Nunatsiaq News takes 8 QCNA awards

Nunatsiaq News earned eight awards when the Quebec Community Newspapers Association recognized the best of its members’ 2023 work during a ceremony on June 28.

“This year’s results recognize exemplary individual work by our journalists, but also demonstrate how much solid teamwork takes place to consistently deliver news on an award-winning website,” said managing editor Corey Larocque.

Investigative work by Randi Beers, health reporting by Jeff Pelletier and business writing by Cedric Gallant earned top honours at the annual awards gala in Montreal. And a special section on housing led by David Venn that was a year in the making earned two accolades.

Beers wrote a three-part series about bullying, harassment and blacklisting experienced by nurses in Nunavut’s Department of Health, spending hours talking to sources, building a trust with them and getting them to describe their stories.

“The determination and dedication of the reporter is evident in each story,” judge Ryan Macdonald wrote.

Gallant won the Best Business Story category for his profile of Kuujjuaq businessman Jeffery Gordon, who realized his dream of owning a gym.

“This story highlights how a local business can fill a need and make a difference in people’s lives,” wrote Macdonald, who also judged the business category.

Gallant joined the paper in a full-time position in January and relocated to Kuujjuaq after graduating Concordia University.

Pelletier won for his coverage of last summer’s community-wide tuberculosis screening clinic in Pangnirtung.

He also finished in second place in the investigative reporting category for his coverage of the Karima Manji Inuit enrolment fraud case, a story he broke after Inuit on social media started questioning the legitimacy of a business that claimed to be Inuit-owned, run by Manji’s twin daughters, Amira and Nadya Gill.

Venn was recognized for the Our Home section, a four-part series that revisited the Homeownership Assistance Program run by the Government of the Northwest Territories in the 1980s. It won the Best Feature Series category.

The 20-page report — in both English and Inuktitut — examined whether that 30-year-old program could be revived to address Nunavut’s current housing woes. In the spring of 2024, the Government of Nunavut announced a program it refers to as HAP 2.0.

“This story is detailed in its explanation of the program, but human in the way the stories are told,” judge Magda Konieczna wrote.

The Our Home section was also singled out as the winner of a new QCNA award, the Egbert Gaye Dare to Make a Difference Award.

That first-time memorial award is named after an editor of the Montreal Community Contact who was known for giving his community a collective voice, his advocacy, philanthropy and kindness to others, according to the QCNA.

Gaye died in 2023.

The award is intended to inspire others to make a difference in their own ways.

From left, Deborah Qaunaq, Faith Arnatsiaq, Martha Qattalik and Susan Avingaq use an ulu to carve and eat maktaaq in the Sivuniit Middle School gym. (Photo by Anthony Qrunnut, special to Nunatsiaq News)

Anthony Qrunnut, a Grade 9 student at Igloolik’s Sivuniit Middle School won the Best Contributed Photo category for a picture he took at an event where students invited elders to the school to eat country food.

“By getting low and coming in close, this photo invites the viewer to be an active part of the scene,” judge Stanton Paddock wrote.

It was the first time the award was given, and it was the first year that Nunatsiaq News worked with the school’s journalism club.

Nunatsiaq News’ production co-ordinator, Krista Klassen, earned top marks in the Best Ad category for an ad she designed for sister company Ayaya Marketing & Communications that ran in the paper’s 50^th anniversary special section. Judge Janis Cleugh called it “clean, concise, easy on the eyes.”

For the fourth consecutive time, Nunatsiaq won the Best Website category.