The Globe and Mail won eight of the 21 categories at the 71st National Newspaper Awards, garnering recognition for journalism that uncovered the SNC-Lavalin affair and broke news on the manhunt for two teen murder suspects who fled British Columbia to the wilds of Manitoba. Its coverage of Canada’s huge data gaps and a meditation on art and climate change were also lauded.
Geoffrey York, The Globe’s Africa bureau chief based in Johannesburg, was one of just two journalists to take home a pair of awards at Friday’s digital-only event, which was streamed from Toronto.
Mr. York won the Norman Webster Award for International Reporting with his stories detailing the realities of life in the heavily militarized dictatorship of Sudan. He, Matthew McClearn and Stephanie Nolen won the Business category for their in-depth investigation into the lending practices and other activities of Export Development Canada in South Africa and Colombia.
Other Globe winners included Kelly Grant, who received the E. Cora Hind Award for Beat Reporting with her extensive coverage of pharmacare and medically assisted dying. Robert Fife, Steven Chase, Sean Fine and Daniel Leblanc were honoured with the John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics, a recognition of The Globe’s role in breaking the story of the attempt of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office to put pressure on then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the prosecution of engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
The Globe also won Project of the Year for its year-long examination of key gaps in the way data are gathered and analyzed across the country and how this system is so fragmented.
Globe editor-in-chief David Walmsley said: “Brave, independent journalism has never been more important than now. And winning these awards helps us to showcase the standards of excellence that we hold ourselves to."
The Globe received 19 nominations and won eight of those categories at this year’s awards, the most of any outlet. La Presse and the Ottawa Citizen each won three, with Le Devoir and the Toronto Star each winning two.
Renata D’Aliesio, Melissa Tait, Ian Bailey and Andrea Woo won the Breaking News category for their coverage of the Western Canadian manhunt for two Port Alberni, B.C., teenagers accused of killing three people on the highways of northern British Columbia.
The Globe’s Marsha Lederman, who is based in the B.C. bureau, won the Arts and Entertainment Winner award for her in-depth examination of art and climate change as well as a feature about Margaret Atwood’s feverish activity after the death of her life partner.
Marcus Gee won the Bob Levin Award for Short Feature - named for The Globe editor who died last year - for his story about a mother’s struggle with her son’s opioid addiction.
Randy Richmond of the London Free Press was named Journalist of the Year and also won the Local Reporting category for his series exposing how a local police officer assaulted a woman and then had his force mislead the public about the incident. He was also nominated for the George Brown Award for Investigations.
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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to change one of the award wins.