Community journalism has long been a cornerstone of communities across British Columbia.
Even in an age of digital media and broadcast journalism, millions of people still read their local newspapers every week. On Saturday, April 20 in Vancouver, the 102nd annual 2024 Ma Murray Awards took place honouring the 93 newspapers and magazines that make up the B.C. and Yukon Canadian Newspaper Association. Throughout the year these papers, including the 100 Mile Free Press, work to put our products with news, local event coverage and opinions that matter to their community. It’s work that often can go unnoticed but is integral to keeping everyone informed.
This year the 100 Mile Free Press was up for two awards: the Newspaper General Excellence Award and the Ad Campaign Award, for papers under 1,000 circulation. Ultimately we brought home silver in both categories, a result we are all incredibly proud of.
Attending the Ma Murray’s reminds us that not only what we do is important, but also that there is an entire province of talented newspaper people out there. Each of them works every week to bring attention to stories that may not always be national news, but matter to their communities.
Putting out a good product every week is a team effort that features the hard work of our talented paginator Deb Theoret and ad designer Evan Fentiman who work with our friendly sales team Sabrina Ede, our multi-media sales consultant, and publisher Martina Dopf to design ads for the business community. Their work is what funds the journalism done by our editorial team consisting of editor Patrick Davies and reporter Misha Mustaqeem, supported by our community correspondents. And of course, without office administrator Sara McLauchlin entering subscriptions and organizing our carriers none of our readers would ever receive a copy of the paper.
So from all of us as we wait for our MaMurray certificates to arrive this year we would like to thank you, our readers, for your support. Next year we’re going for gold!
100 Mile Free Press