February 8, 2006

Journalism Awards Winners Announced

CHICAGO — All three of the winning newspapers in this year's APA Journalism Award Competition proved their toughness — whether in responding to a natural disaster or a man-made one.

This year's winners are the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Arizona, and the Lawrence Journal-World, published in Kansas.

In "Ruin and Recovery," the Times-Picayune cast a wide net to answer the many questions facing New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck last summer. Among other things, the newspaper sent teams of reporters to other locales that had coped with natural disasters, including four U.S. cities, Japan, and the Netherlands.

The Times-Picayune is the winner among large newspapers (circulation above 100,000). More than a dozen staff members contributed to the winning series.

Growth and development is the story of the East Valley, the fastest growing part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. In compiling "The Speculators," the East Valley Tribune set out to learn who the wheelers and dealers are — and how they put together their deals. Its reporters got the job done by delving into public records covering a 450-square-mile area.

The East Valley Tribune was this year's winner among medium-sized newspapers (circulation 50,000 to 100,000). Its winning reporters are Mark Flatten, J. Craig Anderson, and Emily Gersema.

Must a community go to wrack and ruin when it grows, or can it retain its unique character? That is the central question addressed in "Mapping the Future," a special section published in the Lawrence Journal-World of Lawrence, Kansas. The paper is the winner among small newspapers (circulation below 50,000). Chad Lawhorn, Joel Mathis, and Dave Ranney are the winning reporters.

This year marks the 46th year of the APA Journalism Award Competition, which honors North American newspapers for excellent coverage of city and regional planning topics.

Judges for this year's competition were Karen Christensen, downtown development director, Aurora, Illinois; Nancy Day, chair of the Journalism Department at Columbia College, Chicago; Michael Miner, senior editor of the Chicago Reader; Joyce O'Keefe, deputy director of the Openlands Project; David Roeder, business reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times; and Heather Smith, planning director of the Congress for the New Urbanism. All six judges are based in Chicago.

Contact

Roberta Rewers, APA Public Affairs, 312-786-6395; rrewers@planning.org