Northern Life staff took home four awards from the recent Ontario Community Newspaper Association (OCNA) convention in Niagara Falls.
Associate Editor Tracey Duguay won first place for the Best Investigative News Story category for her three-part series on the wheelchair-related death of disabled activist Joanne Nother.
Duguay's reporting on the community’s pandemic planning efforts won her third place in Health and Wellness category.
“We are very pleased to have won in the investigative reporting and health categories," said managing editor Vicki Gilhula. "We compete with newspapers in larger markets, such as Oshawa and Oakville, so the competition in these areas is extremely tough.
"Tracey was passionate about the stories she wrote about and it showed in her writing."
Northern Life’s website, NorthernLife.ca, won first place in the Best Online Edition category. This is the third time in recent years the website has been recognized by OCNA judges, due to the excellent work of Armand Dicaire, Heather Green-Oliver, Joey McGuire and Scott Hodgins.
The combined talents of graphic designer Lynn Laird and advertising representative Derrick Eyre resulted in a third place win in the Best Creative Ad category for a series of Barton’s Furniture advertisements.
Cambrian College journalism students Natali Martinez and Joel Desbois also took home OCNA awards.
Martinez won third place in the Best Student Feature Writing category, while Desbois took home second place honours for Best Student News Feature Writing.
The Ontario Community Newspapers Association is a non-profit industry association comprising more than 270 member newspapers located throughout the province.
The Better Newspaper Awards recognize overall achievement by circulation class in editorial, advertising and layout.
