The Globe and Mail has been named a finalist for seven Jack Webster Awards in a range of categories including features, business, arts, health and innovative journalism.
The annual awards, handed out by the Jack Webster Foundation, celebrate the best journalism in B.C.
Andrea Woo is nominated in the health category for an investigation into allegations that dozens of pharmacies in the Vancouver region and on Vancouver Island were offering kickbacks, including for vulnerable patients receiving treatment for addiction. Ms. Woo spoke to more than two dozen nurses, pharmacists, patients and social-service providers to learn about the practice, which violates bylaws implemented by the provincial pharmacy regulator.
During the course of her reporting, she witnessed a courier give a patient $50 along with their fentanyl patch subscription. The College of Pharmacists of B.C. revoked the licence of at least one pharmacy.
Nancy Macdonald and Justine Hunter are each nominated in the print/digital feature category.
Ms. Macdonald followed the search for the S.S. Pacific, which sank off the West Coast after departing Victoria in 1875, killing hundreds of people and sending millions of dollars in gold to the bottom of the ocean.
Ms. Hunter wrote a first-person account of her own search – for some of Canada’s critically endangered species. She described her own experience looking for the rare species while weaving in the stories of the people who are racing to protect them.
Ms. Hunter is also a finalist in the environment reporting category for a three-part series that followed glacier researchers in B.C. as they worked to unearth climate history.
Susan Krashinsky Robertson, Ming Wong and freelance photographer Alana Paterson are nominated in the innovative journalism category for a visual feature about the people who line up at Canadian retailer Aritzia’s popular warehouse sale.
The Globe’s Jeffrey Jones and Chen Wang are nominated along with The Narwhal’s Francesca Fionda and Lindsay Sample for a jointly reported story that looked at the growing costs of cleaning up mine pollution in B.C. They found that B.C. was short about $750-million of the estimated liability for cleanup and reclamation of the province’s mines.
Marsha Lederman is nominated in the arts and culture category for her work on the provenance of celebrated Group of Seven oil sketches at the Vancouver Art Gallery that turned out to be fake. Ms. Lederman chronicled the years-long effort to confirm that the paintings were phony.
The Jack Webster Foundation was created in 1986 after the retirement of its namesake. Mr. Webster was a well-known, influential reporter in Western Canada, and the organization says the awards are meant to create a community where B.C. journalism thrives.
The winners will be announced at an event in Vancouver on Oct. 28.