5 min. read
The Narwhal is celebrating a slew of award nominations and honours this spring, as our non-profit newsroom is recognized in Canada and the United States for our dogged investigative journalism and our community-first, solutions-focused reporting.
In recent weeks, three different journalism award programs have named The Narwhal as either a winner or a nominee.
That includes the Canadian Journalism Foundation, which announced on April 17 that The Narwhal is a finalist for its prestigious Jackman Award.
The Jackman Award honours Canadian journalism that makes a social impact through courageous and original reporting, and northwest B.C. reporter Matt Simmons is nominated for his investigation into the BC Energy Regulator’s failure to enforce compliance with environmental and health regulations. Simmons is up for the award alongside peers at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, who collaborated with him on the project.
“Rigorous and fair reporting on oversight bodies such as the BC Energy Regulator is crucial to our democracy,” The Narwhal’s executive editor, Denise Balkissoon, said. “We’re proud that Matt’s efforts to hold the regulator to account have been nominated for one of the highest honours in Canadian journalism.”
The Canadian Journalism Foundation will announce the winners of the Jackman Award in Toronto on June 10.
The nomination isn’t the only recent accolade for Simmons. He also turned heads at the U.S.-based Society of Environmental Journalists, where judges recently awarded him a first honourable mention in the beat reporting category for his ongoing coverage of energy politics in B.C. “Delivering stories like this requires reporters to go the extra mile,” judges said of Matt’s work covering B.C.’s energy industry. “These stories also had a real world impact.”
Julia-Simone Rutgers is a finalist at the Nonprofit News Awards — twice!
Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Institute for Nonprofit News announced last week that The Narwhal’s Manitoba reporter, Julia-Simone Rutgers, is a double-finalist at this year’s Nonprofit News Awards.
Rutgers is nominated in the community champion category for her coverage of Winnipeg’s transit system, which underwent a massive redesign in 2025. Winnipeg’s bus route shakeup was a topic of heated debate in the city last year, and Rutgers used GIS mapping software and other data analysis tools to deepen the civic discourse. Most significantly, her reporting revealed that the drastic route changes were not equitably distributed, and disproportionately impacted low-income neighbourhoods.
The community champion award honours reporting that makes “a significant contribution to the well-being of its community through a journalism-centered project or service,” according to the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Rutgers is also a finalist in the awards’ explanatory category for a piece she wrote making sense of the potential impacts of American tariffs on the agricultural sector. As U.S. President Donald Trump hurled tariff threats over the border last year, Rutgers cogently explained how a trade war would hurt farmers on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, earning her a nomination for providing “insight and understanding of a significant and complex subject.”
Rutgers’ position is part of an innovative partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press that sees our two outlets co-assigning, co-editing and collaboratively publishing her stories on environmental topics.
“Today’s realities of journalism funding in Canada mean local markets sometimes struggle to sustain deeply-reported journalism in their communities,” The Narwhal’s managing editor, Sharon J. Riley, noted. “Not so in Winnipeg — we’re thrilled that our partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press is bearing fruit and making in-depth environmental reporting available to audiences in Winnipeg.”
The winners of the Nonprofit News Awards will be announced during a ceremony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 16.
A “standout piece of solutions-focused storytelling”
The Society of Environmental Journalists also recently feted Rutgers’ work. The organization awarded her second place in the feature category of its annual awards program.
That prize recognized Rutgers’ on-the-ground look at the devastating impacts of hydro dam flooding in Indigenous territories, and how Cree communities are working to restore their lands in the wake of that damage.
The story was a “standout piece of solutions-focused storytelling [that] treats Indigenous-led conservation with respect and empathy,” judges wrote of Rutgers’ story. “It weaves Traditional Ecological Knowledge and oral history into a narrative that feels grounded and uplifting.”
The Society of Environmental Journalists also awarded a second honourable mention to freelancer contributors Chloe Williams and Gavin John for their story on the attempt to slow the impacts of climate change in Cambridge Bay, Nvt., by artificially thickening sea ice. Judges said their story did “a great job at centering Inuit voices in a conversation about geoengineering to save the Arctic.”
“It’s no secret that journalists across Canada are working under increasingly difficult conditions,” Balkissoon said. “At The Narwhal, we’re lucky to have more than 7,000 members who donate regularly to make our work possible and a stellar team of dedicated journalists who won’t give up. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners.”
