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The 1996 Michener Award Winner
- Toronto Star
OTTAWA, May 1, 1997 -
The Toronto Star received the Michener Award for meritorious
public service in journalism for a series of reports
on spousal abuse and children at risk.
The Star received the honour for two projects, published separately but judged as a single
entry, that dealt with the issues of spousal abuse and flaws in
Ontario's child protection system.
In both instances, the reports sparked public debate
and prompted formal government review.
The Star was selected from
among 44 entries for the award. The judges
had named five finalists. Governor General Romeo LeBlanc made the presentation of the 1996
Michener Award in a ceremony held at Government House in Ottawa. The Star
publisher John Honderich, who accepted the award on behalf of the
newspaper, called it a tremendous honour and added "the recognition is particularly significant because the Micheners are not only
given for excellent journalism, but also for
bringing about some kind of social good."
During the presentations, Governor General LeBlanc praised the
finalists for shedding new light on public issues and helping to change attitudes
and public policy.(full text of his award night address)
The Governor General also awarded the 1997 Michener Fellowship.
The recipient was Michel Venne, Quebec parliamentary correspondent for the
French-language daily, Le Devoir, in Montreal. He was chosen ahead
of eight other candidates. The four-month study-leave fellowship
will allow Mr. Venne to explore the topic "Privacy, Ethics and
Democracy" and the implications for health care presented by today's
deluge of electronic and other information technologies. He will
work with faculty members at the University of Victoria in British
Columbia and the University of Montreal. Introduced in 1987, the
Michener Awards Foundation Fellowship is to advance education in the
field of journalism and to foster promotion of the public interest
through values that benefit the community.
The Star's series on spousal abuse dealt with 133 cases gleaned
from court records. Working with then-assistant city editor Kevin
Donovan, reporters Rita Daly, Jane Armstrong, and Caroline Mallan tracked the cases through the judicial system
over a nine month period. The reports produced distressing evidence that nearly half of the
cases failed because of pressure on the battered women to bear the
burden of prosecution to supply most of the evidence. Changes that resulted from the series
included a new domestic court in Metro and a beefed-up protocol for
police dealing with domestic abuse. The eight-part series was
illustrated by photographer Ken Faught and designed by Catherine
Pike.
In the children-at-risk story, reporters Kevin Donovan and Moira
Welsh wrote about flaws in Ontario's child protection system which
gained national interest. Facing delays in obtaining, from the
provincial coroner's office, the files on children murdered in the
period 1991-1995, the Toronto Star team amassed their own sad record
of the failure of established child-protection forces. They showed how children's aid workers, doctors and other
professionals failed to protect children from abusive parents.
Numerous special inquiries were launched in Ontario and elsewhere.
Both projects were supported by a team of editors - including
special projects editor Dave Ellis and managing editor Lou Clancy.
Honourable Mention: Le Devoir, for an inquiry which exposed
plans by the provincial revenue department to amalgamate various
data bases in a way threatening to invade personal privacy. Those
articles, including news analysis and editorials, raised concerns
among members of the National Assembly and persuaded the government
to include some legislative safeguards, although not enough in the
newspaper's view.
Citations of merit were awarded to:
The Fifth Estate (CBC TV), for its coverage of Lt.-Comdr Marsaw,
the submarine commander found guilty of abusing his crew. CBC's
program "On the Beach" proved "incontrovertibly" that the naval
officer, demoted and dismissed after being found guilty by a court
martial of gross physical and verbal abuse of his submarine crew,
was the victim of a frame-up by a jittery military establishment and
a skewed justice system.
The Evening Times-Globe, Saint John, New Brunswick, for a
series of articles on sexual harassment happening in four New
Brunswick police forces which brought the provincial government to
react with an emergency inquiry that has produced an 18-page
anti-harassment policy.
The Stoney Creek News - Ontario, for a series of articles,
published over a period of four years, on the establishment of a
garbage dump near the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, an
environmentally-fragile area long a battleground between developers
and their opponents. This newspaper generated enough community
interest to prolong the anti-dump campaign although the project
eventually has been approved without any public hearings amid
heavy-handed threats of legal action against dump opponents.
Judges for the 1996 Michener Award:
Françoise Côté,
author and journalist, Montréal; 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,
communications consultant, Halifax; Arch MacKenzie, former Ottawa
Bureau Chief, The Canadian Press and The Toronto Star (Chair of the
Judging Panel); Kevin Peterson, former publisher of the Calgary
Herald.
Judges for the 1997 Fellowship:
David Humphreys, Public Affairs Consultant, Ottawa; former Senior
Editor, Calgary Albertan, Ottawa Journal, FP Publications, Globe and
Mail; Duncan McMonigal, Winnipeg, former Editor-in-Chief, Winnipeg
Free Press; Guy Rondeau, former Bureau Chief, La Press canadienne,
Montreal; Shirley Sharzer, Ottawa, former journalist, Toronto
Telegraph, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail; Jodi White, Vice-President
of Corporate Affairs at Imasco Limited; Chair of the Public Policy
Forum (Chair of the Judging Panel).
The Michener Award is unique because of its emphasis on the
impact of the journalism for the public good, plus recognition of
the resources available to the entrant in an effort to put smaller
and larger organization on a more equal footing.
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