The team at the Prince Rupert Northern View won first place in the British Columbia Yukon Community Newspaper Ma Murray awards (BCYCNA) on May 4.
Publisher Melissa Ash and Editor K-J Millar jointly won the gold award with their tandem work for ‘Special Section’ on last year’s National Indigenous Peoples Day special which ran in print on June 16, 2022 . Ash was commended on the top-notch advertising layout, use of colour and page design, while Millar was distinguished for excellent content writing.
Ash has brought home the gold previously in 2020 with first place in the Community Service Award.
Millar also won the bronze award for photography for Spot News Photo for “Belmont Burns,” taken of firefighters working during the destructive fire of the historic Prince Rupert Belmont hotel in 2022. She also took home bronze for Feature Photo Award for “Faces to the Sun,” an image of four First Nations dancers on National Indigenous Peoples Day in 2022. The awards total nine for Millar in the past three years.
Three other North Coast journalists won places in their nominated categories.
Northwest Regional Editor and Editor of Smithers Interior News, Thom Barker, received the silver award in the Editorial category for his editorial titled “Siren be Gone.” Barker is a previous winner in numerous categories.
Terrace Standard journalist Binny Paul won the bronze John Collinson Investigative Journalism Award for her piece titled “Overrepresentation of Indigenous women in custody reaches historic levels in B.C.” ]
It is Paul’s second Ma Murray award after previously winning the multi-media category in 2022.
Previous Terrace Standard reporter Michael Bramadat-Wilcock won silver in Spot News Photo category for “The opposite of addiction is love and connection.” As well, he claimed a silver in the Arts and Culture writing category for “Nass Valley fashion show brings Nisga’a talent into the light.”
The Ma Murray Awards recognize the achievements of the association’s almost 100 member newspapers in British Columbia and Yukon. Dedicated to celebrating excellence the BCYCNA has been hosting the Ma Murray Awards for almost a century.