VAUGHAN – The Manitoulin Expositor, Northern Ontario’s oldest newspaper, continued its award-winning ways when it brought home four awards from the Ontario Community Newspaper Association’s (OCNA) Better Newspapers Competition gala held in Vaughan Friday night, competing against newspapers from across the province (and Nunavut too!).
One of the most prestigious awards of the night, Best News Story, was nabbed by The Expositor’s own Robin Burridge at the gala. The winning article told the compelling story of a woman, moved by the #metoo movement, to share her story of childhood sexual abuse years later. The article appeared on Page 1 of the December 13, 2017 edition of The Expositor.
“This is a difficult topic handled well by Robin Burridge, and with compassion,” wrote judge Kriss Marples, editor of the Saint Croix Courier in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.
Once again, this newspaper also placed first in Ontario for Best Website. “This site has a clean, simple design and is easy to navigate,” the judge writes. “The stories have good visuals to go with them and all seem good and relevant to their audience.”
In the ad department, The Expositor earned a nod with a second place showing for Best Use of Colour for its Wiikwemkoong Fall Fair ad. The judge’s notes speak to production assistant Kendra Edwards’ mastery of taking a lot of information and making it readable, and attractive, at the same time.
The Expositor also earned a third place for Best Feature News Series for a series of articles, led by the bravery of Destiny Douglas, that saw Island women waive their publication bans to tell the full story of the abuse they endured following court sentencing of their abusers.
“These stories reflect personal experiences which are important matters of public interest and have value because two of them involve requests to lift publication bans,” writes judge Sonya Fatah, assistant professor at Ryerson School of Journalism. “(Writer) Alicia McCutcheon gives us important stories to reflect a cultural change in our ability to discuss sexual assault and rape.”
During the OCNA conference and annual general meeting, Expositor publisher and editor Alicia McCutcheon was also named vice president of the association.
“I look forward to continuing my work with the OCNA and its team, raising awareness of the issues facing community newspapers in this province and being a voice for, particularly, the independently-owned newspapers, like ours,” Ms. McCutcheon said.
“Congratulations to all of the Expositor team on another job well done,” she added.
