I'm a winner!

I am rather late in posting this, but I wanted to let my readers know that a couple of weeks ago I received two Golden Quill Awards, which are presented by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania. The awards were for two separate articles that appeared in The Jewish Chronicle.

The first, for Investigative/Enterprise reporting, was for an article about how urban renewal in the 1960s and '70s negatively impacted a Pittsburgh neighborhood and may have played a part in the exodus of the Jewish community from that area. The other, a Spot News piece, was about how Jews in West Virginia feel about Senator Robert C. Byrd, who enjoys legendary status in the state but has never been a supporter of foreign aid to Israel.

I feel very gratified to have won the awards, and was a little bit overwhelmed to have received two of them (I was competing against other non-daily newspapers, not daily newspapers). Here is a link to a press release about the awards, which lists all the winners. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060508/clm003.html?.v=44

Both of my winning articles are available online at The Jewish Chronicle. Unfortunately, our antiquated Web site makes it impossible to link directly to individual articles. However, it is possible to search the site by headline, and the two articles are the following:

"Building that symbolized failed urban renewal comes down" and

"W.Va. Jews support Byrd despite record"

Both articles are about topics that are close to my heart, and the first in particular was a project in which I invested a lot of personal time and energy. (The finished article is about 1,500 words, which is quite long for a newspaper story.) So, being honored for these articles is particularly gratifying and renews my delusions of grandeur about achieving journalistic greatness. :) [The truth of the matter is, I feel extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work in a field I love, and to have the chance, every now and then, to write articles that I really find meaningful, which is truly more valuable than any external award. Not that I'm complaining about the two lovely plaques that I have yet to hang on my wall.:) ]