by BK Munn
The big laurel for newspaper editorial cartoonists in Canada is the National Newspaper Award and the nominees have just been announced: Michael de Adder, for work published by The Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Brunswick News and The Toronto Star; Brian Gable, for his work in The Globe and Mail; and Michel Garneau (aka Garnotte), for his work in Le Devoir. The winners of the award will be announced at a gala ceremony in May.
Both Gable and de Adder have been nominated several times before (Gable has been nominated 17 times and won 7 times!), but I think this may be the first time for Garnotte.
Some of the awards in other categories have new names this year, but I don’t think the cartoonists get one.
You can see all the details here and look at a portfolio of submitted cartoons here.
Here’s part of the press release from the award site:
The Globe and Mail leads all entrants in the 70th National Newspaper Awards competition with 20 finalists.
Other news organizations with multiple finalists include the Toronto Star and La Presse with six each, the Canadian Press with four, and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and Waterloo Region Record with three each. The Winnipeg Free Press, St. Catharines Standard, Calgary Herald/Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal/Edmonton Sun and Ottawa Citizen each have two finalists in the competition. The Calgary Herald also has a joint nomination with National Post, and the Toronto Star has one shared with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and Brunswick News. Nine other organizations each have one finalist.
There are 63 finalists in 21 categories, selected from 951 entries for work published in 2018. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Friday, May 3.
The 2018 Journalist of the Year will be chosen from among this year’s winners, and revealed at the gala after all category awards have been announced.
This is the 70th year for the awards program, and the 30th under the current administrative structure. The awards were established by the Toronto Press Club in 1949 to encourage excellence and reward achievement in daily newspaper work in Canada. The competition is now open to daily newspapers, news agencies and online news sites approved for entry by the NNA Board of Governors.
Thanks to donations from sponsors, seven of the 21 category awards will this year be named after important figures in the news industry. The Claude Ryan Award for Editorial Writing (sponsored by the Ryan family) and the Norman Webster Award for International Reporting (sponsored by the Webster family) were announced last year.
Added this year to the group of named awards are: the George Brown Award for Investigations (sponsored by the Globe and Mail), the John Wesley Dafoe Award for Politics (sponsored by Ron Stern), the E. Cora Hind Award for Beat Reporting (sponsored by the Nellie McClung Heritage Site), the Bob Levin Award for Short Feature (sponsored by the Globe and Mail) and the William Southam Award for Long Feature (sponsored by the Southam family).