The Narwhal celebrates Canadian Journalism Foundation award for digital news innovation
Judges praised The Narwhal’s ‘innovative approach’ to building a sustainable journalism organization, which has included the growth of an Ontario bureau that’s hit the ground running to break important stories
“The Narwhal manages to nail it: strong journalism, an innovative approach and undeniable impact,” a jury member at the Canadian Journalism Foundation said.
Photo: Katherine Cheng / The Narwhal
This article is more than 1 year old
It feels like just yesterday when The Narwhal set out on a mission to report on the natural world in Ontario. On Tuesday, that effort was recognized by the Canadian Journalism Foundation, which awarded The Narwhal with this year’s CJF-Meta Journalism Project Digital News Innovation Award.
“The Narwhal manages to nail it: strong journalism, an innovative approach and undeniable impact,” jury chair Susan Harada, a journalism professor at Carleton University, said.
The jury celebrated The Narwhal’s secret sauce for this eastward expansion: our fundraising efforts to connect with readers who ultimately made this dream a reality.
“Building a bureau from scratch really gave us a chance to think about what was missing when it came to environmental coverage in Ontario,” bureau chief Denise Balkissoon said. “And it’s been really gratifying to have people respond so positively by reading our stories in droves and becoming members of The Narwhal.”
In addition to a growing cohort of members, The Narwhal’s Ontario expansion has been made possible thanks to support from the Metcalf Foundation, McConnell Foundation and Echo Foundation.
Readers have been coming to The Narwhal to dive into the work of Ontario reporters Emma McIntosh and Fatima Syed, who have been diligently documenting the Doug Ford government’s environmental cuts — breaking stories on everything from Ontario’s Greenbelt to the controversial Bill 23.
Fatima and Emma were also nominated for an award from the Canadian Association of Journalists for their authoritative coverage of environmental reforms introduced by the Ontario government as part of its housing plan. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal
That body of dogged reporting, done in collaboration with our friends at the Toronto Star, was also named a finalist for the Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Canadian Journalism Foundation.
Photojournalist Dustin Patar’s work capturing a fading Arctic icescape, published in The Narwhal, won the foundation’s inaugural Edward Burtynsky Award for climate photojournalism.
Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
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