Your Excellency, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen:
As president of the Federation of Press Clubs of Canada, it gives me great pleasure to be here today for the presentation of the first Michener Award for Journalism.
This important award resulted from consultations between Your Excellency and the Federation of Press Clubs which began more than two years ago. Your Excellency decided to establish an annual award for outstanding public service in Canadian Journalism, to be administered by the Federation.
The first award was for projects completed in 1970. Judges of the entries received covering that year were Mr. Davidson Dunton, president of Carleton University; Mr. George Ferguson, editor emeritus of the Montreal Star; Mr. Yves Gagnon, director of communications at Laval University; and Mr. Sam Ross, the veteran radio newsman now retired in Vancouver.
Their choice as the first winner of the Michener Award for Journalism was a joint one - The Financial Post and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - for their collaborative study of the air charter business.
They gave honourable mention to Vancouver radio station CKLG for a series of public service programs, and to the Windsor Star, for its campaign on the ownership and control of station CKLW-TV.
In choosing the Financial Post and the CBC, the judges referred to a four-page section in the Post, the publication of which was tied in with a CBC television special. The judges commented as follows: "We find these constituted an excellent public exposure of the dangerous developments in the air charter business. The research was excellent and the presentation very striking. We were particularly impressed by the very effective combined use of television and the printed media."
We are here this morning for the presentation of the Michener Award to the winners, and I will now turn over the proceedings to Your Excellency.
Before doing so, however, I would like to express to Your Excellency the sincere appreciation of the Federation of Press Clubs for your keen interest and warm co-operation in this project. I believe the Michener Award is an important adornment to Canadian journalism, and you are to be warmly congratulated for such an initiative.
Thank you.
Ken MacGray
President
Federation of Press Clubs of Canada
Government House ceremony for the presentation of the 1970 Michener
Awards
November 8, 1971