The Voice received a valentine of sorts last Friday with news from the Ontario Community Newspaper Association (OCNA) that the newspaper will receive six awards in the association’s Better Newspaper Competition. The annual competition identifies and celebrates the best in Ontario community journalism.
This is the third year running that the Voice has been recognized with top BNC honours—including for investigating news.
This year's awards are in the following categories: Arts & Entertainment, Best Investigative News Story, Best Rural Story, Best Feature/News Series, Best Headline Writing, and Best Sport Section.
“We’re particularly pleased by the Investigative News Story award,” said publisher Dave Burket. “As government and business increasingly try to circumvent journalists, and communicate what are often half-truths directly to the public through social media and PR spin, the news media's role as fact-checker grows ever more important.”
Whether the paper takes home First, Second, or Third place in its nominated categories won’t be known until the OCNA-BNC awards dinner and presentation in April, at the association's 70th annual spring convention.
