Citizen reporter Gordon Hoekstra recently received a pair of nods for outstanding journalism.
The B.C. Wildlife Federation honoured Hoekstra with the Art Downs memorial award for his series Pipeline Promise?, which examined Enbridge's proposed Gateway project through northern B.C. The accolade follows Hoekstra's nomination as a finalist in the community newspaper category by The Canadian Association of Journalists for his work detailing the ongoing concerns at the troubled Prince George Metis Housing Society.
"I'm very honoured to be recognized by the CAJ investigative nomination and the Art Downs award, in particular, because the stories have helped raise awareness of important issues," said Hoekstra.
The Art Downs award recognizes excellence in writing in respect to conservation and the environment.
"His work is balanced, covers all the bases and allowed you to make a decision on the information provided," said Wayne Salewski, president of region 7A (Omineca) for the BCWF.
The CAJ nomination is Hoekstra's fifth. He won both the community newspaper category and the CAJ's Don McGillivray Award for Investigative Journalism for his story in 2010 Downtown Fix.
His fellow nominees are Steve Bonspiel of The Eastern Door, Elliot Ferguson of the Woodstock Sentinel-Review, Cam Fortems of the Kamloops Daily News and Gagandeep Ghuman of The Squamish Reporter.
"At a time when polarizing debates are often dubiously or inadequately covered in the media, Gord reminds us what investigative journalism really means, and delivers the whole picture in a balanced way," said Sylvie Paillard, the Citizen's managing editor. "Everyone at The Citizen is proud to say he is one of us. And each one of us extends our congratulations to Gord for these most recent honours."
The CAJ award will be announced May 14.
