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speakup

I'm very pleased to announce that reporter-photographer James Mallory is a finalist in this year's Better Newspapers Competition.

This annual event is organized by the Atlantic Community Newspapers Association, as part of their annual conference, and James is up for Best Investigative Story.

James is a past winner at the ACNAs, in the feature-writing and photography categories. (Sports editor Peter Assaff has also previously won for his photography, I should add.) However, I'm especially proud of one of our reporters being a finalist in this particular category, because investigative reporting is the real deal in journalism.

Investigative or enterprise stories are the ones that require a lot of digging, to use the newsroom vernacular – phone calls, doublechecking facts, ferreting out information, getting people to talk that might not want to talk to a reporter.

In a small newsroom like ours, it's a challenge to make the time to get those stories.We have no wire service to rely on; our news hole (the space allocated for stories and photos) is filled by three of us, with a little help from freelancers and submissions by whoever.

That means every half hour of the day is time that needs to be maximized, in order to produce a quality newspaper that people want to read and advertise in.

Subsequently, it's a source of much professional pride for a Northern Light reporter to be recognized for investigative work, given that we don't have the resources that a newsroom at a daily newspaper has.

As for the story that got the attention of the ACNA judges, it's one from last July called Falling Through The Cracks, about a local couple with major medical and financial woes. James told the heartbreaking tale of two individuals who have fallen through the holes in society's safety nets, and how the problem for people in those circumstances is not so much indifference, but the fact that sometimes things are just the way they are, rightly or wrongly.

This year's ACNA conference and awards ceremony takes place may 30 and 31 in Halifax, N.S.

Editor Greg Mulock can be reached at mulock.greg@thenorthernlight.ca and story ideas, comments and feedback in general is always welcome.