Reporters for the Hudson Reporter chain of newspapers won eight editorial awards in from separate two statewide journalism organizations last week.
These honors were added to the awards that were won earlier in the year from the New Jersey Press Association. The new awards were won in contests sponsored by the Garden State Journalists Association and the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists.
In the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual awards contest, Tom Jennemann and Sharon Henry won first place for a series titled “How it came to be,” which explained how different aspects of modern Hoboken, including agencies, situations and places, got to be the way they are today. Also in that contest, Al Sullivan won second place in enterprise reporting for his articles on the New Jersey Turnpike’s intent to build an interchange over an old county gravesite. Eventually, the Turnpike had to pay to move the graves first.
In the Garden State Journalists Association, Al Sullivan won a buffet of awards – three first place awards, one second place award and two third place awards for coverage in Secaucus and Hudson County.
Sullivan won first and third place for two weekly columns, “Between the Lines,” dealing with aspects of the resignation and later conviction of former County Executive Robert Janiszewski.
The first-place column, entitled “The World Series of Corruption,” pointed out that Hudson County was in danger of falling behind in getting its fair share of indictments for corruption. The other column, called “How Bobby J milked the county cash cow,” was a more serious examination of how Janiszewski acquired campaign contributions during his tenure as county executive.
GSJA also awarded Sullivan first and third place in personality profiles, first for his story “What’s a bagel?” about a 1970s TV commercial actor, and third for his story “Sending in the clown” about a former Hudson County resident who became a career clown.
“What’s a bagel” followed the career of TV, stage and movie actor Dan Resin, who has become a local spokesperson for Parkinson’s Unity Walk and other fund-raisers to help Parkinson’s disease.
“Sending in the clown” is about a circus clown that returned to Hudson County for the first time after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Sullivan also won first place in feature writing for “Catching the auto parts bug,” a story about the closing of a store in Secaucus, and second place in public service for “A walk in the meadows,” a story about the opening of a new environmental park in Secaucus.
Reporter co-publisher David Unger, who co-owns the paper with Lucha Malato, was pleased with the latest round of awards.
“The Hudson Reporter has always endeavored to produce the best local news stories for each community,” he said last week. “Each of these awards is an honor for the authors, and the entire staff shares in their pride.”
Judging for the 56th Annual Garden State Journalists Association Contest was done by the staffs of Edelman Public Relations in New York, The Dominion Post in Morgantown, WV, the Record Journal in Meriden, Connecticut, and WFAZ in Charleston, WV.