So I guess I can now call myself an award-winning journalist
A couple of months ago, my editor at the Niles Bugle told me that I was a finalist for the Illinois Press Association’s annual journalism contest.
If you are a Chicago area journalist, there are two journalist awards you probably care about - the Lisagor Awards and the IPA awards. Up until this year, Lisagor awards are run by Chicago Headline Club and, up until this year, focused on Chicagoland media. IPA awards are state-wide, but, unlike Lisagors, they only focused on newspapers.
Finding out that I was a finalist at IPA awards didn’t mean much. I was a Lisagor finalist in 2013 for the Arts Reporting and Criticism award (in the non-daily newspapers with circulation under 20,000 category) for this article. I lost to Chicago Jewish Star, the more conservative of Chicago’s two Jewish newspapers, and I haven’t been nominated for anything since.
At least until this year.
And, until this year, I didn’t win anything.
Like Lisagors, the award is broken down into categories (which they call “classes”), and each class is broken down into divisions based on publishing frequency and circulation. I was in Division B (non-daily newspapers with circulation between 3,001-10,000). Which, these days, is kind of the middle of the road, as far as circulation goes - were are not big, but we are not small, either, Niles Herald-Spectator would be in Division B, if anything from it got nominated.
I won first place in government beat reporting. for my coverage of the Village of Niles Board of Trustees. And I got second place in school board coverage, for my coverage of the local school districts.
The contest was judged by the Wisconsin .Press Association, because I guess IPA wanted to avoid any hometown bias. Their comment on my first place win was simply “very well written,” but they got a bit more in depth on my second place win.
“Good series of topics, well-written and interesting. Crisp writing. School security story was particularly well-done and informative. Great job of meeting contest's board/community criteria, clarity and depth.”
If you’re wondering, this is the school security story they’re talking about.
There is a plaque that comes with it, but I won’t get it (apparently, it goes in the Bugle’s offices on the wall), but I will get a certificate`… just as soon as
All and all…On one hand, I’m happy I won. I mean, like I said - I can now honestly say I’m an award-winning journalist. And being chosen from among who knows how many weekly newspapers in the state of Illinois is nothing to sneeze at. At the same time…These stories were covering something that’s fairly routine, as far as reporting goes. Like I said, I’m happy they got me an award - it means that even my routine stuff stood out, which does wonders for my ego. Plus, it’s always nice to see this sort of routine stuff acknowledged at all. But I think I would’ve been even happier if I got an award for something like my Lisagor-nominated Chicago Journal article. The kind of thing that touches on social issues real people have to deal with, a kind of story that brings something obscure, but interesting to light.
On the third hand, it’s not like I’ve written a whole lot of stories like that recently
But hey - there’s always next year.