Journal Register staff win 65 Connecticut SPJ awards

Journal Register Company staff were honored at the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists 2012 awards ceremony Thursday night for their digital first coverage of Hurricane Irene, the trial of triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky and a spike in New Haven’s murder rate.

In all, JRC staff took home 65 awards, including 27 first place honors, up from 56 awards, with 20 in first place, last year.

The New Haven Register’s first place award for Online Spot News Reporting happened from a makeshift newsroom in reporter Alexandra Sanders’ apartment in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

The New Haven Register swept SPJ’s Online Spot News Reporting category, winning first place for team coverage of Hurricane Irene. Because the Register building was without power in the hurricane’s aftermath, the best reporting came from a makeshift newsroom set up in reporter Alexandra Sanders‘ apartment.

The Register won second place in the same category for its coverage of the trial of triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky, which featured daily live tweeting from the courtroom, instant SMS alerts of the verdict and live video of reaction from defense attorneys, prosecutors and the victims’ family.

The Register won first place in the Online In-Depth Reporting category for the “New Haven Homicides Report,” a blog created by William Kaempffer and Chris March that maps every murder that happens in the city, profiles the victims and tracks updates on when arrests are made and court appearances are scheduled.

The Register’s year-long coverage of racial profiling allegations against the East Haven Police Department, led by Mark Zaretsky and Susan Misur, also took home a first place award, for Best General Reporting Series, newspapers over 50,000 circulation.

Mara Lavitt won first place for Best News Photo in the over 50,000 circulation category.

Mara Lavitt

Ed Stannard won first place for best single General Reporting story for “Sins to confess? Catholics, there’s an app for that.”

Donna Doherty won first place for Best Arts & Entertainment writing in the over 50,000 circulation category for “Breaking down Bergman.”

Sports Editor Sean Barker won first place for Best Sports Column for newspapers with over 50,000 circulation for a tribute to late Register sports columnist Dave Solomon, who was killed in a car accident last year. Solomon himself posthumously won second place in the Best Sports Column category for a piece about New Haven coach Jim Wolf.

The Register led JRC papers in Connecticut with 20 awards in all, including 9 first place honors.

The Register Citizen and Middletown Press received 7 and 6 awards, respectively.

Register Citizen sports writer Kevin Roberts won first place for Online Sports Feature, while Editor Rick Thomason was  honored with a first place business writing award for a piece on manufacturing in Torrington and several second and third place awards for editorials and column writing.

Jonetta Badillo

Middletown Press reporter Jonetta Badillo won first place in the under 18,000 circulation daily newspaper category for Best General Reporting Series for her coverage of the fate of the Powder Ridge ski area.

JRC weekly newspapers won 18 awards, including 5 – all by Jimmy Zanor for sports writing – at the Shoreline Times.

At Housatonic Publications in New Milford, the Litchfield County Times took home 6 awards, the Housatonic Times, 4, and Passport magazine, 3.

They included first place awards by Jack Coraggiofor Best Sports Feature and Best Business Reporting. Kathryn Boughton and Alice Tessier won first place honors for column writing.

Charles Monagan

JRC’s Connecticut Magazine dominated awards in the magazine division, with 14 total, 7 first place.

Editor Charles Monagan, who won his first SPJ award in 1972, picked up a first place honor 40 years later for Best Magazine Editorial.

Joan Barrow won first place honors for Photo Layout and Non-Page 1 Layout.

Patricia Grandjean won first place for Magazine Feature Writing and second place for General Reporting for a magazine.

The entire list of JRC’s winners follows. The complete Connecticut SPJ list can be found here.

JRC Connecticut newspapers win big in Local Media Association contest

Journal Register Company newspapers in Connecticut have won 33 awards in the 2011 editorial contest of the Local Media Association, formerly known as the Suburban Newspapers of America.

The New Haven Register was among the top daily newspaper winners with 15 awards, including 2nd place in the country for Best Sports Section and first place in the country for best reporting on local education.

The Litchfield County Times was among the top weekly newspaper winners in the country with 8 awards.

Journal Register Company beat out all other newspaper companies with 102 awards total.

Click here for the full list of awards.

Click here for a slide show of award-winning photos from our Connecticut staff.

The full list of winners from JRC Connecticut:

- 1st place, Best Coverage of Local Education, New Haven Register. Reporting by Abbe Smith.

- 1st place, Best Column Writing, New Haven Register. “Inspirations” column by Ann DeMatteo.

- 1st place, Best Headline, New Haven Register. “Pain in the Gas” by Mheegan Rollins.

- 1st place, Best Sports Photo, New Haven Register. “Yale football” by Arnold Gold.

- 1st place, Best Feature Photo, New Haven Register. “Essex Steam Train” by Peter Casolino.

- 2nd place, Best Sports Section, New Haven Register. Sports Editor Sean Barker and team.

- 2nd place, Best News Photo, New Haven Register. “Hurricane Irene” by William Kaempffer.

- 2nd place, Best Continuing Coverage, New Haven Register. “Interstate 95 project” by Ed Stannard.

- 2nd place, Best Feature Series, New Haven Register. “The Good Fight” by Jim Shelton.

- 3rd place, Best Headline, New Haven Register. “Hello, Good Buys” by Mheegan Rollins.

- 3rd place, Best Photojournalism, New Haven Register.  “Hurricane Irene, the Day After,” by Peter Casolino.

- 3rd place, Best Environmental Coverage, New Haven Register. “Zombie Dump” by Ann DeMatteo.

- Honorable Mention, Best News Photo, New Haven Register. “Bike Man in Snow” by Peter Hvizdak.

- Honorable Mention, Best Feature Photo, New Haven Register. “Snow Graphic” by Melanie Stengel.

- Honorable Mention, Best Feature, New  Haven Register. “When Politics Seeps into Breast Milk” by Sandi Shelton.

- 1st place, Best Special Section, The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT: Forging Tomorrow’s New England Experience)

- Honorable Mention, Best In-Depth Reporting, The Register Citizen

- 2nd place, Community Service Award, Middletown Press (Shovel Brigade)

- 2nd place, Best Wildcard Product, The Register Citizen (Every Town Has a Green)

- 2nd place, Best Arts and Entertainment Coverage, Middletown Press

- 1st place, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Litchfield County Times (Passport Magazine)

- 2nd place, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Litchfield County Times (LCT Magazine)

- 2nd place, Best Special Section, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Opinion Column, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Local Business Coverage, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Sports Photo, Litchfield County Times

- 3rd place, Best Environmental Coverage, Litchfield County Times

- 3rd place, Best Editorial Writing, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Sports Section, Housatonic Times

- 2nd place, Best Column Writing, Housatonic Times

- 3rd place, Best News Photo, Housatonic Times

- Honorable Mention, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Housatonic Times

- 2nd place, Best Editorial Writing, Westport Minuteman

Reporter, eating competition: Natural fit, right?

Litchfield County Times reporter Jack Coraggio made a valiant effort, but came up short of winning a hot dog eating contest in Southbury on Sunday.

Journalists can get creative sometimes in swinging free meals. Litchfield County Times reporter Jack Coraggio took that to another level on Sunday, and ate like he didn’t know when his next meal was going to come. Jack competed in a hot dog eating contest in Southbury to benefit the Special Olympics of Connecticut. He didn’t win, but did manage to consume 6 hot dogs, including buns, in 7 minutes. CLICK HERE to check out his story about the experience – and a video of his eating abilities.

More mountain lions in Connecticut?

A visitor to White Memorial in Litchfield claims to have seen a mountain lion there.

Reporter Jack Coraggio has a story for the Litchfield County Times today about a possible mountain lion sighting at White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield.  Reports like this are taking on a lot more significance this year since Connecticut wildlife officials were forced to confirm the possible existence of mountain lions in the state after one was struck and killed by a car in Milford. For decades, state officials had been denying their existence in Connecticut.

Curating an earthquake

You couldn’t draw up a better example of a breaking news story that called for audience engagement to be at the center of news reporting.

Gateway students text friends and family after being evacuated from the building because of earthquake tremors Tuesday. Melanie Stengel/New Haven Register

That’s in part because Tuesday’s earthquake – centered in Virginia but felt as far away as New Hampshire and Vermont – was experienced by close to 100 percent of our audience in Connecticut.

So after the desks stopped shaking at the New Haven Register, Middletown Press, The Register Citizen in Torrington and Litchfield County Times in New Milford, editors and reporters turned first to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, to gauge the extent of how the quake was felt locally and across the region, how it was disrupting workplaces, public safety operations and airline and rail travel, and the extent of damage, if any.

Editors’ first step was to send out SMS text message alerts to readers’ mobile phones, confirming that what they just felt was, indeed, an earthquake – 5.8 on the Richter scale. A breaking news email alert followed.

Simultaneously, Twitter was used to report the news, both with original information and a retweeting of reports from throughout the coverage area of readers’ reactions the quakes and institutions’ reports of evacuating buildings or halting events. Readers started chiming in via Facebook and story comments on our websites, and the most interesting and relevant information provided by the audience was incorporated into our main story.

Editors set up a real-time feed of Twitter reactions with the hashtag “#earthquake.” It was an interesting thing to watch, as more than 40,000 Tweets were sent out about the earthquake within a minute of the first tremor. Then they used the curation tool Storify to collect local Twitter reactions and present them in story format. An editor at a sister publication in Pennsylvania even created an “earthquake humor” Storify of the best jokes to hit Twitter about the situation.

Flip camera-wielding beat reporters on assignment in downtown New Haven and reporters and photographers covering the New Haven Open pro women’s tennis tournament were submitting video within minutes of the quake. Sports writer Dan Nowak’s Flip camera video of the evacuation of the tennis stadium at Yale was picked up and used on the national NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams Tuesday evening.

Early in the process, our sites linked to an “explainer” on why earthquakes happen in New England and how they’re different from West Coast quakes.

And of course, reporters made all of the old-style beat calls to local fire departments, city hall, the public utilities and other “official sources.”

But for Journal Register Company newsrooms in Connecticut on Tuesday, crowdsourcing and a digital first toolbox of equipment, technology and mindset spread news of the earthquake as fast and as effectively as any breaking news story, ever, in the history of our newspapers.

That speed paid immediate dividends in audience growth. Because the weekly Litchfield County Times posted within seconds of confirmation of the earthquake, monthly unique visitors went from an average of about 100 an hour to nearly 1,000 after the news broke.  A high percentage of that traffic came from Yahoo and Google searches. Traffic on the daily sites tripled for the same reason, and the constant addition to and enrichment of earthquake content kept readers on the site throughout the afternoon.

And the testament to how far we’ve come in embracing a “digital first” mindset is that this happened almost completely on its own … It was second nature for New Haven Register Managing Editor Mark Brackenbury, City Editor Helen Bennett Harvey and reporters and editors throughout the newsroom in New Haven, Torrington, New Milford, Middletown, both in news and sports. I certainly didn’t have anything to do with it. And no corporate deep thinker had to pick up the phone and suggest it. Our reporters and editors know how to use these tools now and when to use them. They are eager to get the audience involved. It’s part of the culture now. And Tuesday’s earthquake experience gives us the confidence to further embrace it as the new normal. It’s an exciting proposition.