UBC Journalism students have taken home another prestigious award, this time in the inaugural 2016 Digital Publishing Awards.
The project, “Out of the Shadows,” produced by students in the International Reporting Program, won silver for Best Digital Editorial Package.
The award, announced in Toronto on June 9, recognizes outstanding work from an editorial team in a thematic digital series.
The project focused on mental illness; students teams travelled to Benin, Jordan, Togo, and India, and examined how countries are responding to the leading cause of disability in the world. Their reporting was featured in the New York Times, as well as on Al-Jazeera.
The team went up against strong entries from CBC, the Toronto Star, and Chatelaine. UBC Journalism alumnus Chantelle Belle worked on the CBC team that won gold for their project on missing and murdered indigenous women, which was also overseen by adjunct professor Duncan McCue.
The Digital Publishing Awards recognizes excellence in the content and creation of Canadian digital publications.
Impressive creativity
Professor Peter Klein, who led the International Reporting class, said the project benefited from the digital journalism training that students received in other courses at the School, such as Integrated Journalism, Advanced Video, and Decoding Social Media.
“The creativity that our students brought to this project was very impressive,” said Klein.
“They brought such a high level of professionalism, from their sensitive approach to reporting on this difficult topic, to their understanding of how audiences relate to global journalism content online, to their technical abilities with audio, video and photography.”
The class was co-taught by Profs Peter Klein, Dave Rummel and Kathryn Gretsinger, with field support from adjunct professor Dan McKinney and academic guidance from Dr. Videsh Kapoor, Director of Global Health in the UBC Department of Family Practice.
The International Reporting Program at the School of Journalism was launched in 2009, with a donation from Mindset Foundation, to train the next generation of global journalists.
Past projects have won a long list of awards, including an Emmy, an Edward R. Murrow Award, a Sigma Chi Delta Award and numerous top prizes at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards.
