The UBC Graduate School of Journalism has been nominated for four 2012 Canadian Online Publishing Awards.
School-related projects by students and faculty are finalists for best video, best website and best article in the blue division, which is the business-to-business, professional association, farm and scholarly category.
The school won two COPAs in 2011.
The Reporting in Indigenous Communities class
This year, UBC Journalism is a finalist in the best overall online-only publication website for Shxw’éyelh: Stories of Health and Healing. The website is the product of a new initiative, Reporting in Indigenous Communities, the only journalism course in Canada to focus exclusively on Aboriginal news stories.
Under the guidance of award-winning CBC-TV journalist Duncan McCue, 15 students (pictured above) produced health reports on Indigenous communities across the Lower Mainland for the website. The content was produced by Kate Adach, Krystle Alarcon, Sadiya Ansari, Chelsea Blazer, Natalie Dobbin, Malin Dunfors, Lisa Hale, Tyler Harbottle, Farida Hussain, Meg Mittelstedt, Lucas Powers, Jacqueline Ronson, Keith Rozendal, Lindsay Sample and Kendall Walters.
Faculty member Kathryn Gretsinger was also involved with the project, and student Chantelle Bellrichard was the web editor.
Best story and video finalists
Students have two nominations in the best online-only article or series of articles category for stories written for the school’s student website, TheThunderbird.ca.
Suzanne Ahearne, Sadiya Ansari and Heather Roy are recognized for a report on the wearing of hijabs in soccer. The article was supervised by faculty member Carolyn Pritchard.
Lucas Powers and Linsday Sample are nominated for a story on the environmental cost of developing Vancouver’s waterfront. Faculty member Kathryn Gretsinger supervised the article.
Students Alexandra Minzlaff and Meg Mittelstadt are nominated for best video or multimedia feature for a video on a Vancouver photographer creating an online photo archive of Liberia. Faculty members Dan McKinney and David Rummel supervised the project.
Blog nomination
Journalism professor Alfred Hermida is also a finalist for best blog in the blue division.
It is the third year in a row that Prof. Hermida’s blog, Reportr.net, has been nominated. He won the award in 2010.
Launched in 2009, the Canadian Online Publishing Awards describe themselves as “the premier awards program for editorial-based digital publishers in Canada.”
Entries are judged by a panel of digital publishing experts from Canada and the U.S. The winners are due to be announced on October 22 at an awards ceremony Toronto.
