The Gilroy Dispatch took home top awards in investigative
reporting, writing and opinion pages from this year’s California
Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest.
The Gilroy Dispatch took home top awards in investigative reporting, writing and opinion pages from this year’s California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest.
Gilroy’s community newspaper competed against other weekly publications across the state with a circulation of 4,301 to 11,000.
The Dispatch received a first place award for a 10-story investigative series on the skimming of employee retirement money by the Mexican American Community Service Agency, authored by Reporter Sara Suddes. The community paper placed second in the Writing category for Suddes’ story detailing how a local teen coped with years of sexual abuse by helping other victims of abuse. The Dispatch’s opinion pages also received a nod with a second place award for pages exhibiting a variety of opinions on issues such as the school district’s failure to collect about $6 million in taxes, the need to overhaul the Valley Transportation Authority’s governance structure, education budget cuts and gloomy weather, among other topics.
“If you were going to pick three categories to win in, those are good ones,” said Editor Mark Derry, who has been with the paper for 23 years. “The categories we won in are very distinguished and important parts of the newspaper. That’s what strikes me. Good newspapers have good writing, they use their investigative skills to shed light on wrongdoing and the editorial pages are vital to discussion.”
The Dispatch’s sister papers also received various awards.
The Morgan Hill Times finished first in four categories: Editorial Comment, Sports Coverage, Environmental/
Agricultural Reporting and Feature Photo. The Hollister Free Lance received two first place and two second place awards for Sports Coverage, General News Photo, Sports Story and Sports Photo. The Hollister Weekend Pinnacle received a first place award for Photo Essay and a second place award for Investigative/Enterprise Reporting as a weekly paper with a circulation of 11,001 to 25,000.
