Nunatsiaq News is the recipient of seven first-place finishes among 12 honours from the Canadian Community Newsmedia Awards. One of the paper’s first-place accolades is for its special section on the 50th anniversary of the James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement. (Graphic created by Nunatsiaq News)
Nunatsiaq News wins several community journalism awards
Newspaper earns 7 first-place finishes among 12 honours in nationwide contest
Nunatsiaq News received seven first-place finishes out of 12 honours overall at this year’s Canadian Community Newsmedia Awards.
Hosted by industry advocate News Media Canada, the annual competition included 654 entries in 29 categories for stories and photos published by English and French-language community newspapers across the country in 2025.
The results were announced Monday.
“This has been a heck of a year for Nunatsiaq News,” said managing editor Corey Larocque. “This year’s CCNA wins were all team awards, which says a lot about how our newsroom works.”
Nunatsiaq News won best all-round newspaper for its circulation size, which is between 1,500 and 6,499.
The paper placed ahead of Town and Country This Week in Athabasca, Alta., and St. Marys Independent in St. Marys, Ont. Nunatsiaq News also won best editorial page and best front page.
“What a stellar newspaper,” said one judge’s comment. “Professional, clean looking, bilingual perfection.”
Senior production artist Krista Klassen finished second for best ad design.
The rest of the categories the paper placed in were in a category with a circulation of less than 10,000, including Nunatsiaq News’s first-place finishes for best arts coverage and best community newspaper website.
Former reporter Arty Sarkisian took home second place in the best feature story category for his piece on Lisa Iqqalik, an elder who says the federal government should apologize for forced relocations from an area called Padloping to Qikiqtarjuaq in 1968.
Elder Ann Hanson placed second for her feature series about arranged marriages, “’Will you marry me?’ was not the question,’” as did Larocque for his national editorial about excessive use of unnamed sources in the media.
Another of Larocque’s editorials, about the need to declare suicide a crisis in Nunavut, placed first in the Best Local Editorial category.
Reporter Dominique Gené finished third for best news story, with her piece about the appointment of a Nunavik police chief who had been reprimanded in 2002 for using racially charged language with a detainee.
Nunatsiaq News won a National Newspaper Award in April for the special section it published last November on the 50th anniversary of the James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement.
These accolades follow several regional newspaper awards Nunatsiaq News won in June, including Best Overall Newspaper, among seven other categories.
“These recognitions show that not only are we running with the best community newspapers in Canada, in many areas, we’re leading,” Larocque said.
Congrats!
Congratulations/ ᐅᐱᒋᕙᕗᑦ Nunatsiaq News and the entire team on these awards. While numerous of us, myself included, like to whine and complain about this and that with regards to this newspaper. The fact remains that in today’s day in age we are fortunate to have a newspaper that reports and covers the ongoings throughout Nunavut, Nunavik, NWT and beyond. This thereby ensuring that life, the challenges and stories in the North are at the forefront. Visible and available to all who call the North their home and those who read from down south and elsewhere.
Always going to hope for more investigative and in-depth journalism. Not always going to agree with what is reported or written. Not always going to agree when a comment written does not get published. But that will not stop me from saluting and recognizing the work that NN and its team does to tell the incredible story of the North.
Be proud of these awards. Onwards and forward.
PSC