We’re thrilled to have received three nominations for the prestigious Canadian Association of Journalists Awards! The CAJ nominations are the first in The Local’s history, and we’re honoured to have our work recognized alongside such great journalism from across the country.

Editor-in-chief Tai Huynh is a finalist for the Data Journalism prize for his work tracking COVID infections and vaccinations throughout the pandemic. Over and over again, his reporting and analysis found that the communities most affected by COVID were the ones least likely to receive help. In Toronto, Tai’s journalism played a critical role in revealing not only where those disparities were happening, but also how they could be corrected.

Tahmeed Shafiq’s story, “Trapped in the Ivory Basement,” is nominated for the award in Labour Reporting. Written when Tahmeed was a fellow at The Local, the story looks at Toronto’s booming public community colleges, where part-time educators get none of the privileges of cushy academic jobs. Instead, they are overworked, underpaid, and even pushed out of their union.

And associate editor Inori Roy’s investigation, “Somebody Is Going to Get Hurt,” is also nominated in the Labour Reporting category. Inori found that inspections at workplaces in Ontario fell nearly 30 percent in the last decade, even as critical injuries more than doubled.

Beginning with publicly available statistics, Inori did the difficult work of tracking down sources, finding characters to populate the story, and bringing together disparate pieces of the puzzle to reveal how the province is failing workers.

Congrats to all the finalists!