On the day the BC Coroner’s Service announced a grim new milestone in the province’s overdose crisis, CTV News has been presented with one of the country’s most important journalism awards for its ongoing coverage of the public health emergency.

The Jack Webster Award for Excellence in Feature/Enterprise Reporting – Television was presented to CTV Vancouver and CTV’s W5 on Thursday night.

The award acknowledges a special combined effort by CTV to provide extensive in-depth reporting into a crisis that has now claimed the lives of 1,013 British Columbians in 2017, surpassing the total number of overdose deaths (922) in all of last year.

The award-winning team consists of W5 producer Brian Mellersh and CTV Vancouver reporters Michele Brunoro, Maria Weisgarber, Mi-Jung Lee and Jon Woodward.

The reporters spent weeks covering the story from multiple perspectives – from the addicts to the first responders to the volunteers working in back alleys to save the lives of people they say are being left vulnerable by an inadequate government response.

CTV’s coverage of the overdose crisis reached a national audience with the broadcast of a one hour documentary on the CTV series W5.