Fellowship Winner - 2002
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Pierre Duchesne, a journalist with the Radio-Canada Television public affairs program Zone Libre in Montréal, was the 2002 recipient of the Michener-Deacon Fellowship sponsored by the Michener Awards Foundation. The award was presented to him by Governor General Clarkson during the 2001 Michener Award ceremony held at Rideau Hall, on April 30th, 2002.
In the year 2000, Radio-Canada gave Mr. Duchesne six months sabatical leave to work on his first volume on the unauthorized biography of Jacques Parizeau on which he had been working since 1997. The second volume was published recently. The Michener-Deacon Fellowship will allow M. Duchesne to work full time on the third and last volume of this endeavour.
Mr. Duchesne has won several international awards, including Radio-France prizes in 1998 and 2001 and Amnesty International prizes in 1998 and 1999. He received these prizes for his reporting on irregularities in the Summer Olympic Games of 2000 and for his coverage of workers without land in the Amazon forest, among other subjects.
The Michener-Deacon Fellowship is intended to allow the journalist four months of studies that promote the public interest and benefit the community while at the same time enhancing the journalist’s own competence. The fellowship is awarded annually, depending on merit.
Judges for the 2002 Michener-Deacon Fellowship:
Clinton Archibald, associate professor of public policy and management, Faculty of Administration, University of Ottawa; Lindsay Crysler, adjunct faculty member, school of journalism, University of King’s College, Halifax; former managing editor The Gazette, Montreal; former director, journalism department, Concordia University, Montreal; Claire Helman, former film-maker, National Film Board; former public affairs broadcaster, CBC Radio; former lecturer in communications at a Japanese University; Jodi White (chair), former producer, CBC Radio; Chief Operations Officer, Earnscliffe Strategy Group, Ottawa.
The fellowship of the Michener Awards Foundation, introduced in 1987, is known today as the Michener-Deacon Fellowship (named after the late Roland Michener and the late Paul Deacon, a senior media executive and Michener Awards Foundation president). The fellowship is to encourage excellence in investigative print and broadcast journalism that serves the public interest through values that benefit the community. Mature journalists are invited to submit written outlines for studies over four months that will strengthen their competence.