CBC News Wins Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism

“This is CBC at its best, telling these deeply personal stories with insight and dignity, and making the project even richer by knitting together its reportorial and production resources on every platform,” says Trina McQueen, a jury member and longtime broadcast executive, who is now adjunct professor in the Arts and Media department of the Schulich School of Business at York University. “The direct involvement of indigenous journalists added to the depth and authenticity of the reporting.”

Named after CJF founder Eric Jackman, this annual award honours an organization that embodies exemplary journalistic standards and practices with a resulting positive impact on the community it serves. The finalists in the large media category were 16×9 (Global News), The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and the Toronto Star.

• The Landsberg Award, presented in association with the Canadian Women’s Foundation, celebrates a journalist giving greater profile to women’s equality issues. Named after noted journalist and social activist Michele Landsberg, the award comes with a$5,000 prize. Two winners—and three people—were selected in recognition of the year’s exceptional coverage of women’s equality issues. The Radio-Canada Enquête duo of journalist Josée Dupuis and producer/director Emmanuel Marchand was one winner, for their investigative work on sexual abuse of indigenous women by police in the Quebec town of Val d’Or, while the other was Catherine Porter, a columnist and feature writer with the Toronto Star, whose columns explored systemic issues such as women murdered by their partners.
• The Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy provides a seasoned Canadian journalist with $100,000 and an opportunity to pursue a year-long investigation into a current policy issue. It is sponsored by the Atkinson Foundation, the Toronto Star and the Honderich family. This year’s recipient is Catherine Wallace, a freelance reporter who has worked for more than three decades in the newspaper industry in Toronto and Montreal. For her fellowship, she plans to explore if the answer to the future of the newspaper business model lies in building partnerships within communities.

The previously announced Lifetime Achievement Award went to Lloyd Robertson, in recognition of a distinguished career in broadcast journalism spanning more than five decades, and counting. The longtime anchor of CTV National News, Robertson is currently host and chief correspondent of W5, CTV’s investigative news program.

The CJF thanks presenting sponsor CN, along with the following organizations for their support of this event: RBC, BMO Financial Group, Labatt Breweries of Canada, Accenture, Medtronic, Scotiabank, Shaw Communications, Barrick Gold Corporation, the Jackman Foundation, Manulife, Rogers, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Thomson Reuters, Canadian Bankers Association, and Tom Kierans and Mary Janigan.