Journalism Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Reporting

In partnership with the SOGC, the Foundation presents an annual award to recognize Canadian journalists for exceptional coverage of women’s reproductive health issues appearing in consumer newspapers, magazines and broadcasts across Canada. This prestigious award is presented at the Annual Clinical Meeting of the SOGC.

Accurate, responsible and insightful reporting enables women to make informed health and lifestyle choices. In such, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) and the Foundation for Women's Health (FWH) designed this award to highlight journalism's valuable service to the public.

2008

Special Award
for
Excellence in Journalism

Shelagh Rogers The Canadian Foundation for Women’s Health presents an annual award to recognize Canadian journalists for exceptional coverage of women’s reproductive health issues appearing in consumer newspapers, magazines and broadcasts across Canada. This prestigious award is presented at the Annual Clinical Meeting of the SOGC.

This year, in addition to the annual award, we are pleased to present a Special Award to Canadian journalist Shelagh Rogers for her extensive and sensitive on air coverage of a wide range of stories of importance to Canadian women. Since joining CBC radio in 1980, Shelagh has hosted a wide range of current events program including Morningside, This Morning, and currently Sounds Like Canada. She won an ACTRA Award in 1983 for Best Host/Interviewer.

As noted on CBC’s website: “Shelagh adds her voice to a number of causes including mental illness awareness, homelessness, and homeless youth training. She has been a literacy volunteer for more than two decades, continuing to make real Peter Gzowski’s dream of ensuring everyone in this richly blessed country has the right to literacy.” Mental health has now become her major focus and she is speaking up on this issue at major conferences and in church basements.

In June 2006, Shelagh had her hair shaved, showing support for a colleague with cancer while she raised money for cancer research.

2007

Broadcast Category

Robin Smythe & Jim Handman
CBC Radio, Quirks & Quarks
“The Perils of Preemies”

Robin Smythe & Jim Handman On the March 11, 2006, broadcast of CBC’s popular Quirks and Quarks radio program, Robin Smythe and Jim handman presented “The Perils of Preemies”, a fascinating look at the ethical and medical questions surrounding extremely premature babies. Ms. Smythe and Mr. Handman provided listeners with a rich understanding of the potential long-term health and developmental problems faced by these babies, and the technology advances that have allowed babies to survive birth earlier and earlier in pregnancy. The broadcast addressed the difficult moral question of “just because the tiniest babies can be saved – should they be?” Through engaging interviews with clinical experts, and the first-hand accounts of parents of extreme preemies, Ms. Smythe and Mr. Handman provide listeners with a rich and balanced look at this intersection of technology and ethics.

Honourable Mentions:

Hugo Lavoie, Le scalpel et le crucifix, Radio-Canada, Second Regard
Anne-Marie Rainville, La Césarienne, Téléfiction, Une pilule, une petite granule
Valérie Morand, Human reproduction, Radio-Canada International

Print Category

Lena Sin
The Province (Vancouver)
“An African Mother’s Agony”

In March 2006, Lena Sin travelled to Tanzania in eastern Africa to report on a debillitating birthing injury called obstetric fistula. While virtually unheard of in the West — the injury was eradicated in North America more than a century ago — obstetric fistula continues to afflict an estimated two million women in the developing world today, with another 50,000 to one million new cases being added each year. For this story, Ms. Sin interviewed many young women who travelled long distances to reach one of the country’s few fistula clinics located in coastal Dar es Salaam. In describing their experiences, the women shed light on the hurdles they face in accessing adequate health care and the stigma they live with as a result of an injury that leaves them incontinent.