DEADWOOD, S.D. – South Dakota News Watch's journalists won several awards over the weekend at the annual South Dakota NewsMedia Association convention in Deadwood, including the coveted public service award and the top prize in a new contest on coverage of nonprofits.
News Watch CEO Carson Walker also took over as president of SDNA for the next year, succeeding Jason Ferguson, editor of the Custer County Chronicle in Custer, who will remain on the board for one year.
SDNA was founded in 1882 and is a full-service trade association representing the state’s newspapers and digital news outlets.
Here are the awards from the SDNA editorial division 3 contest, which includes the largest news organizations:
- Bart Pfankuch, 1st place in best news series for a story on the local impacts of federal budget cuts
- Pfankuch, 1st place in best photo series for a story on the need for energy workers
- Molly Wetsch, 3rd place in best features series for an article on the South Dakota film industry
- Megan Luther, 2nd place for best feature story-non-profile for calving goes high tech
In the all divisions competition, Pfankuch won 1st place for best freedom of information request for coverage in a series on police videos being off limits to the public and the press in South Dakota.
Also in all divisions, Pfankuch and Walker won 1st place in the public service contest for News Watch's Engage South Dakota housing solutions series.
That series also earned Pfankuch and Walker 1st place and $500 each in the inaugural Strengthening Civil Society competition for outstanding journalism covering philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. The prizes were made possible by an endowment gift from the John T. Vucurevich Foundation to the Black Hills Area Community Foundation that was funded by Eric John Abrahamson.
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact: info@sdnewswatch.org.
