Stir Vancouver wins first Webster Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture Reporting

At ceremony last night, prize went to Janet Smith’s investigative article on touring funding; Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Keith Baldrey, the Bill Good Award to Sean Holman, and Shelley Fralic Award to Laura Palmer

The trophy (right) and award announcement at last night’s Webster Awards ceremony.

STIR VANCOUVER took home one of the province’s top journalism awards last night.

At the Jack Webster Awards, editorial director Janet Smith received the prize for Excellence in Arts and Culture Reporting for last year’s in-depth feature “B.C. arts groups grapple with uncertainty after being turned down for Canada Council tour funding”, which covered a stream of unsuccessful touring grant applications by prominent Vancouver dance artists. It explored the fallout for those dance companies and looked at changes in the way the Canada Council was handing out funding.

The other two finalists for the Excellence in Arts & Culture Reporting Webster are “Inside the devotion of Taylor Swift’s superfans, descending on Vancouver” by Brieanna Charlebois, published by the Canadian Press; and “This music star lived quietly in B.C. for years. His songs live on in a popular video game” by Jon Azpiri, Jane Skrypnek, Hunter Soo, and David Horemans, published by CBC Vancouver.

Elsewhere during the awards ceremony last night at the Hyatt Regency, the 2025 Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to veteran B.C. journalist Keith Baldrey; the Bill Good Award went to investigative journalist Sean Holman; and the Shelley Fralic Award went to Vancouver Island crime podcast maven Laura Palmer. Amid the many other prizes, the Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman won the nod as Commentator of the Year, and Enza Uda and Joan Webber received the Feature Reporting-Radio prize for their documentary Everybody Loves Jay, on CBC Radio’s The Current.

You can find the full list of winners here. The articles and features are all here.

The awards are overseen by the Jack Webster Foundation, which fosters and celebrates excellence in journalism to protect the public interest for British Columbians.

The event’s keynote speaker was CBC News Washington foreign correspondent Katie Simpson, with CTV Your Morning Vancouver’s Keri Adams and OMNI TV news anchor Karen So hosting.

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