Cree Journalist Connie Walker Wins Top Journalism Awards

Connie Walker, a Saskatchewan Cree journalist, has recently won two of North America’s top journalism awards, the Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting and a Peabody Award for podcast and radio, for her podcast series called “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s”. This marks the first time a podcast series has won both awards in the same year, and Walker is one of the few Canadians to be recognized with these prestigious accolades.

Walker’s podcast series delves into the stories of the survivors of the St. Michael’s residential school, where her father was once a student, in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. The series, produced by Gimlet Media, exposes more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1931 and 1988 at the Roman Catholic-run school. Walker and her team spoke with 28 people who attended the institution to understand the lasting effects of residential school experiences.

Walker initially started her podcast as a story about her father and how the school affected him as a parent, but it soon expanded to include the experiences of all St. Michael’s survivors. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Walker expressed that her awards are a testament to the importance of Indigenous stories and voices.

Re-reported from the story originally published in https://www.theglobeandmail.com/