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.

Farmlands in the Greenbelt region of King County
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

Emma’s work, which took a deep dive into the developers who would benefit from changes to Greenbelt protections, kicked off a series of investigations into Greenbelt land sales.

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.

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?
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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