By Pepper Parr
December 16th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
Back in January when the world was normal I was invited to serve as a judge of different online media for the Canadian Online Newspaper Awards organization.
The awards have been given for the past 12 years.
I was assigned to student newspapers, a market segment close to my heart – having worked as the features editor for the Queen’s Journal when I was a student.
I had stories from three student on-line newspapers: The Signal from Kings College, Dalhousie University;The Thunderbird, University of British Columbia and the York University, Student Magazine.
The students at The Signal covered a murder trial, with a different student reporting each week.
When it came to actually doing the judging we were smack dab in the middle of a pandemic that had shut down large parts of North America – the day to day focus was on keeping a flow of needed Covid news and information to the Burlington community. Finding time to look at the entries from three university newspapers was a challenge.
I managed to get the judging done just in time for the finals to be determined.
My choice for the best article made it to the finals.
It was the best piece I judged; about a subject few want to know much about. The headline was brilliant.
I was impressed with the talent and the quality of the entries. However there was one that really stood out – both because of the headline and the content – especially the subject. It wasn’t the kind of thing that I expected to read in a student newspaper.
I wrote the journalism course leader at UBC and asked for permission to re-print the piece, which is set out below.
The author, Akshay Kulkarni was born in Mysore, India, but has lived most of his life in Bengaluru. He has a BA (Hons) in Multimedia Journalism from Bournemouth University, and plans to work as a multimedia journalist when he graduates from the Master of Journalism program at UBC.
He got the idea for the piece after reading a long feature about end-of-life and how to make it sustainable. He then wondered whether aquamation, the eco-friendly body disposal method outlined in the article, was legal in British Columbia and the article arose from there.
Here is a link to the story that made it to the finals. I’ll let you know how how it placed when the awards are announced in January.
CLICK HERE to read: A burning issue
