Margaret Graham Award
Julie Tierney
Carrleton University
Margaret Graham Award
presented in April 2020
Julie Tierney is a
multimedia journalist finishing her degree at Carleton University.
She's a proud Prince Edward Islander, and enjoys telling stories about
the people, places and issues she finds fascinating. Whether it be in
print, audio or video she hopes to cultivate empathy and understanding
of the diverse experiences of humankind with her work.
Mike Athey
Algonquin College
Margaret Graham Award
presented in April 2020
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My name is Mike Athey and I am finishing my second year as a journalism student at Algonquin College.
I was
born in Ottawa and I spent much of my childhood in New Brunswick where
I picked up a permanent eastern accent. I got my first taste of
journalism at Algonquin College’s television broadcasting
program, from British legendary newsman, Gordon Grant. He was a man
from a lost era, and I thought of him as a living version of Jonah
Jameson...without the cigar. He growled out instructions on what it was
to be a true journalist, what it meant to write well and stressed what
never to do.
Then
life happened and journalism was put to the side. Time flew by. I spent
four years in Fort Simpson and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories,
teaching elementary and junior high students to some of the best kids
I’ve ever met. But with the voice of Grant still in my head,
barking at me to get into the game, I returned to Algonquin to firm up
my skills.
I’m now starting an internship at Global National and it will be interesting to see where life takes me.
Margaret Graham Award Background
The Margaret Graham award honours the memory of Margaret
“Miggsy” Graham, a young Ottawa reporter who, in 1904,
played a leading role in the formation of the Canadian Women’s
Press Club (CWPC), now the Media Club of Canada. Miggsy watched
as newspaper men but not women, got free trips to cover the World
Exposition in St. Louis for their newspapers. While working briefly in
Montreal for the Montreal Star, she persuaded Col. George Ham, then
publicist for the Canadian Pacific Railway, to provide women reporters
with the same free passes CPR gave the men. It was the first time women
and men journalists received free press passes from the Canadian
Pacific Railway. The trip was such a success that on the way home the
women formed the CWPC
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Melba Lent Woelfle Award
Katelin Belliveau
Algonquin College
Melba Lent Woelfle Award
presented April 24, 2020
at a virtual meeting
Shediac, New Brunswick has long been a town that breeds
blue collar people. My mother was a hairdresser and her father ran the
town’s brick-making business. My friends’ parents were roofers,
mechanics and contractors. It’s a town that celebrates the simple
things in life like drinking your cup of coffee on the wharf on your
break or finding the perfect spot to fish in the river.
I grew up
learning the Maritimes’ seaside, easy-going mindset and eventually
embodied it through my French-Acadian roots. One thing I found myself
being set apart for was my desire to write. I never met or even heard
of anyone in Shediac that made a career out of it. The fact that essay
periods were my favorite time of year in grade school was greeted with
a cocked brow. But writing made me feel at home in a new way..
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It
made me feel at home even when I was 12 hours away. After high school,
I went to the University of Ottawa, this place I’d seen in shiny
pictures online. I had applied to its joint bachelor’s program with
Algonquin College. Two years of theory and two years of hands-on
application, it would be amazing. And it has been. I excelled in
theory-based classes, writing mostly about journalism ethics and the
state of reporting in countries around the world. But I started to feel
far from home. That sort of writing was not what had once made me feel
invincible
At Algonquin, I found that feeling again. I was surrounded by the same
desire and drive that had made me leave my small town. I felt the
potential stirring in me, but I had to find a way to push myself
further in this new setting to make it a reality.
The application
for the Algonquin Times’ positions came out and the editor’s position
was my first chance to prove myself – to myself. Two terms later - a
few days ago - I was asked to help on-board the upcoming Times staff as
the former editor. It doesn’t feel as though the first year is already
over. But it does feel as though my path is only beginning. Algonquin
has introduced me to new fires I didn’t know could be ignited.
Heading
into my fourth and final year, I know what I want to do, and who I am.
I am a maritimer, one that will always head back home once in a while
to smell the ocean. But I am also more than what a small town says you
ought to be.
In September, my boyfriend Sebastien, a University of
Ottawa engineering student, and I will make the same 12-hour trip that
started my journey. Only this time, when we come back to visit, I’ll be
writing about why that worker sits at that spot on the wharf for his
break, or how that fishermen finds the perfect spot in the river. I
want to tell the stories that people overlook. Because I am one of
those stories. One that is still being written.-
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Melba Lent Woeflé Award presented
at Algonquin Zoom Meeting
By June Coxon
Algonquin College, like other schools and places where groups of people
normally gather, was closed in March because of COVID-19. Students who
had been on field placement (which started March 2 for most of them)
had not been to the college since February 21. Altough second-level
students were last on campus March 13, classes were suspended for them
the following week while the faculty prepared to move things online.
Classes resumed remotely on March 16
For the first time since it was introduced in 2008 a representative of
he Media Club was not able to present the Melba Lent Woelflé
award
to the winning student at Algonquin College.. Self-distancing required
by the current world pandemic made that impossible
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.
Media
Club of Ottawa
Executive 2019-20
President,
June
Coxon
Secretary-Treasurer.Iris
ten
Holder
Email:
Programs
Publicity
(Right click to copy email address)
Board
of
Directors: June Coxon, Iris ten Holder, Helen Bednarek Van Eyk
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Instead, the
journalism class included the presentaion in a virtual reunion/last
class Zoom meeting on
April 16.
Journalism professor Julie McCann explained in an e-mail:
"The fact that
this year was a challenge for our field placement students because of
COVID-19 didn’t change anything, We still gathered, they still
shared stories, we all still laughed and celebrated together. It just
happened to have been conducted in a Zoom meeting instead of in our
classroom in N205. For the past couple of years, this has also been when
we’ve handed out our program awards. We did the same thing this year'"
Iris ten
Holder represented the Media Club at the Zoom meeting. Her being new to
Zoom delayed her access to the meeing and Julie McCann
presented
our club’s award on her behalf to.Katelin Belliveau, a
second year student who had returned home, like most other
studens, and had logged in from New Brunswick. Toward the
end of the meeting Iris saw an opporunity to speak to Julie McCann and
to congratulate Katelin. with her achievement.
Two other awards were presented during that meet-up. Professor Peter
Simpson presented the Mark Anderson Journalism Excellence Award and
Professor Mitchell Beer presented the Doug Nixon Environmental
Journalism Award.-
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