1995 Michener Award Winner
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Ottawa, May 6, 1996. CBC Radio, Ottawa was the winner of the 1995 Michener Award for an enquiry into allegations of a military cover-up during the infamous Somalia affair. CBC Radio was among five finalists nominated for the Award. The finalists, along with two recipients of Michener Fellowships, were honoured both at a ceremony, and later in the evening, at a dinner hosted by Their Excellencies The Right Honourable Roméo LeBlanc, Governor General of Canada, and Mrs. Diana Fowler LeBlanc.
In December of 1992, in a military peacekeeping operation called Operation Deliverance, 900 Canadian soldiers were sent to Somalia to bring order to the chaos sweeping this coastal nation in East Africa. The region was being torn by famine and civil war. But the troops that were sent to restore order became the subject of disturbing revelations of wrong-doing, a breakdown of discipline, and a failure of leadership and accountability. It all began in 1993 with the torture and slaying of a teen-ager and festered on with a public inquiry into allegations that a cover-up, including destruction of evidence, was known at the highest military and departmental levels.
The inquiry, often conducted through Access of Information machinery and too often despite military efforts to block such access, led the Federal Information Commissioner to launch a Federal Court case on whether the Somalia public inquiry can block media use of Access of Information processes.
Accepting the Award on behalf of the CBC was reporter Michael McAuliffe. He was the lead reporter whose work contributed substantially to the creation of the government inquiry, a process that the Liberal government eventually closed down.
There were 57 entries for the 1995 Award. Governor General LeBlanc said that "the
Michener Awards recognize not only excellence, but public benefit. And perhaps they recognize
something else: such old-fashioned qualities as integrity, determination, and concern for
others". (full text of his award night address).
Heather Abbott of CBC Radio and Jamie Swift, author and freelance writer, were the recipients of the 1996 Michener Awards Foundation Fellowships.
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| Heather Abbott - 1996 Fellow (click to enlarge) |
Jamie Swift - 1996 Fellow (click to enlarge) |
Jamie Swift was born in Montreal and educated at McGill University.
He has been an investigative writer-journalist for twenty years
specializing in resource, social, political and economic issues. A
full-time free-lancer and author, he is a frequent contributor to CBC's
radio program "Ideas", often on Third World Themes. His
articles have been published in the Globe and Mail, the Montreal
Gazette and other newspapers and magazines. He has authored
books on mining and forestry, as well as a biography of Eric Kierans.
Mr. Swift plans to write a book that "will tell the story of
Canada's fifty-year journey across the world stage, particularly as
it relates to the needs of the world's poorest people and poorest
nations." He will work with Queen's University on his project. (Jamie
Swift Michener Report)
Heather Abbot has been a senior producer of CBC Radio's flagship
news and information program Sunday Morning since 1994. She started
as a Calgary Herald reporter in 1982 and joined CBC Radio Ottawa as
associate producer of CBC morning in 1985. She left in 1989 as
producer and subsequently became producer of Morningside. For her
project she will assess the consequences of a "piecemeal retreat of
the federal government from its historic leadership role." She also
said in her outline that "The shrinking of the state is a phenomenon
troubling almost all Western democracies. In Canada, it's created a
tumultuous arena that touches on many areas including Quebec's
renewed sovereignty crusade." (Heather Abbott Michener Report)
Honourable Mention: The Vancouver Sun, 1) for a series
of articles on excessive distribution, prescription and consumption
of legal drugs in Canada. The articles led the provincial government
to ban the drug company practice of using the drug-prescription
records of physicians to try to boost sales. 2) for an enquiry
which led to the uncovering of the "Bingogate"
scandal and the reimbursement, to 58 Nanaimo charities, of bingo
proceeds skimmed by a now-defunct society directed by a senior
member of the NDP provincial party.
Citations of merit were awarded to:
Canadian Press, for a story about a disease as lethal as
the AIDS virus which caused the tainted blood scandal - the
Kreutzfeldt-Jacob brain disease, revealed at the Krever enquiry into
tainted blood - which led to the largest recall of blood products in
Canadian history.
The Toronto Star, for a series of stories uncovering gross
government mismanagement, profiteering, theft, conflict of interest,
and wasted dollars in the multi-million housing program for poor and
middle-class Ontarians, which was cut by the current government.
The Province, Vancouver, for a series of articles by
reporters Lora Grindlay and Ann Rees trying to
explain why so many mentally-ill people are living in crisis on
Vancouver streets. It documented the jailing of thousands lacking
adequate mental illness treatment. The six-part series called
"Madness on our Streets" focused on the government decision to
reduce facilities at the only provincial tertiary care mental
institution. Public support for the series was considerable and the government halted
the reduction of services.
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Judges for the 1995 Michener Award:
Jeannine Locke, former journalist with the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Toronto Star; now-retired CBC film-maker; Marilyn MacDonald, former Atlantic provinces magazine and CBC journalist, former director of public relations at Dalhousie University, Halifax; Arch MacKenzie former Ottawa bureau chief of the Canadian Press and the Toronto Star (Chair of the judging Panel); Kevin Peterson former publisher of the Calgary Herald; Guy Rondeau, former bureau chief, La Presse Canadienne, Montreal.
Judges for the 1996 Fellowship:
The Honourable D. Keith Davey, Senator (Chair of the Judging Panel); Sandy Baird, former publisher, The Kitchener-Waterloo Record; Françoise Coté, Quebec author and journalist; Barry Mullin, former ombudsman, Winnipeg Free Press, now journalism lecturer at the University of Winnipeg; Jodi White, Vice-President of Corporate Affairs at Imasco Limited, Chair of the Public Policy Forum.
The Michener Award, founded in 1970 by the late Right Honourable Roland Michener, then Governor General, goes to a news organization. The judges’ decisions are heavily influenced by the degree of public benefit generated by the print and broadcast projects submitted for consideration.