PROVIDENCE – Providence Business News on Friday earned eight awards, including two first-place prizes, during the 2020 Rhode Island Press Association Editorial Awards Ceremony.
RIPA’s annual ceremony recognized the work done by Rhode Island-based print journalists during the 2019 calendar year. More than 120 awards were presented in 39 different categories judged by the Idaho Press Club, ranging from spot-news stories to long-form features, photography and page design.
The ceremony, normally held each year in May at the Quonset O Club in North Kingstown, was held virtually this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, PBN won nine wards from RIPA for the publication’s 2018 work. Back in June, PBN.com was judged as being one of the best three business publication websites in the Association of Area Business Publishers annual Editorial Excellence contest.
Former PBN reporter Elizabeth Graham won first place in the Feature Story-Short category for her Dec. 20, 2019, story titled “Anxious R.I. families await word on special medical coverage.” The story focused on local families of children with significant medical conditions who aged out of pediatric benefits.
Graham earned a second-place prize in the Food/Dining Story category for the Dec. 13, 2019, cover story titled “R.I. restaurant industry experiencing a plant-based boom.” The story highlighted how Providence started to build up its reputation of having restaurants that offered meatless and vegan options for patrons.
Former reporter Rob Borkowski took first place in the Science/Health Care Story category for the April 12, 2019, cover story titled “HSRI: Stable but will it ever cover costs?”. The story raised the question as to whether or not HealthSource RI, one of the nation’s top health exchanges, could remain self-sufficient as federal funding for the program was set to expire in 2020.
Reporter Mary MacDonald earned third place in the Feature Story/In-Depth category for her March 15, 2019, cover story titled “Adapt to disruptors – or perish?”. The story focused on how tech-based startups moved into the Rhode Island market and were jostling with established businesses at the time.
MacDonald also earned honorable mention in the Distinguished Journalist category behind Katherine Gregg and G. Wayne Miller of The Providence Journal, and Casey Nilsson of Rhode Island Monthly. MacDonald finished second in that category last year.
PBN Production Director Anne Ewing and Art Director Lisa Lagreca earned two third-place awards, one in the Best Cover category for the 2019 Guide to Stuff Designed, Made and Built in Rhode Island and the other in the Best Newspaper Front Page category for the May 10-16, 2019, print issue with the main headline “R.I.’s Unknown, Essential Lender.”
Former reporters Emily Gowdy-Backus and Scott Blake earned a third-place prize in the Single-Topic Series category for the series titled, “Can solar survive without incentives?” The two-part series, appearing in the March 1, 2019, and March 8, 2019, issues,
looked at the growth of Rhode Island’s solar and offshore-wind industries, and expectations for renewable energy in the region’s energy supply.
Additionally, PBN Special Projects Editor James Bessette was re-elected as RIPA’s executive board president. Bessette, the RIPA president since 2017, is entering his final one-year term with the board. A new president will be voted on at RIPA’s awards banquet scheduled for May 7, 2021, in person at the O Club.
Michael McDermott of The Providence Journal (vice president), Sarah Francis of Rhode Island Monthly (treasurer) and Linda Lotridge Levin, professor emerita from the University of Rhode Island (secretary), were also re-elected Friday as RIPA’s executive board members.
Tracy Breton, former Providence Journal investigative reporter and current adjunct professor at Brown University, and James J. Gillis, former Newport Daily News reporter, were named the 2020 inductees into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame. Breton and Gillis will be formally honored for their career achievements along with the to-be-named 2021 hall of fame class in-person at RIPA’s 2021 awards banquet in May.
The Providence Journal earned 47 awards Friday, most of all the honorees, including 12 first-place prizes. Rhode Island Monthly earned 17 awards, with seven of them being first place. Providence Media earned 11 awards, four of them first-place winners and Breeze Publications Inc., which publishes the Valley Breeze, earned 10 awards, three of them for first place.
Other publications receiving first-place honors Friday were The Westerly Sun, The Newport Daily News and The Smithfield Times. The Independent, Jewish Rhode Island, Barrington Times, Warren Times-Gazette, Newport Life Magazine, Warwick Beacon and Cranston Herald were also honored Friday for their respective works.
