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Hoekstra captures National Newspaper Award |
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Written by KYLE STOREY
Citizen staff
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Friday, 09 May 2008 |
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HEALTHY AIRPEOPLE ACTION COMMITTEE
But for the Prince George Citizen’s Gordon Hoekstra you could forgive him for starting to take things for granted.
Hoekstra picked up a National Newspaper Award (NNA) in the local reporting category Friday night in Toronto for Clearing The Air, an investigative series on air quality issues in Prince George.
Last June, his Dying for Work series on deaths in the log trucking industry won the 2006 Michener Award for public service journalism.
He is now the winner of the two most prestigious reporting awards in Canada.
The NNA is the Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize and honours the best of Canadian newspaper journalism.
“Everybody says it’s an honour just to be nominated, but, really, it is,” said Hoestra, on the phone from Toronto’s Westin Harbour Castle.
This was Hoekstra’s fourth nomination for an NNA, but the experience didn’t help him predict the outcome.
“It’s kind of a crapshoot, really. There are people who have been nominated five or six times and have never won and there are people who have won a bunch of times. You just never know.”
Hoekstra said winning the award isn’t why he delves into many of the thorny and entangled issues which have become his trademark, “but winning is nice, it gives you that added motivation.
“I love doing this. It’s the kind of work that makes you want to get up in the morning and go (into the office)”
Hoekstra had special praise for the People’s Action Committee for Healthy Air and their efforts to bring such an important issue to the fore.
“This is a really big issue for (our) community and PACHA deserves credit for bringing it (front and centre).”
The competition for this year’s local reporting award featured Elisabeth Johns of the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder for a series on domestic violence and Ann Lukits of the Kingston Whig-Standard for stories about declining care for seniors and a doctors’ shortage in nursing homes.
Winners receive a $1,500 cheque and a certificate. Runners-up receive citations of merit and cash awards of $250.
Hoekstra’s air quality series is also a finalist in the community newspaper category for the Canadian Association of Journalists’ annual awards for outstanding investigative journalism in Canada for 2007.
The CAJ winners will be revealed May 24 in Edmonton.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 May 2008 )
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