Posted on 31 December 2015

Alright, so every New Year’s I like to do a little personal “best of” highlighting work I’m proud of from the past year. I’m going to do that again, but I wanted to give a shout out to other people, first.
I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, journalism doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When stories go national, they get all the attention, but they have to bubble up from a local level, first. And sometimes they just stay local, but are hugely important on a local level. And the local journalists deserve the recognition for that. For example:

• Samantha Wright Allen at the Prince George Citizen did a great “Life After Lakeland” series profiling the continued impact of the Lakeland Mills explosion on the people it affected
• Colin Dacre deserves credit for doing the digging on the story of homeless men being paid less than minimum wage for an event at the CN Centre
• When a man was shot by RCMP outside a Site C event in Dawson Creek, the only person on the ground was the Alaska Highway News’ Jonny Wakefield, and he was the best source of coverage throughout this national story
• It’s not an individual story, but Charelle Evelyn’s continued coverage of Prince George city council is invaluable every other Monday
• Kelsey Wiebe’s opinion piece in the Terrace Standard on “more than white men” is worth reading again
• my colleagues at CBC chose their favourite stories of 2015, and there is some incredibly compelling stuff, as well- definitely worth listening to

This isn’t a definitive listing, and I’m sure I’ve missed some really good stuff, especially from near the beginning of the year. It’s just some highlights off of the top of my head. Journalism can feel like a grind sometimes, but it’s nice to step back and look at all the truly compelling stuff coming out on a regular basis. To all of y’all on that grind over the past year- thanks, and all the best for 2016.
 

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