Finalists announced for 2009 National Newspaper Awards

TORONTO, March 15 /CNW/ – The Globe and Mail leads all newspapers in Canada with 15 finalists in the 61st National Newspaper Awards competition, closely followed by the Toronto Star with 14 finalists.

The Edmonton Journal and Montreal’s La Presse have six nominations each.

The Hamilton Spectator had four and The Canadian Press earned three nominations.

The Ottawa Citizen, Kingston Whig-Standard, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, and National Post had two each.

The Guelph Mercury, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, London Free Press, Montreal Gazette, Reuters, Sault Ste. Marie Star, Woodstock Sentinel-Review, Vancouver Province, Victoria Times Colonist, and Windsor Star have one each.

The 66 finalists in the 22 categories were announced on March 15, 2010, from the National Newspaper Awards office in Toronto. There were 1,301 entries in this year’s competition for works that appeared in the year 2009.

In all, 20 news organizations have been nominated.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Friday, May 14 following the Canadian Newspaper Association conference. Winners will receive cheques for $1,000 and a certificate of award. Runners-up receive citations of merit.

This is the 21st year for the NNAs under a Board of Governors which includes editors, publishers and the public from across Canada as well as representatives from the Toronto Press Club. Previous to 1989, the NNAs had been sponsored by the Toronto Press Club. The awards are administered from the National Newspaper Awards office in Toronto.

The National Newspaper Awards were founded by The Toronto Press Club in 1949.
Highlights:

* Bruno Schlumberger of the Ottawa Citizen has been nominated in Feature Photo and News Feature Photo.

* Carlos Osorio of the Toronto Star has been nominated twice, in Feature Photo and News Photo.

* Steve Buist of The Hamilton Spectator also has two nominations, in Investigations and Sports Reporting.

* Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star has been nominated twice, in Beats and in International Reporting.

* Rob Tripp of the Kingston Whig-Standard has two nominations, in Local Reporting with colleague Paul Schliesmann and in Beats.

* Graeme Smith of The Globe and Mail has been nominated for a third straight year in International Reporting.

* Michèle Ouimet of La Presse has been nominated for a third straight year.

* Marty Klinkenberg of the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal has been nominated for a third straight year.

* Jennifer Wells of the Toronto Star has two nominations this year, one for Short Features, the other for Business Reporting.
The nominees:

* Multimedia Feature: The Canadian Press on the impact of nanotechnology on humans; The Globe and Mail for a study of the lives of women in Afghanistan; Toronto Star for report of the Toronto school board’s long-term support programs for expelled students.

* News Feature Photography: Pawel Dwulit of the Toronto Star for a photo of a child wiping tears from a father’s eyes after his son was killed outside a convenience store; Darryl Dyck of The Canadian Press for a shot of grounded helicopter pilots watching as a B.C. forest fire rages in the distance; Bruno Schlumberger of the Ottawa Citizen for a photo of an 85-year-old war veteran in the late afternoon light at a war memorial ceremony.

* Beat Reporting: Michelle Shephard, Toronto Star, for her national security beat; Jodie Sinnema, Edmonton Journal, for health reporting; Rob Tripp, Kingston Whig-Standard, for crime-justice coverage.

* Explanatory Work: Stephanie Nolen, The Globe and Mail, for a story of why children in India are dyi