It’s always a great thing to receive a bit of recognition from your peers. With that in mind, we here at the Niagara Gazette and Union Sun & Journal were delighted to see three members of our newsroom recognized at the recent New York Press Association’s spring conference.
As part of the 2023 Better Newspaper Contest, reporter Mark Scheer, who took home first place for Investigative/In-Depth Reporting, Sports Editor Nick Sabato and reporter Rick Pfeiffer received awards.
Scheer’s first-place award was in recognition of his coverage of ongoing issues at Western Regional OTB with judges saying, “This series of entries includes reporting that goes well beyond basic reporting. The stories include well-documented facts and good use of the Freedom of Information Act.”
In Division 1’s Spot News category, Scheer and Pfeiffer earned a second-place award for their coverage of the fatal car crash and the resulting tension it caused at the Rainbow Bridge this past November. Also in Division 1, Scheer and Pfeiffer were awarded third place for municipal coverage for their ongoing coverage of happenings inside Niagara Falls City Hall.
Also picking up a pair of awards was Sabato who earned a second-place award in the Division 1 Sports Writer of the Year category for a selection of his work this past year.
The judges said: “This writer is a very good storyteller.”
In addition, Sabato earned a second-place award in the Sports Feature category for a piece on the life of the late Lockport boxer Tommy Hicks.
“This is a really nice job of storytelling. The writer is a wordsmith. The storytelling is thorough but also very clear, and it is highly informational in its chronological unfolding. Nothing gets lost in translation, and one of the most wonderful elements of the story is the fact that it paints a really nice picture of the different sides of the “fighter” by offering feedback from his son, his friend and his former classmate. Kudos.”
Sabato was also honored with a 2023 Best of CNHI award, picking up Sports Columnist of the Year.
A lot of hard work and energy goes into providing these stories to our readers and we very much appreciate the kind words from the judges. Like we said, the recognition is a great thing but what the judge had to say about the trio and their work really put it into perspective.
In discussing Scheer and Pfeiffer’s bridge coverage: “…a meticulous job of covering different sides of the same story. For an event that garnered national coverage, the publication dives deeper than many others did,” judges wrote.
From another set of judges on the pair’s city hall coverage, “Topics are relevant issues of community concern/interest. Reports are very well-written. Photographs provide a great supplement to the stories.”
That’s coming from some of the state’s top journalists.
At the end of the day, though, awards are nice but the work our newsroom staff puts into our newspapers every day is really about our readers and doing the best job we can for the communities we cover. And truth be told, we’re just as excited to receive praise from someone who picked up the paper that morning or clicked on our website.