BOSTON — The Provincetown Independent won 17 awards in the Better Newspaper competition of the New England Newspaper and Press Association, announced at the group’s annual convention on Saturday.
The Independent’s Arts & Minds section and its editor, Saskia Maxwell Keller, took first place among all New England newspapers in the arts and entertainment category; reporter Johnny Liesman won first prize in science/technology reporting for “Spotter Pilots Help Scientists Study Sharks”; managing editor K.C. Myers took first place among smaller weekly papers for her obituary of Marguerite “Beata” Cook; and A. Crock won the top prize among all newspapers for his cartoon “Lobster Man Roll,” in which a whale tells an interviewer, “I thought, ‘There’s no way a P’town lobster roll has this much meat. It must be a lobsterman!’ Then I hurled….”
Sports editor Ryan Fitzgerald won second prize in the sports story category for “Soccer Players Face a New Game,” and Saskia Maxwell Keller took second place in arts and entertainment reporting for “Painting in the Key of Blue, à la Judith Rothschild.”
The newspaper staff as a whole was cited for general excellence with a third-place award among weekly papers with circulation less than 5,000. And the Independent’s designers, Chris Kelly and Susan Abbott, won third prize among all New England weekly newspapers for overall design and presentation.
Other award winners included reporter Paul Benson with two prizes: one in climate change or weather reporting for “Before the Deluge: Plans for Commercial Street” and one in general news reporting for “On Being Inside a Whale: ‘I Didn’t Believe It at First, Either.’ ”
Reporter Christine Legere also was honored in two categories: for environmental reporting in “United on Shutting Pilgrim, Advocates Differ on Nuclear Waste,” and for business/economic reporting for two stories on affordable housing — “Who Builds Affordable Housing Here?” and “The Complex Funding Behind Affordable Units.”
Reporter Paul Sullivan won two awards — one for reporting on religious issues with “Gay Catholics Seek Solace and Spirituality at St. Peter’s” and one in the local personality profile category for “Thirsty Burlington Prepares for a Post-Covid World.”
Dennis Minsky won third place in the weekly newspaper obituaries competition for “Joe Bones, Who Had a Million Stories, Is Gone.” Jim Campen won third prize for presidential election coverage among all New England newspapers for his story titled “Mapping the Trump Vote on Cape Cod.” And editor Ed Miller took third place among weekly newspaper “serious columnists” for two columns, “The Lawyer’s Feint,” about attorney Ben Zehnder, and “Hope Over Experience,” about being a washashore.
Links to all of the Independent’s award-winning articles are in the online version of this story. —Edward Miller
