I often think we don't blow our own horn enough.
I'm sure there are some of you out there who disagree; you probably think we pontificate far too much on too many subjects. Still, this one time I'm going to be effusive in my praise of three of my colleagues.
At the annual Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association awards luncheon, held Friday at Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, three editors from The Aegis were honored with Best in Show Awards for investigative reporting and public service.
Editorial Page Editor and Copy desk Chief Jim Kennedy and Record Editor Kristen Melamed received the award for investigative reporting for their searing look into the slow response by emergency personnel to the house fire in Abingdon in January 2007 that killed five members of a family, the most deadly fire in our county's history. At the time the multi-part report appeared in our paper in the winter of 2007, Melamed was our police and fire reporter.
News Editor Erika Compton Butler received the award for public service reporting for her annual look at the county's sex offender registry in which she explains in great detail over three issues how the registry works, how police enforce registration requirements on convicted offenders and what citizens can do to protect themselves and their children once an offender is released back into the community.
I personally consider these awards a big deal. Each year, our association gives out awards for reporting, writing, photography, art and page design, 38 categories in all. The awards are given out in six circulation divisions, three daily and three non-daily. The Aegis competes in the division for non-daily papers with circulations of more than 20,000. The winner in each contest category by division is then evaluated for a Best in Show. Judging is done by members of a press association in another state. I've done judging for other press associations, and I can tell you it's a very difficult, albeit subjective, undertaking.
What these two particular awards — two of nine first place awards The Aegis received, tied with the Howard County Times for most in its circulation division — mean is they were judged the best — period, among the more than 100 newspapers who enter the contest. Better than the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, Baltimore Examiner, Wilmington News Journal, Cecil Whig, Frederick News Post, Hagerstown Herald-Mail, Carroll County Times and all those midsize and small weeklies and biweeklies in the region.
To be judged the best in investigative reporting and public service is very special. These are the most important jobs we do as newspaper people. It's quite an honor for these editors, who are so important to our newspaper.
When we entered the fire response coverage earlier this year, I wrote a cover letter which reads in part:
"When you experience the most deadly fire in your county's 233-year history, and the equipment from a firehouse less than a mile away isn't the first on the scene, it's bound to set off alarms about your emergency dispatching system and availability of all-volunteer fire personnel.
"This is exactly what happened on Jan. 18, 2007, when five people died in a house fire. In the aftermath, reporter Kristen Melamed and editorial page editor Jim Kennedy began asking a lot of questions and successfully put pressure on county officials to release the 911 tapes and dispatch logs from that horrible tragedy.
The work of Melamed and Kennedy unearthed numerous problems with the emergency response system and once again raised questions how a county with more than 250,000 residents can continue to rely on a mostly volunteer force for its fire protection."
The judges in turn wrote: "Good investigation into the times of calls to 911 and the dispatch of responders."
My cover letter for the public service entry reads:
"For the past six years, our news editor, Erika Compton Butler, has been diligently following the lists of sex offenders compiled by the Harford County Sheriff's Office and the Maryland State Department of Public Safety and Corrections in accordance with Maryland's Megan's Law.
"Each winter, Compton Butler has reported on the list, who is on it and what it means to our readers. As she has also done in previous years, Compton Butler went beyond the list in 2007 to tell readers how sexual predators are continuing to traumatize our children and our communities and what people can do to prevent these offenders from striking again."
The judges wrote: "Excellent series on sex offenders, including exposing them via photos, listing resources for victims and recommendations to protect their children."
Congratulations Jim, Erika and Kristen! These awards are well deserved and just another example of the great job you do in serving our readers and our community.
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