Nunatsiaq News writers honoured at this year’s Quebec newspaper gala

Nunatsiaq News reporter Thomas Rohner accepts his Quebec Community Newspaper Award in investigative journalism for a series he wrote on workplace bullying i the Government of Nunavut public service. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Nunatsiaq News staff who attended this year’s Quebec Community Newspaper Award ceremony in Montreal June 3, from left: Jim Bell, Jane George, David Murphy, Sarah Rogers and Thomas Rohner. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE BINETTE)

Nunatsiaq News picked up five first place writing awards, several second and third place awards and a top editorial award at the Quebec Community Newspaper Association’s annual awards gala held June 3 in Montreal.

Thomas Rohner picked up a first place in investigative reporting for his series on bullying in the Government of Nunavut public service.

That series, which you can read here, fuelled in part by the on-going commitment of Iqaluit-Niaqunnguu MLA Pat Angnakak toward GN workplace wellness, helped to spur debates in the Nunavut legislature including last week’s committee of the whole discussions on public service human resource issues.

Rohner also placed second in the “best feature series” category for a series on cell-block brutality in Iqaluit and received a third place award for his feature on an Iqaluit science camp.

Reporter Sarah Rogers won first place in arts and entertainment for a piece she wrote on efforts to digitally preserve thousands of Cape Dorset Inuit prints.

Rogers also won a second place award in the “best community health story” category for how Salluit reached out to suicide prevention programs after a rash of suicides and another second place award for her story on how Nunavik homeowners are frustrated by home ownership policies.

Freelancer Dan Rubinstein won third place in the best community health story category with a story about a six-year, 6,000-kilometre trek that Stanley Vollant, Canada’s first Aboriginal surgeon, took through traditional trails linking northern Inuit and Innu with southern First Nations.

David Murphy, former Nunatsiaq News reporter, freelancer and now co-producer of the Nipivut Inuit radio show on McGill University’s CKUT, won best news story for his retelling of Russian pilot Sergey Ananov’s harrowing helicopter crash landing on the ice in Davis Strait.

Nunatsiaq News’ newest member of the team, Steve Ducharme, had barely been on the job for three months when he wrote this year’s top QCNA sports story on Inuk taekwondo master Simon Winsor.

Managing editor and reporter Lisa Gregoire also earned a first place nod for a business feature on efforts by Sanikiluaq residents to revive the local eiderdown industry.

Gregoire also won a third-place award in the best news story category for a story reporting that Nunavut coroner Padma Suramala had decided to call an inquest into the death of a mentally ill Igloolik man shot be police in 2012.

Nunatsiaq News’ long-time editor and wordsmith Jim Bell earned first place for “best editorial, local affairs,” for an editorial entitled Nunavut needs a new social contract about the growing divide between rich and poor in Nunavut.

And senior reporter Jane George placed second for her business story on GN workers in Cambridge Bay who run private businesses on the side.

The Nunatsiaq News also won a third place in the “best front page” category.

Congratulations to this year’s winners.