Celebrating the best of the best
Once a year, I get the chance to gloat about the level of talent here at Toronto Star Wheels. I maintain that the roster of people writing for this publication is the best in the country and this is proved just about every autumn, year in and year out.
The occasion is the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada’s annual Journalism Awards presentation, held during AJAC’s annual TestFest, which begins the process of determining the Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year.
Awards are handed out in nine categories, although only eight are directly related to automotive writing and reporting, for the previous 12 months. Of those eight, several are presented for typography and design. Which means that out of the remaining six, Wheels writers this year either won or were runners-up in five categories. And two of the other winners started their careers here at Wheels.
The big award, for Journalist of the Year, eluded us but Wheels writers have won the coveted prize numerous times in the past. This year’s winner, and a most worthy recipient of the award presented by Jaguar Land Rover Canada, was Kelly Taylor of the Winnipeg Free Press. Runners-up were writers Mark Richardson and Rob Beintema.
The first runner-up, Richardson, a former editor of Wheels, was cited by the judges as having an amazing body of work that displayed a great sense of what’s new and interesting in the automotive world.
In presenting the Journalist of the Year award, Barbara Barrett, national communications and public affairs director of Jaguar Land Rover Canada, said: “This award was founded over 30 years ago by Jaguar and it’s always a thrill to be able to honour Canada’s top talents in automotive journalism.”
Noting that the late Jaguar presi- dent, John Mackie, founded the award, Barrett added: “Jaguar and Rover are premium and exclusive brands, so it’s appropriate that we recognize the premium journalism published by this exclusive group of Canadian automotive journalists.”
The Wakefield Castrol Awards recognize writing excellence in automotive journalism and our Kathy Renwald won for vehicle testing. Leslie Wimbush, who wrote for Wheels for years, was first in technical writing.
The Bridgestone Canada award for Feature Writing was won by Stephanie Wallcraft, who started at Wheels reporting about motorsport and has since expanded her horizons to include vehicle testing, debuts and general features. Paul Ferris, whose work has appeared in Wheels but is known primarily for his writing for various CAA publications, was named runner-up.
The CAA Road Safety Journalism Award was given to former Wheels columnist Lorraine Sommerfeld. Ferris received an honourable mention in this category.
The Pirelli Photography Award in the published category went to Brendan McAleer while the top prize for unpublished work went to Wheels’ own Jil McIntosh.
Volvo Cars of Canada Corp. handed out the silverware for environmental journalism and it went to Chris Chase while the runner-up was David Miller. Neither has worked for Wheels but — as this is the publication of champions — we’ll have to see about changing that.
Congratulations to all the winners. We’ll be back, hopefully for more, in 2016. nmcdonald@thestar.ca