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Award winning journalism

The Yukon News has the best arts coverage in the country, according to the Canadian Community Newspaper Association, which represents 700…

The Yukon News has the best arts coverage in the country, according to the Canadian Community Newspaper Association, which represents 700 English-language papers across the country.

That’s one of 19 awards the paper won this year.

In addition to having the best coverage of the arts, the paper was recognized in eight other categories at the national Better Newspaper Competition.

Genesee Keevil’s story on Wheeler Street drug dealer Chris Ouellette was judged to be the best feature story written in the country last year.

And Keevil’s feature series on the problems in the Whitehorse Correctional Centre was considered one of the top three feature series in the nation.

Keevil was also recognized by the national organization for outstanding reporter initiative, specifically for her investigation about how easy it is to get prescription drugs in Whitehorse.

Wyatt Tremblay’s take on the Yukon’s access to information law was judged to be the nation’s best editorial cartoon.

Photographers Mike Thomas and Ian Stewart were deemed to be in the top two of their field in sport and feature photography respectively.

The paper’s reporters and photographers were recognized for their extraordinary coverage of the Canada Winter Games. The paper’s coverage ranked it in the top two in the country.

And editor Richard Mostyn was recognized for national editorial writing for his take on the national mint suing Toronto for its use of the penny in its One Cent of the GST campaign.

Finally, in a first, the paper’s lively front-page headlines were considered among the best written in the country. The paper took second place in the category — just behind Labrador City, Newfoundland’s, The Aurora.

The paper has also done extremely well at this year’s prestigious Ma Murray Awards, which recognizes excellence among 109 newspapers in BC and Yukon.

There, the paper has been nominated for nine awards.

Designer Louise Skookum has been recognized for her work creating the paper’s black-and-white ads.

Tremblay’s Workers’ Law of the Yukon has been judged to be one of the top three cartoons published in the region.

Former Yukon News reporter Matthew Grant has been recognized for the business coverage he did for this paper.

Grant’s investigation of the effect US tariffs were having on Yukon food distributors ranks among the top three business stories written in the BC/Yukon region last year.

Keevil’s investigation into how logging beetle-killed spruce forests probably won’t halt the blight was deemed one of the region’s top three environmental stories last year.

And her probe into Whitehorse’s prescription drug market was also recognized as one of the best examples of investigative journalism in the BC/Yukon region. For it, she’s been nominated for the British Columbia Press Council Investigative Journalism Award.

But Keevil’s not the only one. The news actually picked up two nominations for its investigative journalism.

Chris Oke has also been nominated in the category for his work examining the dangers of society’s use of polycarbonate plastics.

Oke’s well-researched story appeared well before Mountain Equipment Co-Op and other retailers pulled plastic water bottles from their shelves.

Chris Colbourne and Ian Stewart have both been nominated for their extraordinary black-and-white feature photography, Colbourne for his photography at the Yukon air show, Stewart for his striking shot of a horse.

And Mike Thomas has been nominated for his picture, Knuckle Hop, shot during the Canada Winter Games.

The winners of the Ma Murray Awards are going to be announced on April 19 at a soiree at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, BC.