The
Salisbury Independent won eight awards -- including
first-place honors for Public Service and Investigative Reporting -- in the
Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association 2020 Editorial Contest.
The contest, governed by MDDC’s Editorial Committee, admitted more
than 1,000 entries from 48 member publications in Maryland, Delaware and the
District of Columbia. There are seven divisions in the contest, which align
member publications into daily and non-daily print and online-only categories,
then further group them by circulation.
The entries were judged by news media professionals at the
Virginia Press Association.
This was the fourth time in five years of eligibility that
Salisbury Independent was recognized for Public Service.
Additionally, Salisbury Independent won first-place awards in the
categories of General News Story, Feature Story/Non-Profile, General News Photo
and Feature Photo Series.
The newspaper won second-place awards in the categories of
Continuing Coverage and News Special Sections.
“All
of us associated with the Salisbury Independent are truly honored by these
awards,” Publisher Darel La Prade said. “I couldn’t be prouder of Greg and his
team. Every week, they strive to provide Salisbury with an outstanding
newspaper – one that the community can call its own – and these awards are
tangible proof of the high quality of their work. The fact that Independent
seems to own the award for Public Service is evidence, at least to me, that
this newspaper matters and that it makes a difference to the city it so
faithfully serves.”.
The Public Service Award was given for coverage of the water main
extension to Salisbury-Wicomico Regional Airport, an issue that had confounded
the community for several months and about which a plethora of erroneous
information was being exchanged.
In its coverage, Salisbury Independent engaged in purely factual
reporting, which helped to ease public concerns and allow the project to
proceed.
The newspaper’s coverage of a probe into conduct within the
Salisbury Police Department’s Evidence -- which triggered a separate
investigation of two city police officers and a member of the Wicomico State’s
Attorney’s Office -- won first place for Investigative
reporting.
The newspaper obtained detailed letters that outlined the internal
probes and used court records to connect law enforcement officials’ actions to
the actual cases in question.
Brice Stump won first place in the General New Story category for
his telling of the 1918 Spanish Flu on Delmarva. Stump relied on a historian’s
discovery of diary entries that made clear the early-20th century pandemic was
in many ways similar to the current Coronavirus pandemic.
A member of the MDDC Hall of Fame for his previous work with The
Daily Times, Stump also won first place for a feature story about the discovery
and ultimate resetting of several of the Mason-Dixon Transpeninsular Stones
along the Maryland-Delaware state line.
Photographer Tony Weeg won a first-place award in the General News
Photo category for his early-morning sunrise image of the newly renovated West
Main Street in Salisbury.
Photographer/writer Carrie Samis won first place in the Feature
Photo Series category for her photo package on oyster waterman Stoney Whitelock
of Deal Island.
The newspaper’s annual Progress Edition, “Salisbury Rising,” captured
a second-place award in the News-Driven Special Section. Editor Greg Bassett
won a second-place honor in Continuing Coverage for his series of stories on
the Wicomico County Council’s selection of a replacement for late County
Executive Bob Culver.
Salisbury Independent marked seven years of publication last week.
It has now published 366 weekly editions since May 2014.
