Congratulations to the 2016 CAJ Awards finalists!

OTTAWA, March 24, 2017 /CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists is pleased to announce most of the finalists for its annual awards for outstanding investigative journalism in Canada published or broadcast in 2016.

The winning entry in most categories will receive a $500 cash prize. The recipients in each category will be announced April 29 at the CAJ Awards gala and conference banquet in Ottawa, part of the #CAJ17 annual conference at the Sheraton Ottawa Hotel.

Delegates registering for the full conference (April 28-29) in most registration categories get a banquet ticket as part of their registration. Standalone tickets are also available at a cost of $67.85. Register and purchase tickets today via the conference registration page. Early bird rates for the conference run until April 21.

Awards finalists registering for the conference – either one-day plus gala or full conference – are automatically eligible for a 10% discount off the relevant fee. If your organization wants to send more than five finalists to the conference, a 25% discount is available. Contact us to confirm eligibility and register.

The Don McGillivray Award for the best overall investigative report for 2016 will also be announced at the awards banquet.

Please note the media outlet listed is where the finalist worked at the time their entry was broadcast/published or where the particular entry was broadcast/published. Finalists are listed alphabetically by media outlet. Links, where available, have been provided in the titles of the finalists' entries.

The finalists in the OPEN MEDIA category are:

Heather Evans, Dave Seglins, Chelsea Gomez, Matthew Braga
Surveillance In Canada - Past, Present & Future
CBC News – Investigative unit

Holly Moore, Vera-Lynn Kubinec, Katie Nicholson, Joanne Levasseur, Harvey Cashore, Joseph Loiero, Tarannum Kamanli, Bob McKeown
Doctors Without Boundaries
CBC News – The Fifth Estate / Investigative unit

Steven Chase, Robert Fife
Party fundraising
The Globe and Mail

Karen Howlett, Justin Giovannetti, Nathan VanderKlippe, Andrea Woo, Les Perreaux, Laura Blenkinsop, Trish McAlaster, Michael Pereira
Killer High: How Canada Got Addicted to Fentanyl
The Globe and Mail

Randy Richmond, Morris Lamont, Kate Dubinski, Juanita Sims, Ian Gillespie
Indiscernible: the death of Jamie High
The London Free Press

The finalists in the COMMUNITY MEDIA category are:

Eva Wasney, Colin Corneau, Andrew Nguyen, Tyler Stephens, Matt Goerzen, Jim Lewthwaite
Knights of D-Day
The Brandon Sun

Travis Lupick, Amanda Siebert
A community response: How the worst overdose epidemic in Vancouver's history left the Downtown Eastside to fend for itself
The Georgia Straight

The finalists in the OPEN BROADCAST FEATURE category are:

Cullen Crozier
Forgotten Survivors
APTN Investigates

Shiral Tobin, Johanna Wagstaffe, Jessica Linzey, Lee Rosevere
Fault Lines
CBC News – Vancouver

Kalli Anderson
The Twiblings Project
Freelance / CBC Radio – The Doc Project

Team entry
Salute
Huffington Post / AOL Canada

Allison Tierney, Navin Harrilal
Dopesick: Fentanyl's Deadly Grip
VICE – Viceland

The finalists in the OPEN BROADCAST NEWS category are:

Trina Roache, James Robinson
Black Tickle
APTN National News

Rosa Marchitelli, Manjula Dufresne, Jenn Blair, Karen Burgess, Francois Dallaire, David Horemans
Failure to Protect
CBC News – Go Public

Adrienne Arsenault, Michelle Gagnon, Nazim Baksh
The Extremes
CBC News – The National

Jill Macyshon
Sandy Bay Housing
CTV News

Rick Westhead, Paul Haber, Scott Ferguson, Darren York, Olivera Stojanovic, David Hughes, Brett Mitchell, Steve Dryden, Ken Volden, Anton Koschany
NHL Concussions
CTV News – W5 / TSN

The finalists in the COMMUNITY BROADCAST category are:

Natalie Clancy, Eric Rankin, Manjula Dufresne, Yvette Brend, Justin McElroy
The Frontline of Fentanyl
CBC News – Vancouver

James Evans
Fort McMurray Strong
CBC Radio One – Edmonton

Abigail Bimman
Unregistered nurse
CTV News Kitchener

The finalists in the CAJ / MARKETWIRED DATA JOURNALISM AWARD are:

Jacques Marcoux, Sean Kavanagh
311 calls for help handled so slowly, Winnipeg misses nearly half its targets
CBC News – Manitoba

Valérie Ouellet, Alex Boissonneault, Marie-Eve Potvin
10 years and $100 million in political donations
CBC News / Radio-Canada – Toronto

Renata D'Aliesio, Les Perreaux, Allan Maki, Jeremy Agius, Laura Blenkinsop
The Unremembered
The Globe and Mail

Joanna Frketich
Danger Zone
The Hamilton Spectator

Jeff Outhit
Critics see 'systemic racism' in police stops
Waterloo Region Record

The finalists in the ONLINE MEDIA category are:

Emma Loop
The Drone And the Damage Done
Buzzfeed News Canada

Sean Craig
What's Gone On Behind Closed Doors At Canada's Most-Visited Museum
Freelance / Buzzfeed News Canada

Joan Weeks, Karissa Donkin
Matthew Hines: Death in Custody
CBC News – Nova Scotia / New Brunswick

Lisa Jackson, Josh Bloch, Chris Bennett, Marty Flanagan, Connor Illsley, Anna Maria Tremonti, Kathleen Goldhar, CJ Hervey, James Milward
Highway of Tears: a virtual reality documentary
CBC Radio One – The Current

Mike De Souza
The Charest Affair
National Observer

The finalists in the PHOTOJOURNALISM category are:

Nahlah Ayed
The Rescuers
CBC News

Rafferty Baker
2016 portfolio
CBC News – Vancouver

Larry Wong
2016 portfolio
Postmedia Network – Edmonton

The finalists in the SCOOP category are:

Willow Fidler
Police admit racism
APTN National News

Diana Swain, Lori Ward, Timothy Sawa
Students Unhushed
CBC News – Investigative unit

Mercedes Stephenson
Suicide Bomber
CTV News

Colin Perkel
Canada plunging into elevator crisis
The Canadian Press

Joe Friesen
The death of Colten Boushie
The Globe and Mail

The finalists in the DAILY EXCELLENCE category are:

Olivia Condon, Vincent McDermott, Cullen Bird, Robert Murray
'It's gone. It's all gone': Wildfire empties Fort McMurray as flames enter city
Fort McMurray Today

John Cotter, Lauren Krugel, Dean Bennett, Sylvia Strojek, Mary Jo Laforest, Gwen Dambrofsky, Ken Trimble, Chris Purdy, Bob Weber, Robert Drinkwater, Jennifer Graham, Tim Cook, Kevin Ward.
Fort McMurray Wildfire
The Canadian Press

Susan Clairmont
Steadfast in their faith
The Hamilton Spectator

Jon Wells
Search ends in tragedy: Finnigan Danne found dead
The Hamilton Spectator

The finalists in the TEXT FEATURE category are:

Lezlie Lowe
Before the murder and after: the life of Tyler Richards
Freelance / The Coast – Halifax, N.S.

Tyler Dawson
Watchdogs, oversight and Ontario's thin blue line: How the stakes got so high
Ottawa Citizen

Paul Webster
Big Pharma vs. Everyone
Freelance / Report on Business Magazine

Jason Markusoff, Nancy Macdonald, Charlie Gillis
The Great Escape
Maclean's

Jon Wells
The forever girl
The Hamilton Spectator

The finalists in the JHR / CAJ AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTING will be announced once they are available.
A full statement with this category's finalists and the others will be released at that time.

The finalists in the CWA CANADA / CAJ AWARD FOR LABOUR REPORTING are:

Nelisha Vellani, Melissa Mancini, Charlsie Agro
Restaurant dress codes: Should dressing sexy be a job requirement?
CBC News: Marketplace

Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Melissa Renwick, Paul Watson, Cameron Tulk, Kelsey Wilson, Frances Kelly
Lethal Legacy
Toronto Star

Min Sook Lee
Migrant Dreams
TVO

The finalists in the CAJ / CNW GROUP STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE are:

Adam Marsh
The Educated Homeless
Camosun College / Nexus Newspaper

Justina Deardoff, Hanna Deeves, Katherine Huitema
Not A Magic Pill
Mount Royal University / The Calgary Journal

Allister Aalders, Skye Bryden-Blom, Jennie Cyril, Joel LeBlanc, Daniel Mackenzie, Nic Meloney, Whitney Middleton, Matthew Moore, Hilary Pettigrew, Jean-Marc Samson, Blake Seymour, Callum Smith, Benoit Crawford-Leblanc, Jenn Edwards, Chris Lee, Nicole Ly, Dan MacIsaac, Ethan Saulnier, Brandon Munroe, Kadence Ellis, Kristen Brown, Ellen Coles, Ed Halverson, Scott Hastings, Nicole Martelle, Jane Nicholson, Andres Porras, Christian Roach, Marilyn Sexton, Olesya Shyvikova, John Wimberly, Morgan Jessome, CJ Killam, Nick Madore, Jake Nissen, Romney Tarasco, Jason Cohanim, Michael Decoste, Wyatt Estabrooks, Richard Harris, Caitlin Hartlen, Alyssa Lewis Graham
Untitled: The Legacy of Land in North Preston
Nova Scotia Community College

Alexander F. Quon
Lindell Smith: The inside story of how he took Halifax Peninsula North in a landslide
University of King's College, Halifax / The Signal

Consistent with information in the entry package instructions, judges had the discretion to name between one and five finalists in each award category. There were a total 276 entries for the 2016 awards program.

Congratulations to all our finalists. Your work has been outstanding, inspiring and a reminder of how despite the unending fiscal challenges facing our industry, Canadian journalists still produce plenty of amazing, important and impactful journalism. We thank you for entering and we hope to see you in Ottawa.

The Canadian Association of Journalists is a professional organization with about 600 members across Canada. The CAJ's primary roles are public-interest advocacy work and professional development for its members.

www.caj.ca | www.facebook.com/CdnAssocJournalists | www.twitter.com/CAJ

SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists

Nick Taylor-Vaisey, CAJ president - 647-968-2393 cell, [email protected]; Hugo Rodrigues, Awards committee chair - [email protected]