Orange Revolution coverage wins new journalism award (09/04/05)

Orange Revolution coverage wins new journalism award

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Mark MacKinnon of The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, is the first recipient of the new John Syrnick Award for Journalism, sponsored by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. Mr. MacKinnon won the award for his coverage of the Orange Revolution.

The award was presented in Toronto on August 24 by Prof. Oleh Gerus, vice-president of the Shevchenko Foundation. Stephen Northfield, foreign editor of The Globe and Mail, accepted the award on behalf of Mr. MacKinnon who is in the field covering Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Northfield read a thank-you note from Mr. MacKinnon:

"It is an honor to receive this award but it is an unnecessary honor as never before have I enjoyed my job as much as I did covering the happenings in Ukraine during the country's incredible fall and winter. Just being there each night, as tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of people came out to demand something better for their country was reward enough. Being able to pass on what I saw to the Globe readers was a thrill.

"Ukraine, for a brilliant but too brief moment grabbed the attention of the world's news media. Even those of us lost in the fog of Moscow were forced to acknowledge that something was happening to the southwest. One of the great regrets in moving on to my job in the Middle East is that I won't be around to see what happens..."

Mr. MacKinnon was the Moscow bureau chief of The Globe and Mail from 2002 to 2005 and in that time covered not only the revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, but also the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq. As the Globe's Middle East correspondent, he is currently based in Jerusalem.

The award is named for John Syrnick, an influential editor (1947-1970) of Ukrainian Voice, Canada's oldest Ukrainian newspaper. The Shevchenko Foundation presented the winning journalist with a plaque, a set of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and a monetary honorarium. A set of the encyclopedia was also given to The Globe and Mail. The selection committee for the award involved 17 academics and community activists across Canada and included Prof. Olga Andriewsky of Trent University who gave the presentation address.

The Shevchenko Foundation was created in 1963 and is the grant-awarding arm of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. The John Syrnick Award for Journalism recognizes the pivotal influence of media in presenting to all Canadians information on issues important to the Ukrainian Canadian community and will be presented annually.

| Home Page |