Kudos For Us

Anyway, for those interested, I have posted all their nice comments on the jump. 

First Place: Metro Pulse, "Lowbrow Genius" by Coury Turczyn

• A thoroughly reported look at a subculturally resurrected figure-a classic alt-weekly mode. Nicely captures the spirit of fun embodied by its subject. (Roberge)

• Well-reported story that vividly evokes the work of a fascinating, forgotten artist and the drive of the people trying to restore his work. (Solomon)

Judges:

Leonard Roberge was arts editor of the Washington City Paper from 2000 to 2006. He currently indulges his passion for the painstaking by editing book manuscripts and restoring his mid-century-modern house.

Alisa Solomon directs the MA in Arts and Culture at the Columbia School of Journalism. A long-time theater critic and political and cultural journalist, she has written for the Nation, New York Times, GuardianAmerica.com, WNYC radio, Forward, American Theater, nextbook.org, and Village Voice, where she was on the staff for 21 years. She is author of Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theater and Gender, winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.

Second Place: Metro Pulse, "Superhero vs. Autobiographical Comics" by Coury Turczyn, Matthew Everett and Travis Gray

• Sophisticated work. Both the conceit and the writing here impressed me. (Leiby)

Richard Leiby is a longtime writer and editor at the Washington Post.

First Place: Metro Pulse, "The Jackie Walker Story," "Local Hero" and "A Promise Kept" by Betty Bean

• Fantastic work, really, just fantastic work. (Phillips)

• Well-written, engaging and clear example of the article having an impact. (Woodall)

Judges:

Cheryl Phillips is an investigative journalist who currently is the data enterprise editor at the Seattle Times. She previously served as deputy investigations editor and also as an investigative reporter at the Times. The coverage on problems in security provided by the Transportation Security Administration won the national Society for Professional Journalists SDX award for investigative reporting in 2004. She was part of a reporting team on the Seattle Times' "Your Courts, Their Secrets" series, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer

in investigative reporting this year. She also was part of a team that reported on the Washington, D.C., sniper suspects in 2002. That coverage was a Pulitzer finalist in the breaking news category. She is currently chairman of the board of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Angela Woodall is a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, for which she writes the popular column called The Night Owl. She chronicles Oakland's after-hour characters and haunts and covers everything from entertainment to the police who patrol the city after sunset. Her work from Capitol Hill, New Orleans as well as Bosnia and Serbia has been published in national and international publications, including United Press International, Middle East Times, Washington Times, The Croatian Herald, The Sudan Tribune, and Connect Magazine. 

Alas, no comments for Charles' third-place win for Arts Criticism. "So, This Is My Life..."

Also:

Mike Gibson won a prize for feature writing in Scripps' in-house journalism contest, which runs every quarter:

It's easy to be jaded, cynical even, about alternative healing stories. (Oh, no, not the wonders of aromatherapy again!) But Gibson took a novel tack in the appropriately titled "A Cynic's Guide to Holistic Healing." Subtitled "Some of Knoxville's most determined alternative healers try to fix Mike Gibson," the author took readers on a first-person tour through various alternative healing techniques and their practitioners. He found some that didn't work for him, such as the super-heavyweight Maori healer who trudged up his back "as if I were some kind of human tightrope," but he also found a couple who at least improved, if not fixed, both his body AND soul.    

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