News

DeSmog Canada Named as Finalist for Canadian Online Publishing Award

By Emma Gilchrist

Nov. 26, 2015 1 min. read

This article is more than 8 years old

DeSmog Canada has been named as a finalist for “Best News Coverage” by the Canadian Online Publishing Awards.

The awards recognize the best of the country’s online publishing and are judged by a panel of experts from Canada and the U.S.

The other finalists in the “Best News Coverage” category are The Globe and Mail, CBC News, Macleans Magazine and The Huffington Post Canada.

DeSmog Canada submitted three stories for consideration for the award.

I Went to the Mount Polley Mine Spill Site by Carol Linnitt is a first-hand photo essay of the aftermath of the Mount Polley tailings pond disaster in August 2014.

Field of Dreams: Peace Valley Farmers, Ranchers Fight to Keep Land Above Water As Site C Dam Decision Looms by Emma Gilchrist profiles those who stand to lose the most from the construction of the most expensive public project in B.C. history: the Site C dam.

Companies Illegally Dumped Toxic Fracking Chemicals in Dawson Creek Water Treatment Systems At Least Twice, Officials Report by Linnitt rounded out the submission. In that article, Linnitt tells the story of companies thwarting fracking waste disposal laws.

At an awards ceremony last week in Toronto, The Globe and Mail took the gold prize for its coverage of the deadly attack on Ottawa last year. Maclean’s Magazine was awarded the silver prize for its coverage of the same event.

For our part at DeSmog Canada, we are beyond thrilled to be recognized alongside such heavy hitters in the news industry. As a small, non-profit news outlet, sometimes we feel like a small fish in a big pond. This recognition goes to show that when people come together and support independent media, big things can happen — thank you!

By the end of the year we need to raise $20,000 to continue our ground-breaking energy and environment reporting. Please donate what you can today.

Like a kid in a candy store

When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?

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