Two Vancouver Sun reporters named finalists for Webster journalism awards

Two Vancouver Sun reporters have been named finalists for the 2016 Jack Webster Awards.

Reporters Kim Bolan and Stephen Hume have each been selected as finalists in the category of excellence in legal journalism. Bolan is nominated for her stories on rising violence among inmates in B.C. jails, while Hume was chosen for his coverage of the B.C. government’s failure to disclose data that showed a community’s water had been contaminated.

Sun reporter Kim Bolan.

Bolan’s reporting has pressed provincial authorities to meet with unions and continue investigating conditions inside B.C.’s prisons.

Hume’s story ran in June 2016, and detailed how the B.C. Environment Ministry was found to have failed in its duty to fully disclose information about suspected water contamination in the North Okanagan.

An aquifer in the township of Spallumcheen had been under a public health advisory since July 2014, when levels of nitrates in tap water, that had been trending upward since 2011, finally exceeded Canadian safety levels. High nitrate levels are hazardous to nursing mothers, babies, toddlers, people with suppressed immune systems, and those with chronic illnesses or who take medications. Nitrate pollution has been associated with cattle manure, and a dairy operation had been applying liquid manure as fertilizer on the fields directly over the aquifer, under authorization from the Environment Ministry.

Sun reporter and columnist Stephen Hume.

While the ministry did assemble a task force to deal with the contamination, an investigation conducted by information and privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham later found that the ministry had withheld water test data and soil test results though it had been requested released by various community members and members of the provincial legislature.

Last month, it was announced that Shelley Fralic, a former reporter and columnist with the Vancouver Sun over four decades, would be recognized with the Bruce Hutchinson Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s ceremony.

Fralic began working at the Vancouver Sun in the mid-1970s and retired in February of this year.

“When I walked into The Vancouver Sun newsroom as a newly hired junior reporter, fuelled by a journalism degree and wrapped in a bundle of nerves, I knew that I had lucked into the best job in the world,” Fralic wrote in her farewell column earlier this year.

The Jack Webster Awards honour the best in B.C. journalism, while individual awards are named for local radio and television personalities. The 30th annual awards gala and dinner will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency on Oct. 20.