2015 Atlantic Journalism Awards Finalists
Attachments
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| Date Aired or Published | 16.5 September/October |
| Media outlet where first aired or published: | Saltscapes magazine |
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Short explanation of the story and how it developed: Big pharma has a vested interest in treating chronic ailments versus healing—then there are all those risks and side effects from potent and often toxic drugs. The huge and poorly-regulated vitamin and supplement industry has just been exposed as little more than snake oil salesmen using huge marketing campaigns to peddle products that are, at best useless, and at worst potentially harmful. Consumers, increasingly wary and knowledgeable about what they ingest personally or feed their kids, are confused and cynical. The back-to-traditional-basics character of this piece accommodates both our mandate as a magazine and those evolving trends. We celebrate Atlantic Canada’s traditions and culture—as do our readers—and this piece manages to seamlessly combine aboriginal culture with non-aboriginal traditions. It’s “back to the future” in some ways—old, even ancient, traditional medicine experiencing a renaissance among a modern middle class. While not every reader would have rushed right out and secured a selection of herbs and medicinal plants; many would have been given food for thought—a rational reason to question current practice, to contemplate change and improvement, and the knowledge and the tools to act on it. That is, surely, the best reader service that can be offered by a magazine article. The information is presented on the pages in a highly reader friendly and aesthetically pleasing way. The graphic design separates the prose into digestible segments generously augmented by interesting and attractive imagery depicting ordinary Atlantic Canadians, to the extent that readers can put themselves, or people they know, in the picture. Through meticulous research, the author provides us with not only a cross-cultural treatment of a single subject, but a trans-regional panorama as well. The writer, tasked with the huge job of researching such a broad subject over such a wide geographical area, wrote the piece authoritatively and inclusively on a subject that is, while not obscure, certainly atypical and out of mainstream media attention—just as a magazine article should be. |
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Resources of the newsroom (money and time) available to complete the story: |
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