affordability issues and tragedies.