The Burnaby NOW was recognized at the recent Canadian Community Newspapers Association Awards.
The annual awards are designed to celebrate the best work in community publishing across the country.
The NOW captured third place in the Best Coverage of the Arts category for newspapers with a circulation of 10,000 and over.
The top two awards went to the North Vancouver Outlook and Nanaimo News Bulletin, respectively.
The judges noted that all of the submissions to the awards displayed quality coverage of the arts, but the top three newspapers "went further to create appealing content that grabbed and maintained the readers' attention."
The NOW's submission was made up of work by arts editor Julie MacLellan, including a special report on babies and the arts, coverage of the Burnaby Art Gallery's Dutch Masters exhibition and a feature on local choir director Kevin Takahide Lee.
The judges lauded the submission for "high-quality writing and focus on the local community."
It's the second award for MacLellan's arts coverage this year. She captured a silver award at the B.C. Yukon Community Newspapers Association awards earlier this spring.
"It's always nice to be recognized with an award, especially for something's a personal passion," said MacLellan, who is a fiction writer and choral singer outside of her day job. "And it's great to work in a newsroom where arts and entertainment coverage is considered an integral part of the newspaper and not just a 'frill' on the side."
See below for links to some of the award-winning coverage.
For more on the CCNA Awards, visit www.newspaperscanada.ca/ccnawards.
