Former Toronto Star radio room reporter wins fellowship

By Allison Cross

Ottawa-based journalist Laura Stone, a former Toronto Star radio room reporter, has been named the inaugural recipient of Postmedia’s Michelle Lang Fellowship.

The year-long fellowship was established in honour of Lang, an award-winning Calgary Herald reporter who was killed last year while on assignment for Canwest News Service in Afghanistan.

Known for her tenacious reporting on the healthcare system, Lang was the first Canadian journalist to die in Afghanistan during this conflict.

“The fellowship honours the ideals that Michelle held up in her journalistic life: telling the untold stories,” Stone said. “It may sound obvious, but the stories that lie below the radar are the most difficult to find and do.”

The fellowship was open to recent university graduates who have a passion for writing and current events, and will include up to $10,000 in funding for Stone to pursue a special news project.

“Laura is a wonderful choice for this inaugural fellowship,” said Scott Anderson, senior vice-president, content, Postmedia Network Inc, in a statement. “Laura carries with her many of the great qualities Michelle exhibited in her work every day, which include a passion for telling stories that have gone unreported or unnoticed on topics of social significance.”

Stone, who began her fellowship on Sept. 1, will spend six months at Postmedia News in Ottawa and six months at the Calgary Herald.

Stone is a graduate of Carleton University, where she earned a master of journalism degree.

She also has a faculty of Arts and Sciences joint degree from Dalhousie University and King’s College in Halifax, and a bachelor of arts in English and History from Dalhousie.

In addition to her time at the Star, Stone has worked at the Ottawa Citizen, National Post, The Province in Vancouver and Canwest News Service.

“This business is all about people taking a chance on you,” Stone said. “When I was hired by the radio room at the Star during the summer of 2008, I had zero daily news experience. But they saw something in me and took a chance.”

 Allison Cross is a reporter in the Toronto Star year-long intern program. Earlier this week she won an Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism for the documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.