Michel Auger

On September 13, 2000, veteran crime reporter Michel Auger’s lifelong passion for writing nearly cost him his life. The Quebec journalist was shot five times in the parking lot of his Montreal newspaper, Le Journel de Montréal, a day after publishing an exposé on the city’s motorcycle gangs. Auger has since recovered from the brutal assault and is back on the beat covering organized crime.

Last November, he received the Tara Singh Hayer Memorial Award, given out each year by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. He was also awarded one of the Quebec National Assembly’s highest honours—the Speaker’s Medal.