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1991 Michener Award Winner - CBC-TV
May 5, 1992.
CBC-TV was the winner of the 1991 Michener Award. CBC news
operations in Winnipeg and Toronto collaborated on a series of investigative reports.
From Toronto's CBC at Six, a story un-covering widespread abuse of the Ontario health
insurance plan by drug addicts in American treatment centres. From
CBC
Winnipeg, a package of six stories from the I-Team exposing Winnipeg
police force corruption, furnace repair fraud, seamy immigration
practices, a federal tax loophole, and abuse of Indian band funds.
The Globe and Mail received Honourable Mention and four other news
operations received Citations of Merit (see below).
The presentation
of the awards was made at a dinner hosted by Governor General Ramon
Hnatyshyn and Her Excellency Gerda Hnatyshyn at Government House in
Ottawa. Jane Chalmers, executive producer, the I-Team, CBC Winnipeg and Susan Papp, a producer
with The Journal, accepted the Award on behalf of CBC-TV. Reporter
Paul Taylor, representing The Globe and Mail accepted the Honourable
Mention citation on behalf of the newspaper.The
finalists for the 1991 competition were drawn from a record high 65
entries and represent a broad spectrum of radio, television,
periodicals, and newspapers.
The family of the late Roland Michener, founding patron of the
annual award, were on hand to accept a special commemorative plaque
from the Governor General in honour of Mr. Michener's contribution
to Canadian Journalism. His Excellency said that Roland Michener appreciated journalism that
made for a better society, and he thought the Michener Awards might
help promote that kind of journalism. (full
text of Governor General's award night address and presentation of commemorative plaque)
1992 Michener Fellowships were awarded to two candidates - John Nowlan and Ruth Teichroeb.
Ms Teichroeb has been a Winnipeg Free Press social affairs reporter
since 1990. A graduate of Waterloo and Carleton Universities, she
worked with the Vancouver Province before moving to the Free Press
in 1988. She is a double Michener winner - an unprecedented
achievement. Her work on Manitoba adolescent treatment centres won
the newspaper its second straight appearance in the Michener Award
finals. She intends to use her four-month
study leave to examine problems in Manitoba's emerging native child
welfare system and specifically the increasing tension between
native child welfare agencies and main-stream authorities as native
groups press for more autonomy. Her investigation will be the basis for a series of
newspaper articles and ultimately the publication of a book on the
subject. (Flowers on my grave : how an Ojibwa boy's death helped
break the silence on child abuse) (Teichroeb
Fellowship
report).
John Nowlan is a veteran Maritime Provinces journalist for the
CBC and for the past 10 years has specialized in children's
programming. He is currently executive producer of Children's TV in Halifax,
Nova Scotia. He is a graduate of Acadia and King's College and
obtained his first full-time CBC job in 1964. He has served as an
announcer, reporter and producer. Apropos his fellowship, his goal is to learn about television, particularly
children's programming, in Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia and
determine what role if any, Canada can play in future programming in
those regions. (Nowlan
Fellowship report)
Honourable Mention:
The Globe and Mail: Medical reporter Paul Taylor's uncovered
a significant number of sexual offences perpetrated by psychiatrists and therapists
against patients in Ontario - mostly against women. His articles preceded
the creation of an Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons task force
on the issue. Task force reports provided the impetus for new
regulations governing sexual abuse along with prescribed penalties
for professional misconduct under the Regulated Health Professions
Act.
Citations of merit were awarded to:
CKSL-Q1O3, for twenty programs that challenged St. Thomas (Ont) city
hall secrecy about meetings and documents. Reporter David Helwig
opened a unique freedom-of-information advocacy service that seemed
to play a role in municipal election results.
L'Actualité: Writer Michel Arseneault's exposé called the
'Sixty-hour Week' touched off national scrutiny of a
too-little-known fact of life: child labour and its weak regulation.
Quebec is a main offender because wholesale social reform in 1979
lost track of youth aged 16 or younger. But fully-effective national
monitoring of a growing abuse is hard to find.
Prince Albert Herald: Neo-Nazi Carney Nerland got a four-year
sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the rifle slaying
of sometimes-trapper Leo LaChance. The Herald, like LaChance's
fellow natives, was among those questioning the apparent leniency
and other bizarre factors in the slaying. After The Herald's
Michener entry, based largely on the work of reporter Constance
Sampson, the Saskatchewan government announced a public review of
"a case that just won't go away."
Winnipeg Free Press: Exposure of sexual abuse and exploitation of
residents at several Manitoba adolescent treatment centres has
earned The Free Press its second straight finalist honour. Reporter
Ruth Teichroeb's work has generated reforms, a government review and
a government statement that child protection is now its No.1
priority.
Michener Award Night - Photo Gallery
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(Photo by Sgt Bertrand Thibeault -
Office of the Secretary to the Governor General)
L-R: John Nowlan, CBC, 1992 Fellowship recipient;
George Gordon, CKSL/Q103; John Sullivan, Winnipeg
Free Press; Susan Papp, CBC-TV; His
Excellency the Right Honourable Ray Hnatyshyn; Her
Excellency Gerda Hnatyshyn;
Paul Taylor, reporter, The Globe and Mail; Jean Paré,
Managing Editor, L'actualité; Constance Sampson,
reporter, Prince Albert Herald; Unknown; Ruth
Teichroeb, reporter, Winnipeg Free Press, 1992
Fellowship recipient.
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Judges for the 1991 Michener Award:
Arch MacKenzie, Chair of the judging panel; former Ottawa bureau chief of the Canadian Press and the Toronto Star; Claudette Tougas,
editorial writer, La Presse, Montreal; Cameron Bell, former reporter/editor and News Director, CHAN-TV (BCTV), Vancouver; Mimi
Fullerton, President of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council; and Sylvia Sweeney, journalist, broadcaster and founder of Elitha
Peterson Productions.
Judges for the 1992 Fellowship:
Senator Finlay MacDonald, chair of the judging panel, Sandy
Baird, former publisher of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record; Emmanuelle
Gattuso, senior vice-president for public affairs with the Canadian
Association of Broadcasters, Ottawa; Huguette Laprise, executive
assistant with La Presse Canadienne, Montreal; and Guy Rondeau,
retired chief of the Quebec Service of La Presse Canadienne,
Montreal.
Introduced in 1987, the fellowships of the Michener Award
Foundation are to advance education in the field of journalism and
to foster promotion of the public interest through values that
benefit the community. Each year, one or two fellowships have been
awarded to mature journalists who wish to use four-month
study-leaves to enhance their ability to pursue public service
journalism.
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