The Toronto Star and Globe and Mail each won five awards while Michèle Ouimet of La Presse won two individual honours Friday as the National Newspaper Awards were handed out for the 65th time.
Ouimet won in the Columns category and shared top spot with La Presse colleague Agnès Gruda in the International category. Ouimet has now won six NNAs in her career, one shy of the record seven won previously by Serge Chapleau of La Presse, Stephanie Nolen of the Globe and Mail and Roy Peterson of the Vancouver Sun. Four other journalists have also won six awards since the competition began in 1949.
The National Newspaper Awards are open to daily newspapers, news agencies and online news sites approved for entry by the NNA Board of Governors. Sixty-nine finalists were nominated in 22 categories, selected from 1,206 entries published in 2013. Of 57 organizations to submit entries, 22 had nominations for the prestigious awards.
The Toronto Star’s five wins came for Project of the Year and Multimedia Feature (team entries), Arts and Entertainment (Linda Barnard), Explanatory Work (Amy Dempsey) and Long Feature (Don Gillmor).
The Globe and Mail’s wins came in Business (team entry), Beat Reporting (Dakshana Bascaramurty), Short Feature (Grant Robertson), Presentation (Jason Chiu) and News Feature Photo (Moe Doiron).
The Calgary Herald won two awards on its own – Breaking News (team entry) and Feature Photo (Leah Hennel) – and teamed up with the Edmonton Journal to win in the Investigations category (team entry). The Journal also won in the News Photo category (Shaughn Butts).
Single awards went to the Canadian Press (Politics), Edmonton Sun (Sports Photo), Halifax Chronicle-Herald (Editorial Cartooning), New Brunswick Telegraph Journal (Local Reporting), Waterloo Region Record (Editorials) and Winnipeg Free Press (Sports).
The winners were announced at an awards ceremony Friday night. Winners received cheques for $1,000 and a certificate of award. Other finalists received citations of merit.
