RALEIGH — The Chatham News + Record has earned 19 awards, including eight first-place finishes, at the N.C. Press Association’s Annual News & Editorial Awards Contest.
The awards — which included first place for best community news coverage — were presented in the category recognizing small community newspapers across North Carolina for 2018-19 during the NCPA’s annual award dinner February 27 in Raleigh.
The News + Record also received honors in the contest’s “General Excellence” category, which recognizes overall excellence in newspapering across the state of North Carolina.
News + Record Publisher/Editor Bill Horner III — who along with partners Kirk Bradley and Chris Ehrenfeld acquired the newspaper from the Resch family in late 2018, making this the “new” News + Record’s first entries in the annual NCPA awards — said he was proud of the work the newsroom had done in order to make the past year so successful.
Six News + Record staff members and a CN+R stringer received prizes at the ceremony.
“I’m so proud and thankful for all of our award winners,” Horner said. “Their commitment week in and week out is making a difference in Chatham County.”
The entire staff were the recipients of first place in the division in two major categories — Best Community News Coverage and Best Newspaper Appearance & Design. The staff was also recognized with a third place finish in the Best Website category.
“We won first place in six of the major reporting categories in this past year’s contest, and two of the three awards given in three of the major individual reporting categories,” Horner said. “I’m especially gratified about our team winning first place in Community News Coverage — which is a reflection of the quality and volume of reporting we do in Chatham County — and in newspaper Appearance & Design, which recognizes the work we did in re-designing the newspaper to make it attractive for readers and advertisers.”
The News + Record’s individual winners:
• Horner won four awards — first place for Best E-newsletter (shared with recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduate Alexis Allston, for the newspaper’s “chatham brew,” which is emailed to more than 2,000 readers each Monday), first place for Sports Feature Writing, second place for News Enterprise Reporting and second place for Serious Columns.
• Reporter Zachary Horner won four awards — first place for News Enterprise Reporting, first place and third place for News Feature Writing, and second place for Religion & Faith Reporting.
• Managing Editor Randall Rigsbee won two awards — first place for Best Story Lede and third place for General News Photography
• Photographer David Bradley won two awards — first place for Best Multimedia Project and third place for Sports Photography.
• Reporter Casey Mann won two awards — second place for Election/Political Reporting and third place for Sports Feature Writing.
• Advertising Designer Jason Justice won second place for best Small Ad.
In the General Excellence category, the News + Record received third place honors, meaning it was ranked by judges as the third-best overall newspaper among small weeklies across the state of North Carolina. Only that category’s winning newspaper, The State Port Pilot of Southport, received more first place awards (nine, versus the News + Record’s eight) in this year’s contest in the small community newspaper division. The Wake Weekly finished second in General Excellence.
More than 350 journalists from across the state attended the ceremony, held at Raleigh’s Marriott Crabtree. Chatham County’s Robert Reives II, who represents the county and portions of Durham County in N.C. House Dist. 54, and Rep. David Lewis of Harnett County, kicked off the awards ceremony with remarks about the importance of the media and a free press.