By Ashley Joannou THE CANADIAN PRESS Jessica Wallace stood in Ottawa’s Rideau Hall in June as she and her co-workers at the British Columbia newspaper Kamloops This Week were recognized as finalists for the Michener Award, a top journalism prize in Canada. On a short list with the likes of the Globe and Mail and Global News, the newspaper’s stories uncovered questionable spending at the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, including a $500,000 retirement payout for a chief administrative officer and lavish spending at steak houses and champagne rooms. The work was praised by the judges as “an outstanding example of the bedrock of journalism.” The newsroom was closed less than six months later, leaving the community of about 100,000 people in B.C.’s Interior without a newspaper for the first time since…