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Saturday Night editor Robert Fulford and his wife, Geraldine Sherman , executive producer of CBC Radio's State of the Arts, are among eight winners of $10,000, two-month travel fellowships to the Far East awarded by the Asia Pacific Foundation.
The awards are presented in two categories of journalism, with five winners from the electronic media and three from print.
The print winners were Fulford, Ken Bernsohn of the Prince George Citizen and Robert Lee of the Ottawa Citizen. Electronic media winners were Sherman, Luc Chartrand and Caroline Graveline of Radio Canada, Montreal, Susan Phillips of Radio Canada International from Vancouver and George Hoff from CBC-TV in Toronto.
Separate juries chose the winners for electronic and print awards, with Nalini Stewart of the Asia Pacific Foundation serving as chairman for both. Stewart said the choice of both Fulford and Sherman was coincidental and all candidates were picked on the individual merit of their applications. She also said the foundation was "honored and surprised" by the application of Fulford, whom she described as "a national treasure."
Natalie Freeman, director of affairs for the foundation, acknowledged that both Fulford and Sherman indicated in their applications that their spouses were also applying for the award.
The electronic jury consisted of Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, chairman of Telemedia, Barbara Frum, host of CBC's The Journal, and Bob Wagstaff, director of radio for CBC British Columbia. The print media jury consisted of Kevin Doyle of Maclean's magazine, Gerald Haslam, vice-president and publisher of Pacific Press, and Pierre O'Neil, director of information services for Radio Canada.
O'Neil chose not to judge electronic media because he considered it a conflict of interest to judge journalists in his own field.
However, Barbara Frum, who is a friend of Geraldine Sherman's, said she did not consider her presence on the jury a conflict of interest: "To my mind, it's not a problem. After 25 years in broadcast journalism, you're bound to know other people in the field. The jury's decision was unanimous, which I think indicates that the process was fair."