The Long Island Press brought home seventeen awards at the Long Island chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' 2010 Media Awards dinner. The Press earned honors in virtually every category of the competition.
The Village Voice's Elizabeth Dwoskin, Jaclyn Galluci of the Long Island Press, and Chris Vogel of the Houston Press are among the finalists for this year's Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, an all-media, general reporting contest that awards three $10,000 prizes for Local, National, and International Reporting to journalists under the age of 35. It's Dwoskin's second nomination in a row; last year's local reporting winner was Phoenix New Times' John Dickerson. Winners will be announced on June 2.
The New York Press Association announced the winners of its annual Best Newspaper Contest this past weekend, and four alt-weeklies were in the mix. The Long Island Press took home nine awards, including first-place wins for Coverage of Elections/Politics; News Story; and Sports Feature. The New York Press won five total awards, including firsts for Coverage of Business, Financial & Economic News; Coverage of Crime/Police/Courts; Feature Story; and Best Use of Color. Syracuse New Times won five awards as well, including a first-place finish in the Editorial Cartoon category. Ithaca Times took home four awards, including a first-place nod for Best Column.
The Press recently developed a multimedia site to accompany a cover story on Long Island's Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center and its holocaust survivors as part of its attempt to find new ways to present its journalism. Publisher Jed Morey tells AAN News it is all tied into the company's recent expansion of video journalism, which includes hiring a full-time video journalist. "It has really energized the staff and brought a whole new perspective to our reporting, because his pitches are so unique," Morey says. "Part of our growth this year is online and we're making original video a huge part of that initiative."
While the economic downturn hurt the paper a bit, Press publisher Jed Morey tells CNN Money there were no mass layoffs -- and the paper was back in the black by the end of last year. Morey pegs the Press' success in part to the decision of Long Island's daily paper Newsday to go partly behind a paywall last year. The Press seized the opportunity and began running more general news on the web, to appeal to those who might not pay for Newsday online. Since then, Morey says traffic has gone up 600 percent. "It is not about a newspaper, it is not about the physical product or even the experience. It's about the quality of the journalism," he says. "If you stay true to that, we think that there is several different places you can go with that. The web being one of them."
Michael Patrick Nelson, who been with the Press since its inception in 2003, was most recently managing editor. He will take over as the paper's top editor following Robbie Woliver's departure last summer. "No one knows the Press better than Michael and he has earned the respect of not only every reporter in the newsroom but everyone in our organization," says publisher Jed Morey. "We're all excited about the Nelson era."
Robbie Woliver tells AAN News he left the Press last month to focus on his own startup company and to devote more time to promoting his recent book Alphabet Kids.
The alt-weekly won this year's Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in the non-daily category for its story on the growing heroin epidemic among Long Island's youth -- a story the judges called "the epitome of public service journalism." The story -- "Long Highland" -- also won the AltWeekly Award for Public Service last week in Tucson. The Dallas Observer and New Times Broward-Palm Beach received honorable mentions in the Casey Medal competition, which recognizes "exemplary reporting on children and families in the U.S."
The KIOLI Flea Market and Farmers Market, an extension of the Press' KIOLI (Keep It On Long Island) shop local campaign, kicked off last weekend on a Long Island college campus, the Daily News reports. The market, which features more than 200 vendors, will run every Saturday and Sunday this summer. Press publisher Jed Morey says he hopes the market will help bring a sense of community to shoppers. "The mall sort of took the soul out of the flea market, so I think this is us getting a little bit of our groove back," he says. "The malling of America is hopefully coming to a little bit of a close, and we will get back to promoting local business."
When the Press Club of Long Island, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, announced the winners of its 2009 Media Awards contest at its annual awards dinner Thursday night, Long Island's only alt-weekly came away with a total of 17 awards. The Press won two "all media" awards -- Brad Pareso was named Cub Reporter of the Year, and the paper was named a co-winner (with Newsday) of the Robert Greene Public Service Award for a story on heroin use in the area. (That story is also up for a Public Service AltWeekly Award.) In competition with other weeklies, the Press won first-place awards in the following categories: Arts, Business/Economic/Financial, Deadline News, Feature, Government/Politics, and Non-Deadline News.
