Earlier today, the American Society of News Editors announced winners of the 2012 Best Journalism Awards. Digital First Media fared exceptionally well, with the Denver Post and El Paso Times receiving three awards altogether — more than any other company.
The staff of the Denver Post received the Distinguished Writing Award for Deadline News Reporting for their work responding to last year’s tragic shooting in Aurora, CO. Steve Buttry has blogged about how the newsroom used Twitter as a reporting tool during the event, but the judges also shared their own remarks about the Post’s coverage:
The Denver Post produced a comprehensive yet tightly written narrative report on the tragic shootings at the multiplex in Aurora, Colo. The stories included detailed reporting and vivid writing that took readers inside the theater as the gunman methodically went after his victims. The writers sifted through a mountain of information to deliver fresh insights, telling the story in a complete and compelling manner.
Also representing the Denver Post, Jo Amon received the Community Service Photojournalism Award for this multimedia package on heroin use in Denver. As the judges remarked, she “gained access to a story and subjects that are tough to find, let alone photograph.”
The third and final winner from Digital First Media was El Paso Times editor Bob Moore, who received the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership. Here’s one of the editorials that caught the judges’ attention, and a page with the paper’s full coverage. The judges offered their own remarks:
For the remarkable fortitude displayed in his editorials that wouldn’t let El Paso’s school board and leadership team off the hook after they tried to cook the books on standardized testing by having poor-performing students `disappear’ on testing days to make the school’s test scores look better.
For more information about the ASNE, visit their website. Congratulations once again to our winners from Digital First Media.