Post nominated for three awards

National Post journalists have been nominated for three National Newspaper Awards for the past year.

Claudia Cattaneo, t he Post’s Western Business Columnist, has been nominated in the business category for coverage of the tumultuous state of the Canadian energy sector.

Cattaneo’s submissions to the awards program included exclusive reporting on a secret deal between oil companies and environmental organizations to cap greenhouse-gas emissions in exchange for green groups ratcheting down their opposition to oil- export pipelines.

National Post graphic artists Mike Faille and Dean Tweed are also finalists in the presentation category for their regular infographics, including a detailed visual analysis of the police shooting of Sammy Yatim aboard a Toronto streetcar.

In total, 14 Postmedia journalists have been nominated for awards.

The Ottawa Citizen received four nominations, including one for three-time NNA winner David Pugliese, who reports on military issues. He was recognized in the Beat Reporting category.

The Citizen’s newsroom got a nod in the Breaking News category for coverage of the September spree killing of three women in the Ottawa area.

Don Butler was also recognized for his reporting on the Conservative government’s efforts to build a monument to the victims of Communism, and Kate Heartfield was nominated for editorial writing.

The Montreal Gazette and Saskatoon Star Phoenix were each nominated twice, i ncluding recognition in the politics category for the Gazette’s Linda Gyulai, who waged a seven-year-long Access to Information battle to expose corruption in Montreal’s municipal government.

Two nominations came in for Sun Media papers, with the Kingston Whig-Standard’s Michelle Hauser nominated for her columns on sex education and the elderly, and a nod in the Local Reporting category for the Stratford Beacon Herald. This is the first year that the former Quebecor properties have been under the Postmedia umbrella.

Gerry Nott, Postmedia’s senior vice-president of content, said the nominations represented Postmedia’s “wealth and breadth of talents.” Nott pointed in particular to three Postmedia nominations in the NNA’s two sports categories. Postmedia’s newly combined national sports team, for instance, was recognized with a nomination for Vicki Hall, John Kryk and Scott Stinson’s series on concussions.

The awards will be handed out at a May 27 gala in Edmonton.

The National Newspaper Awards, which have been awarded since 1949, are open to newspapers and approved online news sites. However, this year saw no finalists from entrants that did not also have a printed edition.