We’re making great headlines!
The Brooklyn Paper took home the top prize for headline writing during the New York Press Association’s annual weekend-long conference and award ceremony in Albany.
Stacked up against competition from 156 newspapers across the Empire State, judges cited The Paper’s brain trust — including Editor-in-Chief Vince DiMiceli, Deputy Editor Anthony Rotunno, and Art Director Leah Mitch — for its ability to draw readers into stories with stimulating wordplay throughout every edition.
“Punchy, descriptive, on-point headlines show a lot of thought and creativity,” they wrote. “Even headlines that weren’t featured were crafted well. Excellent job.”
Headlines taking the honors included a front pager from the Nov. 3 edition calling a Carroll Gardens brownstone alleged to be used by a Trump staffer as a “cash cow for corruption” “MANAFORT KNOX”; a top story from the Oct. 6 edition heralding the latest cleanup effort on the Gowanus Canal with “BACK TO THE GRIME”; and, of course, politicians’ cheers and residents fears that a giant internet company could house its new offices on the Brooklyn waterfront with “AMAZON PRIMED.”
On hand to receive the award, DiMiceli said he was proud of the work done by his staff to ensure neighborhood news gets read by locals hungry to know what is happening in their communities.
“It’s the wood that makes it good,” he said, using the term for bold, front-page headlines common in newspaper vernacular. “We try to have fun with our headlines, and hope to entertain a little bit as we inform. It’s great to see that such work is appreciated.”
Along with the first-place win for headlines, Paper cartoonist Sylvan Migdal earned a second-place prize for best editorial cartoon, thanks to his depiction of a Trump-esque monster rising from the depths of the Gowanus Canal.
Those awards were just two of 24 taken home by The Paper’s parent company Community News Group and New York Community Media, which together make up New York State’s most-read local news publishers.
Here in Brooklyn, sister publication the Bay Ridge Courier won first prize for best front page, with judges taking note of the tabloid’s “strong headlines supported by good art.”
Winning submissions included a cover designed by graphic artist John Napoli in which Mayor DeBlasio is dressed as a bellhop for a story about Hizzoner’s plan to house homeless people in nearby hotels. That, combined with the capital-lettered headline “BILL-HOP” floating over it caught the eye of judges. A second front page, designed by DiMiceli and Deputy Editor Bill Egbert, announced the controversial sale of an old orphanage in Dyker Heights to developers with the bold-faced “GOING, GOING … GONE!” followed by bulleted sub-heads driving home the news and its significance.
Bay Ridge Courier reporters Julianne Cuba and Julianne McShane (yes, it confuses us, too) earned a second-place prize for their coverage of the heated race to replace term-limited Councilman Vincent Gentile, and McShane and former Bay Ridge reporter Caroline Spivack won honorable mention for their stories about an oil spill in Gravesend Bay — coverage that got Spivack profiled on a local television station as the “next Wayne Barrett.”
