Canadian Press parliamentary reporter Mike Blanchfield has won the second annual R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship on March 20, 2013.
The grant, managed by Carleton through its journalism school, awards $25,000 to journalists to work abroad on pressing global issues.
The award itself pays tribute to the legacy of James Travers and the role he played in Canadian journalism as an editor, executive director, a highly acclaimed columnist, and foreign correspondent to encourage strong national and international reporting.
“Types of careers such as Jim’s don’t come around all that often,” said Christopher Waddell, director of the School of Journalism and Communication. “When they do, they should be seen as a model for journalists to follow in the future.”
“The award serves as an opportunity to tell stories about the world that have an impact on Canadians, the government, and public policy as well,” he said.
Blanchfield said he has decided to focus his expertise on the consequences of cluster bombs.
“It’s an underreported story with big implications,” Blanchfield said via email.
Cluster bombs are munitions deployed by aircrafts that have a tendency to remain active long after combat has ended, potentially mutilating or even killing civilians. According to the Cluster Munition Coalition, one-third of all cluster bomb accidents afflict children.
Blanchfield will travel to destinations such as Cambodia, Laos, Geneva, and Washington D.C. to write about the risks and politics of cluster bombs in an effort to ban the lethal weapons.
Blanchfield’s time at Carleton proved to be very memorable.
As a graduate of the journalism program, he said he fondly remembers “cutting tape with razor blades to prepare for radio reports,” he said.
Since then, he has hopped from continent to continent, worked for the Ottawa Citizen and the Canadian Press—where he has been since 2009.
“Working for the Canadian Press is great,” he said. “We work hard to hold the government accountable, and we do it with the highest journalistic standards.”
When Travers served as editor-in-chief of the Citizen, Blanchfield had the opportunity to work with and know him on a personal level.
“He was someone that we all looked up to in the Parliamentary Press Gallery,” Blanchfield said.
Filling Travers’ shoes is no simple task, but working extremely hard, aiming to a high standard, and doing whatever it takes to fill the very large void created by the loss of Jim Travers may come close, Blanchfield said.
