Greater Media Newspapers wins five SNA awards

“Church at Rainbow’s End” by Dennis Symons Jr.

Greater Media Newspapers, Freehold, received five awards in the 2005 Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) contest. SNA is a nonprofit, professional trade association specifically serving the suburban newspaper industry. SNA’s membership is comprised of approximately 2,000 suburban newspapers published by the leading newspaper publishing companies in the U.S. and parts of Canada.

The East Brunswick Sentinel received first place for Best Coverage of Local Education/School District Issues for staff reports on College Crunch I and II and the N.J. School Report Cards.

The Atlanticville received third place for staff writer Christine Varno’s continuing coverage of a group of homeowners, known as MTOTSA, who are fighting to save their homes from eminent domain takeover.

Executive Editor Greg Bean received second place for Best Opinion Columns. “For Them the Choice Was Black and White,” (March 17, East Brunswick Sentinel) compared the Monmouth County political corruption scandal to his recollection of his Uncle Earl, who quit his job rather than take a kickback on a government contract. “A New Entry in the Book of Lame Excuses” (May 26, East Brunswick Sentinel) commented on the dirty tricks of a political operative whose Web site directed people to an unauthorized Internet “site” of two political candidates, which contained a platform the two candidates certainly didn’t espouse. When confronted with the discrepancy, he blamed it on a high school student who served as his webmaster.

The newspaper group also garnered two photography awards. Dennis Symons Jr. received a second place in the Feature Photo category for “Church at Rainbow’s End,” which was published in the Examiner. Second place for Best News Photo went to staff photographer Miguel Juarez for “Home and Castle” in the Woodbridge Sentinel.

The contest was judged by the prestigious American Press Institute (API) in Reston, Va.

“While I’m certainly honored to have won a personal award, I am most proud of the excellent reporting by Greater Media staff members, who were judged by API to have done outstanding community journalism in 2005,” Bean said. “Christine Varno’s continued and comprehensive coverage of the eminent domain controversy in Long Branch kept this volatile issue in the public eye for an entire year, and our package of stories for the ‘College Crunch’ presentation and the analytical reporting on the state’s school report cards were top-flight journalism. We at Greater Media are incredibly proud of their efforts, as well as the efforts of our photo staff, but our readers are the ones who ultimately benefit from this outstanding work.”

Commenting on the awards, Greater Media Newspapers Publisher Kevin Wittman said, “I am extremely proud of the SNA awards garnered by our editorial staff this year. The competition is as tough as it gets, and I truly believe that API’s selections are a meaningful independent measure of what good work is being done here at Greater Media Newspapers. Greg Bean’s award is gratifying in many ways but confirms what we have known all along — Greg is a damn good writer.”

In the last three years, Greater Media newspapers have won 13 editorial and photographic awards from the Suburban Newspapers of America organization.