The St. Albert Gazette has won 19 national and international awards for work done in 2014.
The Gazette won a dozen awards from the Local Media Association (LMA) competing against newspapers from all across North America, including a first-place finish for Chris Colbourne and April Bartlett’s Rodeo Weekend photo page, six other runner-up awards for photography and five second- and third-place finishes for writing.
In addition, the Gazette earned three first-place finishes from the Canadian Community Newspaper Association (CCNA) for Best Feature Series for the “Great Commuter Challenge” series from Viola Pruss, Victoria Paterson and Kevin Ma; Best Website Design for www.stalbertgazette.com, designed and maintained by Dan Sombach and Jarina Yeung; and Best Multimedia Feature for “Personal growth through physical challenge,” a sound slides presentation put together by Chris Colbourne and April Bartlett.
Duff Jamison, president and CEO of Great West Newspapers, said the Gazette’s ability to win these awards – and this many of them – is testament to the work put in not just by the editorial team but also by everyone else who works on the paper.
The fact so many of the awards came for photography, with more than half the awards credited to Gazette photographers, is testament to the paper’s commitment to photojournalism.
“We are one of the few community newspapers that still employs photojournalists,” he said. “While other papers have streamlined the photographer’s role to their reporters, we know how important photos are to our readership.”
The awards from associations recognize top-quality community journalism from across the continent, and are typically geographically dominated by Ontario for the CCNA and North Carolina for the LMA.
“The awards we are honoured with are only made possible by a great team of people,” Jamison said.
