We have wonderful news to share: Taproot has received the Dr. Eric Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism for our 2025 election project.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation presents this award to recognize news organizations that “embrace journalistic excellence — originality, courage, independence, accuracy, social responsibility, accountability and diversity — resulting in a positive impact on the communities they serve.” We won in the small-media category; the large-media winner was W5/CTV News for Sleeping with the Enemy, an investigation into a global ring of men who sexually exploit their partners and share the abuse online.
We were unable to attend the ceremony in Toronto on June 10, but the organizers were kind enough to allow us to express our gratitude via video. As we said in our speech, we knew we wanted to do work that mattered when we started Taproot 10 years ago, but we didn’t know what that would look like then, and we could never have imagined being recognized on such a stage.
The gala honoured many stellar journalists: Alexios Mantzarlis of Indicator for AI safety reporting; Chloe Williams and Gavin John of The Narwhal for climate solutions reporting; and Emma Jarratt of the Investigative Journalism Bureau for coverage of women’s equality issues. Robert Fife and Susanne Craig were also honoured for their storied careers, and a number of fellowships were announced, including the Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellowship for Edmonton’s own Amber Bracken.
It’s a tremendous honour to find ourselves among such luminaries. We salute the CJF for making it possible to recognize the work of small outlets like Taproot and our fellow nominees for the Jackman award: The Green Line, the Investigative Journalism Foundation in collaboration with The Narwhal, The Sprawl, and The Trillium. Lots of us are out here doing useful, important work on relatively small budgets, and it’s encouraging to see those efforts validated.
As we’ve said before, we don’t do the work for awards, but it feels good to be nominated and even better to win. We hope everyone who has ever supported Taproot shares in the pride we’re feeling today. And if you’d like to say congratulations, buying a membership for yourself, your organization, or a friend would be a great way to convey the message!
Taproot Publishing 