Hon. Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prizes for Young Canadian Journalists

OTTAWA - Rachel Mendleson, a reporter with the now-defunct Daily News in Halifax and Omar El Akkad of The Globe and Mail are the 2007 winners of the Hon. Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prizes for Young Canadian Journalists.

The awards program, administered by the Canadian Newspaper Association, provides for cash prizes of $1,500 to the winners in each circulation category, under 25,000 and over 25,000. The competition is open to journalists between the ages of 20-25 working for CNA member newspapers. The competition began in 1992. This is the 17th year for this award.

The Hon. Edward Goff Penny (1820-1881) rose from the position of reporter at the Montreal Herald in the late 1800s to editor and publisher. He was the first president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and in 1874 became the first newspaperman to be appointed to the Senate. The awards in his name were established in 1991 at the bequest of the estate of the late Arthur Guy Penny, another newspaper editor and Quebec civil servant who was Edward Goff Penny's grandson. Arthur G. Penny, who died in 1963, asked that these prizes go specifically to young journalists between the ages of 20-25, and he set out the criteria by which the works were to be judged.

The judging, which was based on works published in 2007, was done by three senior editors selected by the CNA. Points were awarded to each entrant and the points were tabulated by CNA in Toronto. Both winners, now 26, were 25 years old when their articles were written.

In the 25,000 and under category, the winner is Rachel Mendleson, a former reporter with the recently-closed Daily News in Halifax (she now works for Metro). Her series on urban development in the city and the battle between heritage conservationists and growth and renewal supporters was used by civic consultants in their public presentations and was deemed an important catalyst in engaging local residents in the debate. Mendleson also did a medical story on one man's experience with thyroid cancer.

In the 25,000 and over category, the winner is Omar El Akkad of The Globe and Mail. His first story involved months of investigation into terrorist propaganda websites with web domains registered in Canada. He got an exclusive interview with a Toronto Imam for another story. A third entry was a piece on the Muslim punk rock scene. He also traveled to Afghanistan to write and research a story on UNICEF's polio vaccination campaign. He was a co-winner of a National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting last year.

The awards will be presented during the CNA annual luncheon on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto.