{"id":41245,"date":"2026-05-12T00:35:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T00:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/41245\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T00:35:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T00:35:22","slug":"read-the-calgary-journals-award-winning-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/41245\/","title":{"rendered":"Read The Calgary Journal&#8217;s award-winning reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Mount Royal University journalism student won praise from World Press Freedom Canada for reporting about a sexual assault survivor who was silenced, <a href=\"https:\/\/worldpressfreedomcanada.ca\/press-freedom-awards\/2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">awarding her a student achievement certificate of merit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The journalism organization, which champions press freedom in Canada and globally, <a href=\"https:\/\/worldpressfreedomcanada.ca\/press-freedom-awards\/2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lauded Heather Johnston\u2019s determination<\/a> for \u201cbadgering the Calgary police department \u2014 moving from one unhelpful person to the next until she found someone to verify the details\u201d in her story.<\/p>\n<p>As part of Johnston\u2019s advanced reporting course, she spent three months interviewing a woman who endured torturous assaults and then agonizing legal proceedings, resulting in the story \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/calgaryjournal.ca\/2025\/12\/27\/breaking-through-the-silence\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Breaking through the Silence<\/a>\u201d published earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston told World Press Freedom Canada that she pursued a \u201ctrauma-informed, solutions-based\u201d journalism to report her story, telling her source that she was \u201cnot simply chasing a story, but was there to share their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The journalism student also connected the sexual assault survivor with services where appropriate and stayed in touch after publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnston\u2019s 2,000-word article also examined proposed legislation that could toughen bail requirements and jail terms for violent and repeat offenders of sexual assault, and captured the women\u2019s view that leniency did not reflect the gravity of the crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile this may help some survivors, advocates say sexual violence is a societal issue shaped by misconceptions, stigma and systemic barriers,\u201d wrote Johnston. \u201cSome survivors are silenced before they can even enter the legal system, let alone get justice for their assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forms.gle\/xFBid6tgwP5sFsw8A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Report an Error or Typo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Mount Royal University journalism student won praise from World Press Freedom Canada for reporting about a sexual&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17922,51,14032,17923,17924],"class_list":["post-41245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-award","tag-calgary","tag-journalism","tag-journalism-student","tag-mru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}