The Morgan Hill Times and sister papers the Gilroy Dispatch and
the Hollister Free Lance garnered a slew of awards in the 2006
Better Newspapers Contest awards luncheon Saturday at the Fairmont
Hotel.
San Francisco – The Morgan Hill Times and sister papers the Gilroy Dispatch and the Hollister Free Lance garnered a slew of awards in the 2006 Better Newspapers Contest awards luncheon Saturday at the Fairmont Hotel.
The Times received seven awards, including four first-place honors and three second-place journalism excellence awards during the highly competitive contest, sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
“The awards signify not only the hard work the staff puts into the publication, but more importantly the commitment the newspapers have to their communities. We care and we cover the stories with that deep sense of connection. There’s always work to be done, of course, and we’ll keep striving to make the Times a better newspaper for our readers,” said South Valley Newspapers Executive Editor Mark Derry.
Added Morgan Hill Times Editor Sheila Sanchez: “Congratulations to the staff of the Morgan Hill Times on the winning of seven journalism awards! Winning a first-place award for editorial pages is so meaningful to us because it shows the newspaper has a strong voice with opinions that matter to our readers. It’s rare to find the level of persuasiveness, originality and content significance that you find in the Times opinion pages and it’s wonderful that such highly regarded journalism judges could see that in our entries.”
The Times competed in the weekly, 4,300-subscribers-and-under category.
Journalists at the Times won first place for editorial pages, sports coverage, sports story and sports photo. Entries in the local breaking news, front page and photo essay categories were awarded second place.
Sanchez said she was pleased with the recognition the Times received.
“Three first-place awards for our sports coverage reveal the Times commitment to our local athletic community. With a new sports editor on board who’s just as committed as our previous editor was about giving our readers the best of high school sports prep coverage, we will continue to excel in our sports pages and our readers will continue to enjoy our sports stories,” said Sanchez.
The Times also received three certificates of achievement for general excellence, columns and feature photo.
The Gilroy Dispatch won 11 awards, including the coveted “General Excellence” award. Staffers at the Dispatch were honored with first-place awards for editorial comment, sports story, lifestyle coverage, with second-place honors for editorial pages, arts and entertainment coverage and business or financial story. In the sports photo and photo essay categories, the Dispatch won both first and second-place awards.
The Hollister Free Lance staff won six awards, including first-place mentions for both page layout and design and breaking news photo.
More than 500 CNPA member newspapers submitted entries to be judged by journalists from three different locations in Sacramento, Walnut Creek and Ontario. Four entries in each category rose to the top, and a “blue ribbon” panel of nine judges from across the nation met in San Francisco to award the plaques to the first and second-place winners.
“These are very prestigious awards that are highly sought after by journalists around the state,” said Jack Bates, executive director of the CNPA. “With close to 5,000 entries coming from daily and weekly members obviously it’s very competitive and the top two winners should be very justly proud of the awards that they receive.”
Sanchez said, “Recognition for having
outstanding front pages in our division shows the skill of our paginator, Gerry Blanchard, who works hard to give our readers the best layout and graphics to enhance stories for better reader comprehension. As a team we work hard to have the best story selection, headlines and photos on our front pages. The Times is indeed the best in its category statewide. We’re sure happy about that and hope to continue to improve for our readers who are priority No. 1 for us.”
“Marilyn Dubil’s dogged reporting of the Patterson case, no matter how difficult the challenges were along the uncovering of the story, show how committed Dubil is to the local
community and to getting thorough, accurate and timely stories. Dubil’s passion for spot news should be no surprise to readers of the Times who enjoy her moving stories week after week without having to compromise our high standards. Some of these stories are difficult to get, but Dubil’s skills come through for our readers time and time again. That’s invaluable to the success of a newspaper.”
