The Salt Lake Tribune scores top honors in Society of Professional Journalists’ Utah contest
Tribune is named the best news-oriented website, one of 16 first-place honors.
The Salt Lake Tribune’s reporting, editing and photography have been honored by the Utah chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Tribune received 16 first-place awards in the SPJ chapter’s annual contest at an awards banquet held Thursday night at the Gallivan Center. The Tribune also received eight second-place awards, nine third-place honors, and five honorable mentions.
Among the highlights for The Tribune:
• The Tribune was honored as Utah’s best news-oriented website.
• Political reporter Bryan Schott was named the state’s best newspaper reporter.
• Tribune photographer Trent Nelson was honored as Utah’s best news photographer.
• The Tribune’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic received top honors. The Tribune’s staff received a first-place award for its continuing coverage of COVID-19, while The Tribune’s writers swept the podium in the COVID-19 investigative category — earning first-place, second-place, third-place and honorable-mention honors .
• In individual news beats, The Tribune’s reporters received first-place awards for coverage of education, environment, arts and entertainment, criminal justice, government and solutions journalism.
• The Tribune’s reporters also received first-place awards for continuing coverage (of rural homelessness) and general feature reporting (for coverage of the deaths of Paiute children at a state-run boarding school).
Here are the awards received by The Tribune in this year’s annual contest. (For a full list of winners from all news outlets, including radio and television, go to the SPJ Utah chapter’s website, UtahSPJ.com.)
News-oriented website
• First place: The Salt Lake Tribune staff.
Newspaper reporter
• First place: Bryan Schott.
photographer
• First place: Trent Nelson.
Arts and entertainment reporting
• First place: Sean P. Means, “Ballet alumni described body shaming, bias and intimidation. University of Utah faculty before continued reform.”
Business/consumer reporting
• Third place: Kolbie Peterson, “Enter the world of the Goodwill Outlet bins, where some Utahns are feeding the ultimate side hustle.”
Continuing coverage
• First place: Taylor Stevens, Bethany Rodgers, Trent Nelson, “Rural homelessness in Utah.”
• Honorable mention: Tony Semerad, “Wealth inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
COVID-19 continuing coverage
• First place: The Salt Lake Tribune staff.
COVID-19 investigative coverage
• First place: Bethany Rodgers, Taylor Stevens and Erin Alberty, “Utah leaders went rogue in early coronavirus response.”
• Second place: Erin Alberty, “Utahn’s missed out on millions in coronavirus relief.”
• Third place: Jessica Miller, shared with Nate Carlisle, FOX 13, “Here are the men who died from COVID-19 in Utah’s prisons.”
• Honorable mention: Erin Alberty, “Utah kids aren’t being notified of COVID-19 exposure until it’s almost too late to quarantine.”
Criminal justice reporting
• First place: Connor Sanders, “In shadow of Utah national parks, police juggle high call volumes.”
• Third place: Matthew D. LaPlante, “With Parler ban, Utah police and others may have lost a window into planned protests.”
Diversity and equity reporting
• Third place: Becky Jacobs, “How the other half eats.”
Education reporting
• First place: Courtney Tanner, “Earthquake dangers in Utah schools.”
• Third place: Courtney Tanner, “Grades start to improve in Salt Lake City, but don’t expect pre-pandemic scores.”
Environment reporting
• First place: Zak Podmore, Francisco Kjolseth, “As Lake Powell shrinks, the Colorado River is coming back to life.”
Feature page design
• Second place: Rudy Mesicek, The Mix cover, June 6, 2021.
• Third place: Rudy Mesicek: The Mix cover, Jan. 17, 2021.
General feature reporting
• First place: Courtney Tanner and Alastair Lee Bitsóí, “Bodies of Paiute children believed to be buried at site of former Utah indigenous boarding school.”
• Second place: Courtney Tanner, “’Mr. Lewis, your wife has woken up.’”
General news photo
• First place: Rick Egan, “No Tents Allowed.”
• Third place: Trent Nelson, “Fallen Marine.”
General news reporting
• Second place: Leia Larsen, “$500K in federal coronavirus money used to build tubing hill in Utah’s Uintah County.”
• Honorable mention: Leia Larsen, “How a Habitat for Humanity building plan went awry.”
Government reporting
• First place: Leia Larsen, “Republican women say they experienced a toxic environment in the Salt Lake County GOP.”
• Second place: Matt Canham, “What is ‘the Utah way’?”
• Honorable mention: Bryan Schott, “A Utah group is going door to door looking for election fraud.”
multimedia
• First place: Francisco Kjolseth and Zak Podmore, “Shrinking Lake Powell.”
personality profile
• Honorable mention: Peggy Fletcher Stack, “This ‘Jeopardy!’ king loves atlases, legos, long novels and trivia, but who is the real Ken Jennings?”
Photo essay
• Third place: Rick Egan, “Onaqui Horses.”
podcast
• Second place: David Noyce, Peggy Fletcher Stack, Christopher Samuels, “‘Mormon Land’: In wake of Capitol siege, a conversation with retired Senate leader Harry Reid.”
• Third place: Xoel Cardenas, Andy Larsen and Eric Walden, “How ‘Bout This Jazz, Ep. 11: Can the Utah Jazz backcourt step it up on defense?”
Solutions journalism
• First place: Luke Peterson, “How a Utah vertical farm combats climate change.”
• Second place: Saige Miller and Becky Jacobs, “Closing Utah’s wage gap.”
Spot news photo
• First place: Rick Egan, “Parley’s Fire.”
Use of news-oriented social media
• Second place: The Salt Lake Tribune staff, The Salt Lake Tribune on Twitter.
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