In an awesome kick-off to the weekend, yesterday the Atlantic Journalism Awards announced the list of finalists for this year’s awards, and three members of Team Coast made the cut.
Coast news editor Tim Bousquet is up for the Enterprise Reporting (in print) prize, for “A trust betrayed: Peter Kelly and the estate of Mary Thibeault,” his February 16, 2012 cover story that lead to then-mayor Kelly’s retirement. Tim’s competitors in this category are both from Fredericton’s Daily Gleaner: Laverne Stewart is nominated for “CFB Gagetown Military Housing,” and Shawn Berry got the nod for “MLA’s Pension.” Since it would be uncomfortable around the Gleanerfor either Stewart or Berry to win when the other didn’t, they surely join The Coast and current mayor Mike Savage in pulling for Tim.
Freelancer Sam Littlefair-Wallace is nominated for the print Feature Writing prize for “Cousin & wife,” his May 3, 2012 cover story about the past and present of inbreeding. This is Sam’s first-ever AJA nomination, so from my perspective he’s the clear sentimental favourite. (And I don’t want to hear about it if the other contenders—David Lindsay, who wrote “Mining for the Common Good?” for the Rural Delivery, and Randy O’Donnell, who wrote “Chasing Infinite Dreams in Finite Time” for the Telegraph-Journal—are also first-timers.)
The third Coast-related nominee is Hilary Beaumont, who’s vying for The Jim MacNeill New Journalist Award. Hilary’s a busy writer with ties to the Herald and OpenFile besides The Coast, and even if we can’t claim full credit for her, our hopes are fully with her to best the competition, Amy Stoodley of CBC News in St. John’s, and Carolyn Thompson from the Saint John Telegraph-Journal.
The gold, silver and bronze awards will be given out May 11 in Halifax, but it really is an honour just to be nominated. So if you bump into Tim, Sam or Hilary this weekend, be sure to offer your congratulations. And remember, beer’s on them.
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A trust betrayed: Peter Kelly and the estate of Mary Thibeault
Cousin & wife
This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2013.
Really. Were the judges presented with instances where the journalist recipients turned away stories because of conflicts of interest?
Tim Bousquet deserves an award! If it wasn’t for Tim, Peter Kelly would likely still be the Mayor of Halifax (Heaven forbid), continuing to drag Halifax down and the estate of Mary Thibeault would be sucked dry by Kelly. As it is, Kelly got more than he ever should have from both situations but thanks to Tim bringing out all the truth, the crooked Kelly was finally stopped and everyone learned what a low life Kelly really is. EXCELLENT work Tim. I know with the estate case, the beneficiaries must appreciate your hard work! As for us in the HRM, THANKS A MILLION TIM!
I never did say who I was talking about. A journalist is a journalist there’s no graph where success is met and then there’s just a “hot tub” I suspect. Tim refused the story because as he told me “he had family who worked at Saint Mary’s University. Tim Bousquet, you work there. When it’s the mayor and not a professor it’s a story to you. You never even reviewed my evidence, or turned your face to me when you talked to me. I have nothing to lose. You wan’t to talk about this as a journalist Tim I save everything I write from every site.
You were “passing it off” to the next editor. What does that mean?
Daniel… looks like to me it means passing it along to the next editor because of a conflict of interest whereas he has family that works there… that also means no discussion with him regarding ‘your story’ because of that conflict of interest. Not TOO hard to understand.
Why didn’t he just say that he works there.
I smell cop out, but as what is meant by conflict of interest stands I guess it is what it is defined by what is agreed by journalists. A journalist doesn’t have to take chances if there’s an opportunity for it to be avoided. No praise from me, and most likely my family. Though I haven’t asked them their positions on this individually.
Daniel you said ‘Why didn’t he just say that he works there’ when he already told you “he had family who worked at Saint Mary’s University.”
# 1 – That is not saying HE works there and # 2 – HE informed you HE HAD FAMILY that worked there. ERGO: It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
C-O-N-F-L-I-C-T of I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T. And… conflicts of interest apply to every walk of life; not just journalists Daniel. I understand you are angry and disappointed but attacking someone just because you are not getting what you wanted is not the right away of finding a solution to your problem. You are adding to your problems and frustration by not trying to find another way to get it out there what you want said. Stop spending so much time with one particular journalist who already told you he can’t do anything because of a conflict of interest. That journalist passed on your info to another one. If you haven’t been contacted, maybe your story isn’t as good as you think it is OR it could be your story is a libel suit waiting to happen. There is always three sides to every story: your side, their side and the truth. You should look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact your attitude is NOT helping your cause.
Causing a debate with a potential point on a blog site isn’t the same as attacking someone. I just wonder if the judges would have frowned on a journalist shying away from a story that definitely should be told, when every editor I talk to, after realizing that what I tell them happened is terrified of the story because it deals with a professor, but any story about a politician will have them routing through garbage to get any dirt on them. Am I a mind reader who knows Tim’s motivations? No. Guess I should have gone more in depth in my research of the importance of a conflict of interest being professionally considered. Passing a story off is a professional scenario given the circumstances; if only there didn’t have to be a reasonable buffer before the Metro would run the story and public outrage went too far and immediate ie, paper like the coast. That is another debate. Circumstances, got ya.
Poor Daniel; the only one ‘you got’ is yourself… Again, NO ONE thinks your story is worth the writing OR it would have been picked up and checked out by any one of the various media. That didn’t happen. This was not meant as a debate; I was merely pointing out what is so obvious. Guess I should follow my own advice, before ever responding to your absurd observations, which is: CONSIDER THE SOURCE.
Tim is only one of two non university editors I talked to so far. I’m still fearing a potential law suit if the story runs if someone lies for Mark. ALL the university editors are interested. A lot of people whom witnessed what happened still talk about it. If Tim Thought it wasn’t worth running the story why didn’t he say so. What did he have to hide…. BEHIND
If you want to hear my story yourself you will understand why. Give me a contact medium or even place to meet and I’ll tell you. Don’t worry, there aren’t any grudges here you haven’t even heard what happened. Unless you’re Tim and are posing as a random blogger (which I highly doubt, but will consider).
Good Journalists don’t simply assume.
Worded that in such a way where it could be read as if I’m saying I have a grudge against Tim. I don’t. I’m just on the fence as to whether or not he necessarily would have been seen as highly a journalist if other relevant situations were known and considered. No grudges from me.
Nothing to say to what you now realize you know nothing about mayorschagrin.
Ya that’s what I thought.
LOL Daniel… One thing I do know – you try to appear to be an educated, reasonable person but in truth, maybe or maybe not educated… But definitely paranoid.
You post things under the ruse that you have this urgent need to have your ‘story’ told. Then when you are informed of a conflict of interest PLUS the fact no other journalist can ‘be bothered’ with your story, you start spouting all the bull $hit above. So now since you can’t get a journalist to respond or even listen to you, you instead try to inveigle further comments to your so called ‘debate’ when in fact all this from you, is an attempt to lure people to carry on some sort of communication/attention to yourself. You Daniel, are trolling sites such as this for excuses to get people to reply to your comments. SO, since you are DESPERATELY in need of said COMMUNICATION/ATTENTION, I urge you to seek professional help. I, or no one else obviously, is that ‘in to you’ or ‘your story’.
Since The Coast is kind enough to leave the true comments of each individual here, (not like some other media who censors them) you take advantage of that by calling out someone who fell into your trap (me) by ever responding to you in the first place. That won’t happen again 🙂 Like I said before, I should have ‘considered the source.’ Lesson learned.
Be well Daniel.
mayorchagrin
I’ve already talked to a therapist. Telling people what happened was a suggestion she made. She also told me I was sane and doing very well under the circumstances (a lot of people would have gone bipolar after what happened. I have no such conditions). You obviously have a lack of education ie comprehension of psychology. It’s not like I’m sitting in a room starring at a wall in frustration. I have a life. It only takes 5 to 10 minutes a day to write something here, and send mail to whom I think should know.
There are many highly educated people who are shocked at what this man did, and express it to me fully. Have you heard what happened or are you merely going on what you assume?
Like I said. You wan’t to hear what happened yourself or will you continue your name calling from your position of complete ignorance.
P.S. How educated someone is has nothing to do with whether or not people should acknowledge what’s happened to them. Also you engaged me on this thread, and you can contact me on facebook or any medium that is more discreet to hear what this professor did; believe me, you will be shocked to the bone.
Otherwise, Keep going on mindless instinct.
Well mayorschagrin, do you want to hear it?
You really have nothing to say unless you hear what actually happened.