Toronto Star earns six CAJ award nominations

The Toronto Star earned nominations in six award categories at the 2022 Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) awards, which celebrate excellence in investigative journalism.A dozen journalists in the Torstar family, which includes the Toronto Star and regional papers across Ontario, received nominations for their work last year. JHR / CAJ Emerging Indigenous Journalist AwardToronto Star staff reporter Alessia Passafiume is a finalist for the Journalism for Human Rights / CAJ Emerging Indigenous Journalist Award for her portfolio of work published in 2022. For National Truth and Reconciliation Day last September, she, along with fellow Star reporter Jamin Mike, wrote a front-cover story featuring eight Indigenous changemakers. In December, Passafiume also wrote a first-person feature essay about how she is reclaiming the traditions her mother and grandmother couldn’t learn because of the ‘60s scoop. A graduate of the Toronto Star’s one-year journalism program in 2022, she is now a journalist on the Star’s Express Desk. CWA Canada / CAJ Award for Labour ReportingInvestigative reporter Kenyon Wallace and health reporter Megan Ogilvie, both with the Toronto Star, earned a nomination for the CWA Canada / CAJ Award for Labour Reporting for their joint investigation into Ontario’s nursing staffing crisis. Their exclusive story found that resignations and retirements were stretching a system already on the brink, despite the province adding thousands more nurses to the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.Written FeatureIn the written feature category, Toronto Star’s business feature writer Richard Warnica earned a nomination for his deep dive into the delays that gripped Toronto’s Pearson International Airport last summer, providing an inside look at the “floor-sleeping, tarmac-waiting, line-winding, global-laughing-stock-making true story” of what made Canada’s largest airport the worst in the world for delays. Written NewsToronto Star investigative reporter Rachel Mendleson and Hamilton Spectator investigative reporter and feature writer Steve Buist are finalists in the written news category. They were recognized for their work on “Uncharted,” an investigation into how police forces across the country were violating fundamental rights with alarming frequency. Following Torstar’s four-part investigation into the Charter violations, the Toronto police said they were reviewing officers’ conduct in nearly 100 cases. Data JournalismToronto Star investigative reporter Robert Cribb is nominated in the data journalism category for his work on “Suspended,” an investigation into Ontario’s controversial automatic licence suspension program for drivers with certain medical conditions. The four-part investigation, jointly conducted by the Toronto Star and the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, found the suspensions were applied unsystematically and often had devastating consequences on drivers’ lives. IJB reporters Declan Keogh, Max Binks-Collier and Danielle Orr are also nominated for the award along with Cribb. ScoopA Torstar team comprised of journalists Marco Chown Oved, Grant LaFleche, Alex McKeen and Sheila Wang, along with data analyst Andrew Bailey, are finalists in the scoop category. Their investigation last February found that at least a dozen Ontario police officers were named on a leaked list of donors to the “Freedom Convoy,” which shut down the nation’s capital for more than three weeks. A total of 469 entries were submitted for the 2022 awards. Winners for each category will be announced at a gala ceremony on April 15 in Vancouver, as part of the CAJ’s 45th anniversary national conference. Joshua Chong is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star’s Express Desk. Follow him on Twitter: @joshualdwchong