Windsor Star wins three Ontario Newspaper Awards

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Three Windsor Star photographers have come away winners after the Ontario Newspaper Awards winners were announced Friday.

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Reporter Trevor Wilhelm earned runner-up recognition in two categories.

Photographers Dax Melmer, Dan Janisse and Nick Brancaccio, who retired in May 2021, won for feature, sports and spot news photography (over 25,000 circulation) respectively.

“The Windsor Star’s Ontario Newspaper Award wins illustrate the quality of journalism our paper puts out on a regular basis,” Windsor Star managing editor Craig Pearson said. “To have all three of our photographers win is fabulous. Dan Janisse, Dax Melmer and Nick Brancaccio did great work last year, which the judges clearly saw. And reporter Trevor Wilhelm’s two runner-up pieces help show how well-rounded the Star is — something we intend to continue.”

Melmer won for his series of photos depicting unused sports fields during a pandemic lockdown in April.

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“With abstraction worthy of a Mondrian, these three photographs of empty playing fields are utterly captivating,” the competition judges stated in their written commentary.

“The color and symmetry are pleasing to the eye, but when Dax Melmer used a drone to take these geometric images during yet another COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in April 2021, they also captured hope that life would return to normal, and despair that it wouldn’t. Melmer’s photos are a poignant reminder that beauty is all around us, and art can lighten dark days.”

Janisse won for her photo of Windsor Spitfire Kyle McDonald flying over Oshawa Generals goalie Patrick Leaver during an October exhibition game.

“Mere mortals watching hockey games witness the ebb and flow of the action on the ice, but skilled photographers stop time and capture the acrobatics at play,” the judges wrote.

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“That’s what Dan Janisse does in this peak action sports photo that shows the one player leaping over the goalie as he’s in mid-save. The photo offers a glimpse of some of hockey’s mesmerizing athletics.”

Brancaccio won for his photo of a car crash victim being taken to an ambulance on a stretcher in January 2021.

“The essence of spot news,” the judges wrote in assessing the photo.

“When a serious vehicle crash was reported on a police radio scanner, Windsor Star photographer Nick Brancaccio rushed to the scene, deftly avoiding police road blocks to arrive in time to capture paramedics and firefighters rescuing a crash victim from a pickup truck that was crushed in a collision with a tractor-trailer. The photo ran across four columns on page two.”

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Janisse finished third in the same category with a photo of a firefighter stretching a hose with a burning home in the background.

One of Wilhelm’s runner-up honors came for his general news feature on an American family’s search for a missing man believed killed in a plane crash.

“Trevor Wilhelm delivered a fascinating tale of a half-century-old mystery, putting a name and a life to the John Doe,” the judges wrote.

“The details Wilhelm gathered through Jim Wilson’s family about a man who had been missing for 51 years, along with the minute for the airplane’s disappearance and the twist near the end on how police failed to identify Wilson years earlier, really drove the narrative all the way to the end.”

His other runner-up finish was in the spot news category for a story about the arrest of a suspect after an explosion at the Windsor Assembly Plant.

“Unfazed by official sources who provided scant details, Wilhelm kept digging until he found the story behind the explosion and what may have led to the shocking incident,” the judges wrote.

“His dogged determination resulted in the Windsor Star to be consistently ahead of the competition on the breaking story.”

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