CT Society of Professional Journalists Honors NewCanaanite.com with 8 ‘Excellence in Journalism’ Awards

The Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut Chapter, honored NewCanaanite.com with eight ‘Excellence in Journalism’ awards on Thursday.

NewCanaanite.com at the CT SPJ’s annual meeting and awards ceremony in Wallingford earned the following three first-place and five second-place awards for work published in 2014:

1^st Place

• Reporting-Feature—Dantown: The ‘Atlantis of New Canaan’ (by Terry Dinan)
• Sports-Sports Feature—Waveny Landmark: ‘Mosley Hill’ (by Terry Dinan)
• Reporting-Business—‘Choose To Be Happy’: New Canaan Friends’ Business Poised for Larger Retail Market (by Michael Dinan)

2^nd Place

• Editorial-General Column—Poodle Skirts on Parade Hill: Halloween, 1980 (by Darcy Pennoyer Smith)
• Sports-Sports Feature—New Canaan’s Bentley and Silvestri: A Diamond Reunion (by Terry Dinan)
• Photography-Sports Photo—New Canaan Co-Captains Console Each Other While Darien Celebrates (by Terry Dinan)
• Reporting-In-Depth Series—Heroin and New Canaan (by Michael Dinan)
• Sports-Sports News—‘We Won It for Him’: Taben Leads New Canaan Field Hockey over Darien for FCIAC Crown (by Terry Dinan)

Established in 1966, the Society of Professional Journalists “works to improve and protect journalism,” according to its website: “SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry and works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists.”

The other New Canaan-based news outlet to earn an award from the CT SPJ was the New Canaan News, whose former reporter Nelson Oliveira won second place in the In-Depth Reporting category for the article “Outback incident sparks discussion on underage drinking.”

We also note that New Canaan resident Martin B. Cassidy, a 1992 NCHS graduate who now is reporting for the New Canaan News, was named on a team of Connecticut Post reporters who earned the prestigious Stephen A Collins Public Service Award for its “Fix the Trains” series. New Canaanite Scott Ericson, a 1993 NCHS graduate who works as a sports reporter for Hearst Connecticut, earned two first-place awards in highly competitive categories for work published by The Advocate newspaper of Stamford: “Sometimes there are two champions” (Sports Column category) and “Techie takeover” (Sports Feature category).

Two other major awards were the Theodore Driscoll Award for Investigative Reporting, which went to the Hartford Courant staff for its entry, “Charter school group investigation,” and the First Amendment Award, which went to Viktoria Sundqvist, Michelle Tuccitto Sullo and the Digital First Media staff for their entry “Connecticut police departments fail FOI compliance checks.” More information on those awards can be found here.

NewCanaanite.com was founded Jan. 31, 2014 by brothers Michael and Terry Dinan.