It may be small, but it sure is mighty.The North Island Gazette has been named the third best all-round newspaper in the country by Newspapers Canada.
The Gazette was a winner of three Canadian Community Newspaper Awards in its circulation category - 1,250 to 1,999. It was awarded Best All-Round Newspaper (3rd), Best Front Page (3rd), and Best Editorial Page (3rd) behind two Ontario publications - the Citizen and the New Hamburg Independent.
"The North Island Gazette is a nice little paper. It has a bright, lively front page and some good content," were some of the comments made by the judges.
"I was pleasantly surprised to have won these awards," said Publisher/Editor Kathy O'Reilly-Taylor. This year's awards come on the heels of a first-place win of the Provincial General Excellence for 2014."The Gazette appears to be on a winning streak," O'Reilly-Taylor said. "Publishing a weekly newspaper is a challenging job that can not be done without hard-working staff and much-appreciated contributions from our freelancers, cartoonist, etc," she said."But it takes more than staff to build an award-winning newspaper. I'd also like to thank our young carriers, drivers, and stores who help get the paper into your home each week; our valuable readers; the North Island people for allowing us to tell their fascinating stories; and the North Island companies that entrust us with the important task of helping them grow their business," said O'Reilly-Taylor. "I couldn't be prouder of this national achievement."
The annual national awards program celebrates excellence in community publishing from coast to coast and recognizes the very best in editorial, photography and multimedia initiatives from CCNA-member community newspapers.