Daily Record staffers win 59 awards

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Staff members for The Daily Record have won 49 journalism awards and 10 advertising awards in state and national competitions this year.

The newspaper’s “Too Big To Fail?” series on the $1.8 billion East Baltimore Development Inc. project took top honors for investigative reporting in the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association contest. The five-part series by Melody Simmons and Joan Jacobson was judged the best investigative journalism among small daily newspapers in Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia in 2011.

The judges named the series as “Best of Show” in the investigative category, meaning that the work was recognized as the top investigative reporting last year among all MDDC member newspapers, including The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post.

The series also tied for first place in public service in the internal journalism contest of The Daily Record’s owner, The Dolan Company, which publishes business and legal newspapers throughout the U.S.

In addition, The Daily Record took top honors in the Dolan competition for editorial writing (Barbara Grzincic) and enterprise reporting (Brendan Kearney).

Overall, The Daily Record was named best news organization in The Dolan Company for the second year in a row. The award recognizes achievement in print and online journalism, social media and marketing.

“Winning this honor two years in a row is a remarkable achievement for our outstanding team of professionals at The Daily Record,” said Publisher Suzanne Fischer-Huettner. “That recognition, plus all of the other awards won by our staff, underscores our commitment to deliver timely, accurate and essential news and information to our business and legal subscribers.”

In the annual competition sponsored by the Alliance of Area Business Publications, The Daily Record won four national awards — first place for breaking news coverage (Ben Mook and Nicholas Sohr), explanatory journalism (Steve Lash) and headline writing (Barbara Grzincic and Ed Waldman) and second place for editorial writing (Barbara Grzincic).

The Daily Record also won 11 awards in the National Newspaper Association annual journalism contest including a sweep of the business coverage category, with Brendan Kearney winning first place and Ben Mook winning second place.

The paper also won the following NNA awards:

-Second place, editorial – Barbara Grzincic.

-Second place, photo essay – Maximilian Franz, Rich Dennison.

-Third place, breaking news – Ben Mook, Nicholas Sohr.

-Third place, feature story – Ben Mook.

-Third place, health story – Andy Marso.

-Third place, freedom of information – Danielle Ulman.

-Honorable mention, agriculture story – Ben Mook.

-Honorable mention, breaking news photo – Maximilian Franz.

-Honorable mention, website –Danny Jacobs, Dave Kuhn, Jon Sham.

In the MDDC Press Association contest, Daily Record staff members won a total of 40 awards — 30 in the editorial competition and 10 in advertising.

The editorial awards included four Best of Show citations. In addition to the EBDI series, Best of Show honors went to reporter Ben Mook for his feature story about two houses owned by African dictators in Montgomery County and to Web reporter Jon Sham for two multimedia pieces — one for community service and involvement for interviews with citizens affected by the EBDI project and one for multimedia storytelling in sports for a video about the Baltimore Grand Prix auto race.

Other first-place awards in the MDDC editorial competition were:

-Spot news – Melody Simmons, C. Fraser Smith

-General news – Staff

-State government – Steve Lash

-Public service – Danielle Ulman

-Feature photo – Maximilian Franz

-Photo series – Maximilian Franz, Rich Dennison

-Sports feature – Danny Jacobs

-Business – Ben Mook

-Page 1 design – Todd Zimmerman, Ed Waldman

-Multimedia storytelling/feature – Jon Sham

Second-place awards were:

-Editorial – Barbara Grzincic

-Local column – C. Fraser Smith

-Spot news – Danny Jacobs

-Continuing coverage – Rachel Bernstein, Nicholas Sohr, Tom Linthicum

-State government – Nicholas Sohr

-Business – Andy Marso

-Medical/science – Andy Marso

-Headline – Ed Waldman

-Online commentary or blog – Generation JD

-General website excellence – Staff

-Informational graphics – Barbara Grzincic, Todd Zimmerman

In winning these awards, Daily Record journalists swept the prizes for coverage of business and state government.

In the MDDC advertising contest, first-place awards went to Senior Graphic Designer Erin Alexander for niche publications, to designer Jennifer Kim for public service and to designer Jessica Zwirble for special sections.

Second-place awards went to Alexander for print house promotion ads and print institutional ads, to Kim for print promotion of the newspaper and to Zwirble for community service.

Third-place awards went to Kim for print institutional ads and community service and to Zwirble for print promotion of the newspaper.

The design team swept the community service category.