Valerie Fortney

Valerie Fortney is a Canadian journalist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has a successful career in broadcasting, magazines, and newspapers. Fortney was a regular contributor in the 1990s to the popular CBC Radio show Basic Black,[1] and served as a frequent commentator for CBC Newsworld. Her feature writing has appeared across North America and around the world, in publications such as Chatelaine,[2] the Los Angeles Times and Reader’s Digest International. In the 1990s, she was the founding editor of Avenue magazine, a Calgary magazine named Best New Magazine at the 1997 National Magazine Awards. The magazine won several other regional and national awards during her tenure. A columnist and feature writer at the Calgary Herald since 1998. Valerie has been nominated twice for National Newspaper Awards: in 2001, for Spot Reporting for her feature work on the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and in 2005, for Investigations for her work on a special series focusing on India's abandoned brides, titled Abandoned Brides: Canada’s Shame, India’s Sorrow. The series went on to win the Daniel Pearl award for print journalism,[3] beating out The New York Times and Chicago Tribune; the UK-based Commonwealth Writers' Union Words and Pictures award; and the B.C.-based Webster award for best news reporting.[4]