The New York Press Association (NYPA) honored the Long Island Press with awards for its coverage of local issues during the trade group’s annual convention in Albany over the weekend.
The Press won a Thomas G. Butson Award for In-depth Reporting as well as awards for Coverage of Elections/Politics and Features Story during NYPA’s 2017 Better Newspaper Contest.
“An amazing amount of work in ranking 196 government entities’ response to FOIL,” the judges wrote of the investigative piece, “Long Island Gets a ‘C’ in First-Ever Local Government Open Records Report Card,” by Timothy Bolger, editor in chief of the Press in a joint project with the Press Club of Long Island. “The organization and time must have been tremendous. Hopefully it brought about change in how organizations response to being more accessible to the public.”
Former Press staffers Christopher Twarowski, Spencer Rumsey, Rashed Mian and Jaime Franchi won for a number of stories that showed the depth of their coverage of local politics and elections.
“Well done and well written,” the judges wrote. “Particularly the Primary Primer focusing on recent political scandals and the piece on three women who ‘shattered glass ceilings.’”
Franchi’s feature, “Meet The Millers: Reality TV’s Next Superstar Family,” won in the feature’s category.
“Now THIS is thinking outside the box to tell a feature story,” the judges wrote. “To present it as a pitch for a TV show is inspired. I had to go back and re-read parts of it to make sure it wasn’t pure fiction. I think I know some of those people (in my own family). Definitely ‘Miller Time.’”
