Last Updated: January 31, 2000
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ASNE presents 20th Anniversary writing awards winners
By Carolyn Salazar
ASNE Reporter
As president of ASNE two decades ago, Eugene Patterson had a vision
to cultivate the writing of journalists throughout the United States and
Canada. His drive led to the creation of the Distinguished Writing Awards
in 1978, which since has rewarded talented journalists.
Some 16 years later, ASNE added the Jesse Laventhol Prizes competition
for deadline reporting.
Chip Scanlan, writing programs director at The Poynter Institute for
Media Studies, called the awards a "benchmark of quality writing."
"The ASNE editors, who are the gatekeepers of quality, are in effect
saying 'this is what we consider good writing,' " he said.
This year's winners, selected from about 500 entries in seven news and
feature writing categories, will be honored Thursday.
ASNE Writing Awards winners are Patricia Smith, columnist for The Boston
Globe in the commentary/column writing category, Michael J. Jacobs of the
Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald for editorial writing, and Ken Fuson, feature
writer for The Sun in Baltimore for non-deadline writing. In criticism,
this year's rotating category, ASNE recognized Stephen Hunter, a movie
critic at The Washington Post, and Justin Davidson, a classical music critic
at Newsday.
In 1994, David Laventhol, editor at large for the Times Mirror Co.,
proposed and funded the Laventhol deadline reporting category in honor
of his late father, Jesse, who was a beat reporter in Philadelphia in the
1930s.
"While much of the journalism world's prizes tend to focus on investigative
reporting, special projects and analysis and explanation, the fact is that
more than half of what appears in most newspapers each day is based on
events that occurred in the last news cycle before publication," David
Laventhol wrote in his letter to the awards committee.
John Keller, a Wall Street Journal reporter, won the Jesse Laventhol
Prize for deadline reporting by an individual. The team prize went to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Laventhol Prize winners get $10,000 each. The ASNE Writing Awards winners
get $2,500 each, funded by the ASNE Foundation, which is supported by gifts
from ASNE members, newspaper companies and foundations.
Winning entries will be published in "Best Newspaper Writing 1998,"
which also recounts steps the reporter took and the decisions considered
to unravel the story.
"This lets the journalists, teachers and students not only see for themselves
the writing that is considered the best, but also allows them to study
it and learn from it," Scanlan said. Because this is the 20th anniversary
of the awards, the Poynter Institute selected winning entries, one from
each year, and will publish them in a scrapbook that will be distributed
at the convention.
Editors can learn first-hand about how the reporters crafted their stories
by attending the panels on good writing Thursday. The winners will discuss
their experiences with their stories and insights into how to get more
from reporters.
In a second panel of past award winners, Dave Barry from The Miami Herald,
Donna Britt from The Washington Post, Rick Bragg from The New York Times,
Ellen Goodman from The Boston Globe and Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times,
will discuss the fundamentals of good writing.
"This is a chance for editors to learn things that can be carried back
to their newsrooms," Scanlan said.
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