Four national awards for Canadian Mennonite

Canadian Mennonite received four awards at this year’s Canadian Church Press (CCP) ceremony held in Toronto last month at the conclusion of the association’s annual convention.

A photograph by Todd Hanson, a Mennonite Church Canada Witness worker in China, placed first in the News Photo category for publications with a circulation of more than 10,000. Said the judge, “The movement in the foreground makes this photograph interesting. It adds energy. The viewer’s eye travels from the movement to the sign, roadblocks and then into the back of the street.”

The magazine came second in the Media Review category open to publications of all sizes, courtesy of reviews by senior writer Will Braun (“Billy Graham meets the evangelist of outrage”), film reviewer Vic Thiessen (“Exposing society’s appetite”), and managing editor Ross W. Muir (“Why and how we should evangelize”). “Easy to read reviews which pack in a lot of information and critical analysis,” said the judge.

Canadian Mennonite earned a third-place award in the Layout and Design of an Edition category for publications with a circulation of more than 10,000 for its April 30, 2012, issue. “Very good type, clear and well laid out . . . restrained use of colour doesn’t get in the way of the imagery—which is very good,” said the judge of the work by graphic designer Dan Johnson and Muir. “A thing of beauty and a publication design which should serve as a model for others.”

“Coming to the city nearest you,” an Easter poem by Carol Penner, pastor of The First Mennonite Church, Vineland, Ont., published in the April 2, 2012, issue, came third in the open Poetry category. “The poem paints images we are familiar with from the Bible, but disrupts our normal reading of them by setting them within our everyday suburban world,” commented the judge. “I like how I’m never quite able to settle down into a sure-footed reading of the poem. . . . The final line, ‘Can you see him [Jesus],’ erupts as a challenge.”

At the two-day CCP convention, Dick Benner, editor and publisher, gave his story about a “reminder” from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) regarding “partisan” political commentary in two editorials and four articles in 2011. Jim O’Leary, publisher and editor of the Catholic Register, also spoke to the issue of publications doing political advocacy as a first-time applicant for charitable status with CRA, outlining in some detail the legal implications of this segment of the Income Tax Law. The workshop was well attended, showing a strong interest in the issue.