News organizations promoting news literacy and the importance of quality journalism are encouraged to apply for the CJF-Facebook Journalism Project News Literacy Award. The deadline is Feb. 22, 2019.
Given the widespread misinformation across various platforms and from different sources, the award was established last year as a joint initiative by The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) and the Facebook Journalism Project.
The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, celebrates journalistic efforts that encourage Canadians to understand and assess the quality of news in their communities. It also recognizes best practices that underpin factual reporting as key contributions to Canadian democracy.
“By encouraging projects that peel back informational layers in innovative ways, this award recognizes that quality journalism today is about more than delivering the story,” says selection jury chair Susan Harada, associate director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. “It’s also about delivering the kind of journalistic context that can help citizens gauge the reliability of the information they’re consuming.”
In addition to promoting news literacy, the award aims to drive new initiatives and projects focused on this important issue.
Last year’s inaugural award went to Radio-Canada for its weekly television program Corde sensible that confronted misinformation and false stories where they flourish—on social media networks. The program’s accompanying short video, Fausses Nouvelles: suffit d’y croire, was adapted for Facebook and YouTube to ensure shareability.
This award will be presented at the annual CJF Awards held June 13, 2019 at the Fairmont Royal York. Early-bird tickets and table purchases for the gala are available until Feb. 28, 2019.
