2014.10.07

Chase Kell photo

Victor Ferreira, now working at Yahoo Canada News, won the Barr Award for an article he wrote while a Ryerson student.

Ryerson j-school grad wins Newspaper Guild’s Barr Award

Two student journalists who each wrote detailed, moving accounts of homelessness in their communities are the 2014 winners of The Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award, which will be presented tonight at a special ceremony in Washington, DC.

Victor Ferreira, 22, a recent graduate of Ryerson University School of Journalism who now works at Yahoo Canada News, is the college winner for "Toronto's Missing Shelter Beds" published in The Grid, an online magazine. Rachel C. Hartwick, an Ohio teenager, won for "Home (Isn't) Where the Heart Is," published in her high school newsmagazine, where she is features and broadcast managing editor.

The awards are given in honor of the Guild's late lawyer, David S. Barr, a champion of social justice. Judges look not only for outstanding work, but stories that reflect Barr's values. The college winner receives $1,500; the high school winner, $1,000.

For Ferreira, this will be his first trip to the U.S. capital. "I'm a huge history buff… Be on the lookout for a Canadian wildly brandishing a camera at every tourist location he can visit."

Though no union ties are necessary to win the Barr award, this year both winners have parents who are union members; Ferreira’s father is a carpenter and Hartwick's mother is a teacher. Both said they like the idea of being a professional journalist with union protections.

 "I think there is a necessity for journalists to be unionized in the modern workplace," Ferreira said. "Because of the tough times our industry is currently facing, having a union such as the Guild look after our best interests is crucial. There are many examples of journalists being underpaid, losing work, and operating in unfair working conditions. I can definitely see myself being a part of the Guild in the future." 

One of the three journalists who judged the 2014 contest, Janet Weyandt of the Sheboygan Press, said the panel was impressed "by the level of professional enterprise ... These weren't emotional appeals trying to sway readers to feel a certain way, these were well-researched and very well written stories that dug into serious issues and explained them in a way that resonated with me as the reader."

Judge Mike Cabanatuan, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, said as homelessness grows, so does the need to cover it with the kind of stories the students produced. "The winning stories were well-reported and well-written, avoiding current tendencies in many media to merely express opinions or write stories based on stereotypes and perceptions without any firsthand research."

Ferreira investigated Toronto's emergency shelter bed system. "In the winter, when the temperature drops past a certain point, the city is supposed to make extra beds available," he said. "The homeless would head to a referral centre downtown and be directed to the closest shelter with available space." But a street pastor told Ferreira that wasn't happening. "He said homeless were being turned away despite beds being empty and that the numbers advertised weren't being made available."

The pastor "was an example of someone whose voice wasn't being heard," Ferreira said, leading him to talk to homeless people "and give a voice to those who had been wronged by society."

In a passage from the story, Ferreira writes:

(Pastor Doug) Johnson Hatlem illustrates the result of leaving the homeless on the street by recalling the story of Robert Maurice. Maurice was a homeless First Nations citizen of Toronto when Johnson Hatlem got to know him.
"He was a soft-spoken guy who loved to make wry kind of jokes. He never told you his real name. He [said] his name was ‘Rob Banks,’ and would look at you to see if you would catch the joke." 
Johnson Hatlem says he accompanied Maurice, who had been battling a broken leg and sporting a full cast, to an appointment at St. Michael’s Hospital in December 2007. Everything seemed to be fine.
The next time that Johnson Hatlem saw Maurice, he was frozen to death at the bottom of a staircase.

Hartwick, 18, began working on her winning story after learning that the city of Cincinnati was kicking homeless people off the courthouse steps at night, where many slept because they felt safe in the well-lit area.

"I told the story through a homeless man named Lee McCoy who struggled daily on the streets, working to sell newspapers for up to 11 hours a day," she said. She also covered a "a homeless awareness march full of exuberant people" who were passionate about the rights and needs of the homeless."

McCoy told Hartwick that the homeless are not, as so many believe, lazy. "They are the smartest, the most surviving people I know in the world," he said. "They have to survive every day." He's tried to get housing but "I'm one of those guys that fits between the cracks." So he piles on the blankets, outdoors, each night. "I shiver a lot, and I hope the morning comes quick so I can go someplace warm."

(This is an edited version of a story by Janelle Hartman that first appeared on The Newspaper Guild’s website.)