Recognizing the best of education stories for 2009 — Our happy winners, from left to right, Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen, Nora Loreto & Sharon Lem at the awards ceremony in Ottawa April 24.
Nora Loreto and Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen writing for the Ryerson Free Press and veteran Toronto Sun reporter Sharon Lem scooped CAUT’s 9th excellence in education journalism awards.
The Ryerson team shared the win in the student category for a story exposing the Conservative Party’s attempts to take over student unions and undermine the provincial network of student-run Ontario Public Interest Research Groups, a subject, one member of the awards jury said, “is markedly underrepresented in the news.”
Lem won the professional news award for an in-depth feature article on how students were faring during the recession in an environment where funding cutbacks and a lack of jobs have created major hardship.
“I think as a society we have had to make difficult choices, and unfortunately that has meant a significant investment gap in education,” said Lem, in accepting her award April 24 at CAUT’s council meeting.
“With the demand for post-secondary education rising, students are often forgotten but they should be at the top of the list. They are the future,” she said.
The winning news stories were chosen by jurists Mike Gasher, an associate professor and director of the journalism department at Concordia University; Jeff Sallot, who joined Carleton University’s school of journalism and communication in 2007 after a long reporting career with the Globe and Mail; and, James Winter, a professor in the department of communication, media and film at the University of Windsor.
The CAUT awards celebrate the best in post-secondary education journalism. Awards are presented annually for the works of Canadian journalists in the student media and in the professional print and broadcast media. Each award carries a $1,000 prize.