OpenCanada.org Wins Gold at COPA

The site took home three awards at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, including content of the year and best online-only website.

By:

Jennifer Jeffs

Taylor Owen

, /

14 November, 2013

By: Jennifer Jeffs

Past President of the Canadian International Council (CIC).

By: Taylor Owen

Founder and Publisher of OpenCanada.org and Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Global Affairs at UBC

We are thrilled to announce that the CIC’s digital magazine, OpenCanada.org, has struck gold for a second year running at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. OpenCanada.org took home three awards on Wednesday night, winning the Content of the Year award, as well as two gold medals for best overall online-only publication and online-only article or series in the academic and nonprofit media category – confirming the site’s position as Canada’s leading hub for online analysis and discussion of global issues and Canadian foreign policy.

We were awarded Content of the Year for Drone Week: Kill. Watch. Aid, our series in partnership with the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute. In this special “Best of Canada” category, we competed against all work submitted to COPA, including the country’s top national newspapers and magazines. OpenCanada.org also earned a gold medal for best overall online-only publication website in our media category, a reflection of our continuing commitment to pushing design and content boundaries in the digital foreign affairs space. Drone Week, which also received the gold medal for best online-only article or series of articles within our media category, demonstrates how OpenCanada is successfully fulfilling its mandate of providing an interactive space for critical engagement on global issues and Canada’s place in the world.

The COPA awards recognize the best editorial and design work in digital publications in Canada. Winning publications are chosen by a panel of expert international and national industry professionals, representing prestigious publications such as The Atlantic, the CBC and the Montreal Gazette. This was the Fifth Annual COPA Awards ceremony; past winners include the Globe and Mail, CBC, the Toronto Star, and Walrusmagazine.com. OpenCanada.org is again very proud to stand alongside past and current COPA winners.

Huge congratulations to the CIC and everyone on the OpenCanada team.

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Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

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