The Narwhal and The Toronto Star have won this year’s Michener Award for Public Service Journalism for their reporting on the Ontario Greenbelt Scandal.
“The Toronto Star and The Narwal told the story of corruption at the heart of the Ontario Greenbelt. Their journalism accomplished what every Michener-worthy piece of reporting sets out to do: hold public officials to account and change our communities for the better,” said Margo Goodhand, President of the Michener Awards Foundation. “In fact, all of tonight’s finalists are shining examples of the power of investigative journalism at its very best. My sincere congratulations to these newsrooms.”
The Michener Award was founded in 1970 by the late Roland Michener, then governor general, to honour excellence in public service journalism. The Michener Award submissions are judged by an expert panel of journalists who have worked in media outlets and in academia across the country.
The following newsrooms were awarded a Michener citation of merit:
- The Canadian Press: A ‘predator’ at CSIS
- CBC/Radio-Canada: The girls around Robert Miller/Le système Miller
- The Globe and Mail: Montreal fire safety
- Montreal Gazette: Staff haunted by suicide at the Lakeshore Hospital ER
- Radio-Canada: La face cachée de Neptune / The dark side of Neptune
The Michener Award Foundation also recognized the 2024 Michener-Deacon (Ève Lévesque and Marie-Christine Noël) and Michener-O’Hagan Fellowship (Jean-Hugues Roy and Naël Shiab) , recipients, as well as honouring two giants of political journalism, Terry Mosher and Chantal Hébert, with the prestigious Michener-Baxter Award for exceptional service to Canadian public service journalism.
