Spectator takes home six Ontario Newspaper Awards
The Hamilton Spectator topped the Ontario Newspaper Awards with six wins, including nods for investigations into concussions, mental health care and accidents on the Red Hill Valley Parkway.
Investigative reporter Steve Buist and columnist Susan Clairmont won two awards each and were finalists in the journalist of the year category at the ceremony Saturday night at Postmedia Place in Toronto.
Buist won the general news feature award for a three-part series that judges described as a “gripping tale of frightened refugees fleeing uncertain politics in the United States and turning to Canada as a destination of hope.”
A four-part series that took two-and-a-half years of research into concussions in the Canadian Football League took home the sports writing award with judges calling Buist’s work a “sweeping and innovative investigation” that was “beyond groundbreaking.”
Clairmont earned the feature writing award for telling the story behind a pair of shoes and a sweater left on a highway overpass after the suicide of Nicole Patenaude. Judges called the story a “searing portrait of a family dealing with the crushing issue of mental health.”
She was also named columnist of the year for a portfolio of her work including a story on lawyer Deepak Paradkar and his $1,200 red-soled Christian Louboutin black loafers covered in spikes.
Crime and justice reporter Nicole O’Reilly and photographer Gary Yokoyama rounded out the honours for The Spectator.
O’Reilly won in the prestigious enterprise reporting category for her investigation into the parkway after long hearing murmuring from emergency responders that something was off about the expressway. Her work, which included uncovering road safety tests that officials were withholding, demonstrated “the true spirit” of the award said the judges.
Yokoyama earned the sports photography award for an image that judges said “screams quintessential rugby … The tension of something to come — looming death, a broken collarbone, colossal wedge? — is etched on the faces of the players in this well-framed, excellently exposed picture.”
The Spectator’s sister papers all took home one award each, including Waterloo Region Record reporter Greg Mercer winning beat reporter of the year for turning “the legalization of marijuana into an innovative beat,” said the judges.
Niagara Falls Review reporter John Law won for arts and entertainment writing, while Grant LaFleche from the St. Catharines Standard was honoured for feature writing and nominated for journalist of the year.
Peterborough Examiner photographer Clifford Skarstedt was named photojournalist of the year.
Other big winners of the night included the London Free Press with five awards, including reporter Jane Sims earning journalist of the year, while the Belleville Intelligencer got three nods.
The Spectator went into the night with 16 nominations — the most of any paper — for the annual awards that celebrate excellence in journalism among newspapers outside of Toronto.