DENVER (RNS) Religion reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times won top honors Saturday (Sept. 25) at the 2010 Religion Newswriters Association’s annual awards competition.
The RNA also honored former New York Times religion reporter Gustav Niebuhr with its William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award. Niebuhr, who left the beat in 2001, now teaches at Syracuse University.
William Wan of The Washington Post won first-place in the Supple Religion Writer of the Year award, followed by Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe
and Eric Gorski of The Associated Press.
Veteran religion reporter Laurie Goodstein won the reporting award for The New York Times, followed by the AP’s Gorski, Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and Rachel Zoll of the AP (honorable mention).
In the Cassels Religion Reporter of the Year contest for small newspapers, first place went to Melissa Burke of the York (Pa.) Daily Record, followed by Ron Cassie of The Frederick (Md.) News-Post and Amy Umble of The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va.
The Cornell Religion Reporter of the Year award for mid-sized newspapers went to Jenny Green of the Ottawa Citizen, followed by Peggy Fletcher Stack of The Salt Lake Tribune and Bob Smietana of The Tennessean in Nashville.
Awards of excellence in radio religion reporting went to Interfaith Voices, followed by freelancer Genevieve Oger, Capital Public Radio and Arun Venugopal of WNYC Radio (honorable mention). The PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly swept all three television awards for work done by Kate Seelye, Kim Lawton and Deborah Potter.
The Schachern Award for Multimedia Reporting went to The Salt Lake Tribune, followed by Manya Brachear of The Chicago Tribune, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, and honorable mentions to Jenny Green of The Ottawa Citizen and The Wichita Eagle.
The Chandler Student Religion Reporter of the Year went to Evan Pondel of the University of Southern California, followed by Jeremy Blaney of Michigan State University, Tiffany Stanley of Harvard University, and Kate Shellnutt of Northwestern University (honorable mention).
