Coverage of COVID-19, from first-person reporting and poignant photographs to in-depth investigations and bitingly satirical editorial cartoons, dominated as winners of the 2020 National Newspaper Awards were announced.
Nearly half of the 66 finalists were nominated for work that related in some way to the pandemic that dominated news coverage in 2020, and 10 of the 22 winning entries were for submissions entirely or mostly about COVID.
Geoffrey York of the Globe and Mail has his name on a winning entry for the fifth time in his career. York, who was a winner in two categories last year, was one of five Globe and Mail journalists who teamed up in 2020 to win the John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics. Another member of that team, Paul Waldie, has now won four NNAs in his career.
Erin Anderssen of the Globe and Andrew Vaughan of the Canadian Press also won for the fourth time. Anderssen won the Bob Levin Award for Short Feature, and Vaughan won the Breaking News Photo category.
Leah Hennel of the Globe and Mail won her third NNA, this time in the Sports Photo category. Isabelle Hachey of La Presse (William Southam Award for Long Feature) won her second, as did Jacques Nadeau of Le Devoir (General News Photo) and André Picard of the Globe (Columns).
Several individuals took home top honours for the first time after being nominated previously. They include Michael de Adder (Editorial Cartooning), the Globe’s Johanna Schneller (Arts and Entertainment) and the Globe’s Nathan VanderKlippe (Norman Webster Award for International Reporting). Each came into this year’s competition having been a finalist four times previously. Ariane Lacoursière of La Presse, who won the E. Cora Hind Award for Beat Reporting, had been a finalist three previous times.
Tom Cardoso of the Globe and Mail was named Journalist of the Year for an investigation that exposed systemic bias against Indigenous, Black and female prisoners in Canada’s corrections system.
You can read all the results here.