Samantha Wright Allen of the Prince George Citizen is one of two reporters in B.C. to receive the 2016 Jack Webster Foundation Fellowship.
Wright Allen is receiving her fellowship in recognition of the late B.C. reporter Don Matheson, whose estate endowed funds to the foundation for professional development award for BC-born journalists. She and Chris Flak from CTV News in Vancouver will use their 2016 fellowship award to receive training at the Poynter Institute in Tampa, Florida. Wright Allen will attend The Summit on Reporting and Editing beginning May 15.
There are 65 B.C. journalists who have received a fellowship from the Jack Webster Foundation since its founding in 2001 and Wright Allen is the fourth from the Citizen. Managing editor Neil Godbout was selected in 2006 and former Citizen reporters Gordon Hoekstra and Charelle Evelyn were chosen in 2011 and 2013 respectively.
Wright Allen was most recently recognized as a finalist for two Ma Murray Awards, presented by the British Columbia & Yukon Community Newspapers Association. She is a finalist in the feature series category for her work, entitled Life After Lakeland. The three-part series focused on victims of the explosion that ripped through Lakeland Mills on April 23, 2012.
Wright Allen's second nod is for the John Collison Memorial Award for Investigative Journalism for her stories, Living With Brain Injury, about the efforts of local residents, one of them a teenage girl, to rebuild their lives after sustaining debilitating head injuries.
The winners of the Ma Murray awards will be announced at a gala in Richmond on Saturday, May 7.
