Editor's Letter
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
For me, the good news started simply, like a few pebbles thrown against a windowpane. My husband sent a text message Thursday night, telling me that Philadelphia City Paper had won the Sweepstakes Award in the annual Keystone Press Awards contest.
Minutes later, an email arrived from CP reporter Ryan Briggs, alerting the editorial staff that the results were in, and the paper had won a ton of prizes. In fact, it was a landslide: 17 awards, including 13 first-place honors.
The paper dominated its division, weekly newspapers over 10,000 circulation, and won Sweepstakes honors as the best major weekly in Pennsylvania.
The Keystone awards are a statewide contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association and judged independently, this time by our peers in New York state. The list of awards are posted on the association’s website.
The other big winner among the local news media is the Philadelphia Daily News, honored with the Sweepstakes Award for the state’s largest daily papers. It’s great to be in such good company.
For regular readers of City Paper, it will be no surprise that reporter Daniel Denvir won five awards for news reporting, including four first-place honors.
Other multiple award winners were Ryan Briggs, for investigative reporting and feature writing; Samantha Melamed, now a reporter for the Inquirer, for health-care reporting, business-consumer reporting and school-news coverage, and Emily Guendelsberger for coverage of minority arts and a graphic illustration, an award shared with ad art director Evan Lopez and freelancer Jess Bergman.
The judges honored the paper, too, for its images and design. Photographer Neal Santos won two awards, as did former art director Reseca Peskin. Our local music coverage by Patrick Rapa and restaurant reviews by critic Adam Erace were awarded prizes, too.
All of this work was published in 2013 under the direction of my predecessor, Theresa Everline, and myself.
To be clear, none of us got into journalism to win prizes. Instead, we’re here to tell compelling stories and seek the truth — both good and bad — about life in Philly. But a pat on the back, from time to time, doesn’t hurt either.
