The Citizen's managing editor is up for one of Canada's most prestigious newspaper awards.
Neil Godbout has been nominated for a National Newspaper Award for three editorials - Misplaced outrage, White Pride and Moving Forward - about the reaction to the renaming of Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park.
"It's so tiresome to hear the same righteous indignation, over and over and over, about social change," he wrote in Misplaced Outrage.
He later noted in the aftermath of the domestic terrorist attack in Charleston, South Carolina, an uncomfortable connection between those in America fighting for the Confederate flag and those in Prince George frustrated by the loss of Fort George Park’s name.
“Similar arguments over history and heritage are being used to protest the renaming of the park. That's not to say that any local resident making that point is racist but those who are might want to reconsider the company they're keeping by taking that stance,” Godbout wrote.
When a reader left an angry message asking why The Citizen isn’t more focused on white pride, Godbout wrote: “(i)n Prince George and in Canada, we're surrounded by so much white culture that it's the equivalent of standing in the middle of a forest and asking where the trees are.”
The other nominees in the editorial category are Paul Journet from La Presse, John Roe from Waterloo Region Record and Kate Heartfield from Ottawa Citizen and the winner will be announced May 27. The NNA’s are considered the Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize and honours the best of Canadian newspaper journalism.
The Citizen last won a National Newspaper Award when Gordon Hoekstra - now with The Vancouver Sun - took home the prize for local reporting for Clearing The Air, an investigative series on air quality issues in Prince George. Hoekstra had been nominated three previous times for a National Newspaper Award.
This year there were a total of 66 nominations in 21 categories, selected from 1,100 entries for work published in 2015, the NNA release said.
Winners will receive cheques for $1,000 and other finalists receive citations of merit, the NNA press release said.
Three Citizen reporters were also recently named as finalists for Ma Murray Awards, presented by the British Columbia & Yukon Community Newspapers Association on May 7.
