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.

Christine Tansey

She’ll lead a five-person breaking news desk the Register created when it reorganized its newsroom in late November. This team’s job is to speed local, state and national news to the web and digital platforms such as social media and mobile, while assuring that reporters’ breaking news copy is accurate and goes through an editing process.

Christine is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, where she was a double major in journalism and English.

She joined the Register in 2005 as a graphic designer, and over time became an integral part of the decision-making process and design of the Register’s front page and other key aspects of the print edition.

She joined the Breaking News Team in January as a web producer.

She succeeds Cara Baruzzi, who recently left the New Haven Register for a job with the United Way of Greater New Haven.

Brian joined the Register as a reporter in Milford in 2000, and has developed a reputation among his colleagues as one of the hardest-working members of the staff, and a strong reputation for fairness in the communities he’s covered. He has served as Milford bureau chief since 2004.

In his new role, Brian will be chiefly responsible for coordinating news coverage of the Naugatuck Valley and Milford, Bethany, Orange and Woodbridge.

He’ll also be a vital assistant and backup to Managing Editor Mark Brackenbury and City Editor Helen Bennett Harvey, who have been taking on an increased role in planning statewide news coverage and investigative story projects.

Jennifer most recently worked for Main Street Connect as a reporter in Yorktown, New York.

She has also worked at the Mahopac (N.Y.) News as a reporter and social media manager, and was a new media intern at Georgetown Media Group in Washington, D.C., and a reporting intern at Capitol newspaper “The Hill.”

Swift is a graduate of Quinnipiac University with a double major in journalism and political science. She spent a semester at George Washington University in Washington.

At Quinnipiac, she was co-founder of investigative news service Vox Populus and served as senior managing editor of The Quad News.

Jennifer can be reached at jswift@nhregister.com. Follow her on Twitter at @NHRSwift.

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

ConnecticutNewspapers.Org seeks to leverage what we’re good at and share our resources to support charity, similar to how Google formed Google.Org to provide nonprofits access to its products and assistance with technology.

Ed Stannard and Angela Carter

Leading this effort will be Angela Carter and Ed Stannard, who work as full-time community engagement editors at the New Haven Register.

The program aims to provide nonprofits better access to and understanding of how editors decide to cover their issues, causes and events. But more importantly, Ed and Angi will be working with organizations to help them bring their message directly to our audience through participation in our Community Media Lab and assistance with establishing a blogging and/or social media presence.

ConnecticutNewspapers.Org also offers discounted advertising to nonprofits in our publications throughout the state, and free meeting space at our open-to-the-public Register Citizen Newsroom Cafe in Torrington.

The program’s website will share tips and resources for Connecticut nonprofits, and includes an interactive map of the communities covered by Journal Register Company newspapers and participating in the program.

We’ll be using CT News Junkie’s articles in our print editions throughout the state, which include the New Haven Register, Middletown Press and Register Citizen, and linking to CT News Junkie’s coverage online.

This will free some of our reporters to focus more on in-depth and unique coverage of statewide issues that are presently under-covered by a shrinking Statehouse press corps.

Earlier this year, for example, we announced that reporter Mary O’Leary would be focusing on more in-depth “explainer”-format coverage and “fact check” reports.

Christine Stuart

And state politics and government reporter Jordan Fenster will be taking a lead role on our previously announced “Citizens Agenda” project, a new approach to covering political campaigns that’s based on the issues most important to our readers instead of “the horse race.”

CT News Junkie has been led since 2006 by editor and lead reporter Christine Stuart, who has developed a reputation as one of the hardest-working journalists covering the Capitol.

Prior to joining CT News Junkie, Stuart was a local news and politics reporter for the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. Previously, she covered education, transportation and the Capitol for the Hartford Advocate.

Cecelia Martinez will be covering the towns of Guilford and Madison.

Cecelia worked previously as a reporter and copy editor at JRC’s daily in Troy, N.Y., the Troy Record, where she covered the city of Troy beat.

She has also been a contributing writer to Metroland in Albany, N.Y.

She is a graduate of The College of Saint Rose in Albany, where she was executive editor of the student newspaper, The Chronicle.

In her spare time, Cecelia sings in two bands, one of which was named Metroland’s Best New Band of 2009.

Henry Chisholmwill be covering high school sports.

Henry Chisholm

Henry is a 2009 graduate of the University of Bridgeport and a graduate student at Quinnipiac who has covered high school basketball, baseball and football for the Connecticut Post since 2008.

He has written a popular basketball blog (http://blog.ctnews.com/chisholm/) for the Post, and has done significant work in video.

Follow Cecelia on Twitter at @dcecelia or email her at cmartinez@nhregister.com.

Followe Henry on Twitter at @henrychisholmct or email him at hchisholm@nhregister.com.

Readers will still be able to comment anonymously, and without going through a registration process, if they wish, but the new system will also allow you to log in with your Facebook account, your Twitter, Yahoo or Google ID or by registering with the system itself.

We will be maintaining our policy of having staff screen comments before they appear on the site, but plan to reward the most responsible commenters with a “whitelist” status that will allow their comments to go up on the site immediately. To qualify for this, a reader must register with the site or use a verified ID such as Facebook and prove over time that their comments are civil and not in violation of our policies against abusive and hateful language.

The platform we’re using is called “Disqus.” It has been in use at The Register Citizen in Torrington since last summer. In the weeks following its deployment in New Haven, we’ll also be adding it to the Middletown Press and our weeklies in Connecticut.

Some key differences between Disqus and our present story commenting system include:

- The ability to use a verified identity log-in if you choose. We believe that introducing more conversation among people who are using their real names will improve the tenor of conversation among even those who continue to choose to be anonymous.

- The ability to reply to specific comments, and maintain “threaded” conversations. Right now, a story on the Register’s website might have as many as 100 comments. If you want to respond to the fifth comment in that thread, you can, but your response will show up 96 comments later. The new system allows readers to reply to specific comments and carry on a back-and-forth with others. There is also a “Like” button next to each comment, and a setting that moves “most liked” comments to the top of the thread.

- The ability to edit your comment after you’ve posted it. A frequent complaint that we have regarding our present story comment system is that there’s no way to take back something you regret saying, or more often, to correct a typo or grammar error, after you’ve hit submit, other than asking a moderator to take the comment down altogether.

- The ability to register with the new platform and create a profile – either using your own name or a pseudonym – that can be recognized by other readers. Once you establish a track record of responsible commenting, you’ll be eligible for “whitelisting” by moderators so that your comments will appear immediately on the site instead of being reviewed ahead of time by staff.

Registering is easy. This is what you’ll see if you choose “login” and “create new profile.” You can also go to Disqus.com and create a profile right now. And when the new system launches on the New Haven Register’s site next week, just log in with the user name and password that you chose.

Our new system also allows you to log in using your Facebook profile, your Twitter account, or your Google or Yahoo ID. Just click on “post as” and make your choice.

Finally, you can still choose to comment any time, as a one-time thing, by choosing “post as” guest. Like our present system, that allows you to choose a user name and plug in an email address every time you comment.

UPDATE: Our new story commenting platform is scheduled to go live on the New Haven Register website at noon Tuesday, March 20. If you have any problems or questions about it, or if you have any questions in the future about why a story comment was approved or not approved, you can email comments@nhregister.com.

Not us. Doonesbury will appear in its normal place on the comics page of the New Haven Register, The Middletown Press and The Register Citizen.

In the strips, Doonesbury author and Yale grad Garry Trudeau tackles a proposed Texas law that would require women seeking an abortion to get a “transvaginal ultrasound,” which involves inserting a wand into the vagina.

Next week’s Doonesbury refers to it as a “shaming wand,” features a Texas legislator calling a young woman at a doctor’s office a “slut,” and quotes a Texas doctor just before the procedure saying, “By the authority vested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”

This would be jarring if all of a sudden Garfield tackled abortion and Republican right misogyny, but this is Doonesbury. It’s a political cartoon. Readers expect it to tackle the issues of the day head-on. Trudeau succeeds brilliantly on this one, and maybe that’s why it’s so uncomfortable for some.

We just listened to one of the most popular radio talk show hosts in America call a young college student a “slut” and a “prostitute” for advocating that health insurance cover contraception. And he still has a job.

Newspaper editors should be more concerned about protecting their readers from legislators who want to force them into an offensive, invasive procedure aimed at undermining the very foundation of reproductive rights and equality than cartoonists who are raising alarms about it.