The Investigative Journalism Bureau is a finalist in three of Canada’s most prestigious journalism awards for in-depth projects examining troubling patient care in Ontario hospitals and rising incidents of hate on Canadian campuses.
The IJB’s groundbreaking analysis of many tens of thousands of hospital patient surveys, completed in collaboration with the Toronto Star, is a nominee in the small media category of the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Jackman Excellence Award. It is also a finalist in the data journalism category of both the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards and Digital Publishing Awards.
Patient Files: Hidden stories from inside Ontario’s hospitals, pulls back the hospital curtain on the details of little-known surveys that patients are asked to provide following their hospital stays.
IJB reporters battled under freedom-of-information legislation to obtain up to six years’ of survey data from more than 50 Ontario hospitals. The results offer a panoramic yet unflinchingly intimate view of how hospitals fail — and even harm — patients. Patient voices detailing alleged injury, misdiagnosis, medical mistakes and long-standing capacity issues were often ignored, the reporting found.
The IJB is also a co-nominee for a CJF Award for an in-depth examination of growing hate incidents on post-secondary campuses. The spiking cases of hate are largely happening with impunity, the reporting found, with very few leading to criminal, civil or even academic penalties. Incidents detailed in the series far outnumber previously published official statistics because many schools don’t appear to track campus hate incidents and there is no centralized database capturing them across the country.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to receive this kind of recognition from some of the country’s leading journalists,” said IJB founder and executive director Robert Cribb. “Being able to publish journalism that breaks new ground, reveals fresh insights and pushes for positive change and accountability is the real reward. But this kind of acknowledgement means a great deal to a young team of reporters punching well beyond their weight. I couldn’t be prouder of this team.”
**
The Investigative Journalism Bureau is an impact-driven, collaborative newsroom that brings together professional and student journalists, academics, graduate students and media organizations to tell deeply-reported stories in the public interest. Based at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, the IJB is Canada’s leading non-profit investigative newsroom with a string of national reporting honours since its inception in 2020.
Find the Investigative Journalism Bureau on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn.
Credits:
The Patient Files: Hidden stories from inside Ontario’s hospitals
Lead reporters: Max Binks-Collier, Declan Keogh, Naama Weingarten and Robert Cribb
Data analysis: Andrew Bailey
Data visualization: Zahra Shakeri, Aryan Sadeghi and Yong Chen
Contributors: Sakeina Syed, Alina Snisarenko, Blair Bigham and Alia Campbell
This investigation was supported with funding from the Data-Driven Reporting Project. The Data-Driven Reporting Project is funded by the Google News Initiative in partnership with Northwestern University | Medill.
Campus Hate:
Lead reporters: Charlie Buckley and Robert Cribb
Contributors: Inori Roy, Mashal Butt, Alina Snisarenko and David McKie
Journalism Student Researchers:
Carleton University: Kajal Dhaneshwari, Malcolm Fraser, Lahari Nanda, Alima Sidibé, Rebecca Weston
Toronto Metropolitan University: Amany Abubaker, Ariel Brookes, Nishat Chowdhury, Maggie Feldbloom, Fiona O’Flynn, Viktoriya Kozoriz, Alina Snisarenko
University of British Columbia: Yuqi Cao, Grace Jenkins, Aastha Sethi, Saphiya ZerroukUniversity of King’s College: Haylea Dilnot-Reid, Sarah Krymalowski, Joe Thompson