Lezlie Lowe's "Chasing Amy" won the Gold award in Feature Writing - Print, and Sue Carter Flinn's "Elementary" won the Gold in Arts & Entertainment Reporting. The Halifax alt-weekly also had finalists in the Feature Writing and Sports Reporting categories. The annual awards honor "excellence in Atlantic Canada journalism."
"Hall of Best Knowledge is several things rolled into one: a bizarre self-help book; an eccentric college text; a guide to life from the unlikeliest of guides. It's hard to categorize (typographical novel? graphic metafiction?), even harder to explain," the National Post reports. The book's creator, Halifax-based graphic designer and artist Ray Fenwick, says the book was originally serialized in the The Coast after being rejected by other newspapers. "They were able to look past its weirdness," he says. The book is available now from Fantagraphics.
The Arcata (Calif.) Mainstreet (AMS) has pulled all copies of last week's North Coast Journal from its periodical room and many of the businesses that belong to AMS have followed suit, the Arcata Eye reports. The paper was pulled for one week due to "the connection it made between very, very real needs of students and pot" in its back-to-school issue, says Taffy Stockton, AMS executive director. (The cover's subhead reads "Your student guide to housing, transit, surfing and weed.") Not everyone in town agrees with the position of AMS, though. A Humboldt State University public affairs officer tells the Eye that the university had no intention of removing any Journals from campus. "That would be Stalinist," Paul Mann says. North Coast Journal editor Hank Sims adds that banning his paper won't do much to reverse the cultural association of Humboldt County and pot. "Sorry, but that's what it's known for around the world," he says. "You can't close your eyes and make it go away." He added: "Humboldt County has a very high percentage of people who are pot smokers or are simply interested in the issue and we want those people as our readers."
Megan Wennberg was named winner of the Greg Clark Award by the Canadian Journalism Foundation on Wednesday night. The award is "designed to offer working journalists a chance to gain insight and meet key decision-makers on their beats." Wennberg will spend some time with newsmakers in Iqaluit, Nunavut, where "she will gain insight into understanding the daily realities in Canada's north and be better equipped to tell stories" about that community.
The Halifax alt-weekly won a Gold Award in the Feature Writing - Print category for Lezlie Lowe's three-part series on living with HIV/AIDS. The paper was also a finalist in two categories. Winners of the Atlantics, which celebrate "excellence in Atlantic Canada journalism," were announced Saturday night.
