TORONTO – The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) has awarded CBC Radio One's The Current with the Excellence in Journalism Award in the large media category, while the Vancouver Observer won in the small/local media category at the organization's annual awards gala.
Additional Excellence in Journalism Award finalists included The Canadian Press-Ottawa Bureau, The Huffington Post Canada and past recipients Toronto Star and Winnipeg Free Press.
Other award winners include:
– The Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, worth up to $100,000, was given to Michael Valpy, former Globe and Mail writer and columnist and now a senior fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto and professor of media theory at U of T and the University of Western Ontario. For his fellowship, Valpy will explore social cohesion in Canada.
– The Greg Clark Award, went to Tamara Baluja, a Toronto-based Globe and Mail national reporter with a special interest in education. Baluja proposed that she spend a week visiting First Nations schools in remote British Columbia to gain insight into successful models of education.
– The William Southam Journalism Fellowships, formerly known as the Canadian Journalism Fellowships, for a year of post-secondary study at the University of Toronto, were awarded to Toronto Star journalist Murray Whyte; CBC documentary television producer Gil Shochat; Winnipeg Free Press public policy reporter Mary Agnes Welch; Teresa Temweka Chirwa, an investigative journalist and editor at Zodiak Broadcasting in Lilongwe, Malawi; Mary Triny Mena, an investigative reporter for Venezuela’s Globovision; and National Post columnist Peter Kuitenbrouwer.
Peter Jennings, Canadian-born anchor and senior editor of ABC's World News Tonight, was acknowledged posthumously during an Honorary Tribute for a storied journalism career, while the Lifetime Achievement Award went to Jack "Sig" Sigvaldason who left Winnipeg for Yellowknife to work as the editor of News of the North.
