Joe Banks

My career as an Ontario rural and suburban community newspaper reporter, photographer, editor, publisher, general manager and journalism instructor began in May 1978. After graduating from journalism school with an Honours Diploma, I was hired as a reporter/photographer at the Haliburton (Ont.) County Echo. I worked since then for Ontario small town and suburban community newspapers in Fort Erie (reporter/photographer), Peterborough (reporter/photographer), Arnprior (reporter/photographer), Almonte (managing editor), Glengarry County (publisher) and up until August 2000, as publisher/managing editor of a group of community newspapers in rural and suburban south Ottawa.

Between 1989 and 1995, I was a member of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association (OCNA) Board of Directors and served as the organization’s Second Vice President in 1993 and 1994. I was a director on the Alexandria and District Chamber of Commerce from 1991 to 1994, then served as the organization's president from 1995 to 1997. My work as a community journalist has been recognized with several awards, including as a three-time winner of the Bell Canada Award for column writing, the Ontario Ministry of Environment Environmental Writing Award for a major report of river pollution in Ontario's Mississippi River, and the Ontario Hydro Feature Writing Award. In addition, the newspapers I managed won record numbers of awards in their class for journalism, design, photography and commentary. In March 2000, my career in the community newspaper industry was recognized when I was named by OCNA as one of 50 industry individuals who has made a major contribution to Ontario’s community newspaper industry since OCNA’s founding in 1950.

Today, I am employed as a full-time Journalism professor/coordinator at Algonquin College.