Michener Awards Foundation announces Fellowship winners

OTTAWA, Apr. 30, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - The Michener Awards Foundation today announced its 2019 Michener-Deacon Fellowships will be awarded to journalists Corbett Hancey, Greg Mercer and Jim Poling. This year, the foundation has awarded two fellowships for investigative work, each worth $40,000 plus $5,000 in expenses.

The two winning projects are:

—CORBETT HANCEY for a proposal to produce a series of investigative articles, for print and broadcast, on the recent controversial decision, made by the Canadian Government, to allow Canadian defence contractors to sell weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian-backed rebels in the country's restive east; and

—GREG MERCER AND JIM POLING for a proposal to examine the hidden problem of occupational disease in Canada, to promote better understanding of why the situation is so under-reported and victims rarely compensated.  The resulting series will be published widely in print and on media websites. 

Judges were delighted not only by an increase in applications this year, but also by the quality of the entries.

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, will host the Michener Awards ceremony at Rideau Hall on June 14, where the 2019 Michener-Deacon Fellowships will be presented and the winner of the 2018 Michener Award for public service journalism will be announced.

The Michener-Deacon Investigative Journalism fellowship is supported by the BMO Financial Group, the Michener Awards Foundation, CN and the family of the late Paul S. Deacon. It allows a journalist to devote up to four months for a reporting project. Applicants are required to undertake a project that aspires to the criteria of the annual Michener Award for journalism with its emphasis on making an impact for the public good.

The Michener Award, founded in 1970 by the late Roland Michener, then governor-general, honours excellence in public-service journalism. The judges' decisions are heavily influenced by the degree of public benefit generated by the print, broadcast and online entries submitted for consideration.

Judges for the 2018 Michener-Deacon Fellowships:                                              

Donna Logan (chair), former CBC senior media executive and founding Director of the Graduate School of Journalism at UBC;
Dean Jobb, Professor at University of King's College, author, former reporter, editor and columnist;
Connie Monk, Program head of broadcast and online journalism at BCIT, former journalist and producer at CBC;
Genevieve Rossier, Directrice des Communications, Relations Publiques et Visibilité Numérique à Bibliothèque et Archives National du Québec, former Directrice Communications, Marketing et Contenus Numériques, La Place des Arts; and
Romayne Smith Fullerton, Associate professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, and Ethics Editor at J-Source.

Web sites: 
www.michenerawards.ca
www.prixmichener.ca

SOURCE Michener Awards Foundation

Margo Goodhand, Chief Judge, Michener Awards, [email protected]; Julie Rocheleau, Rideau Hall Press Office, [phone], [email protected]