Journalistic Excellence: Valdosta Daily Times wins top press honors

Published 8:34 am Saturday, June 1, 2019

Georgia Press Association President Otis A Brumby III recognized The Valdosta Daily Times and Editor Jim Zachary for again winning the GPA  Freedom of Information and General Excellence awards. 

JEKYLL ISLAND — Excellence. 

The Valdosta Daily Times has received top honors from the Georgia Press Association. 

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The Times received the GPA General Excellence Award for the second straight year at an awards ceremony Friday evening at Jekyll Island. 

And for the third time in four years The Valdosta Daily Times won the prestigious Freedom of Information Award for doing the most during 2018 to uphold the principles of the First Amendment and to protect the public’s right to know. 

Judges said, “The Daily Times was honored for its continuing efforts throughout the year to educate the public and public officials about Georgia’s sunshine laws. Over the course of 2018, the newspaper defended the public’s right to speak at local school board meetings, published a special section featuring explanatory journalism about open-government laws, made more than 200 public records requests in the course of reporting on subjects such as prison deaths, school safety, immigration, millage rates, banking regulations and college sexual assault and uncovered violations of the Open Meetings Act by local and state government bodies.” 

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Judging for the award is provided by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In addition to the FOI award, The Times received the annual Community Service Award that recognizes the newspaper that does the most throughout the year to improve its coverage area through solutions journalism. Specifically, the newspaper was recognized for its coverage of and editorials related to the Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County that governs South Georgia Medical Center. 

First-place honors also went to senior reporter Terry Richards for investigative reporting.

Reporter Katelyn Umholtz received the top honor for education writing. 

Photo editor Derrek Vaughn won a first-place award for feature photograph. 

Executive Editor Dean Poling won the Joe Parham Trophy by taking first place for best humor column.

Editor Jim Zachary brought home the Otis A. Brumby Trophy and first-place honors for best serious column. 

The newspaper won the first-place award and the third-place award for its lifestyles coverage. 

Second-place honors went to Copy Desk Chief Sarah Warrender for best editorial cartoonist, Zachary for editorial page, Richards for enterprise story, the newspaper staff for headline writing, Vaughn for news photograph, Janine Morris for page one design, Jason Smith for religion writing, Derrick Davis for sports feature photograph. 

The newspaper received third-place honors for its sports section. Other third-place awards went to Kristin Patten for best online news project, Warrender for best use of graphics and illustration, Caprice Bowman for editorial cartoon, Vaughn for photo essay, Zachary for editorial writing, sports section or pages. 

The General Excellence Award is based on the total number of awards won in each division. In Division B, The Valdosta Daily Times ended the evening in first place while the Athens Banner-Herald was second and the Newnan Times-Herald was third. 

“There are many great newspapers and journalists committing great acts of journalism every day in Georgia and it is an honor just to be recognized among them,” Zachary said. “Our commitment is to serving Valdosta, Lowndes County and South Georgia in meaningful ways and we work hard each day to do journalism that matters because we truly love our community.”  

There were 622 awards presented in 46 categories to 71 newspapers during the awards ceremony. Judging was done by members of the South Carolina Press Association in February and early March. A total of 80 newspapers entered at least one category in this year’s contest.

Entries were judged in seven divisions based on circulation. The daily divisions are Division A (circulation of 10,000 or more), Division B (6,000 to 9,999) and Division C (circulation less than 6,000). Weekly divisions are Division D (circulation of 6,000 to 15,000), Division E (weeklies with circulation of 3,000 to 5,999), Division F (circulation less than 3,000) and Division G (all weekly newspapers of more than 15,000 in circulation and all associate media members of GPA).

The awards in the 2019 Better Newspaper Contest were presented Friday at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel during the group’s 133rd annual convention.