THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 5, 1995 TAG: 9504050516
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
Diane Tennant, Bob Molinaro, Joe Jackson and June Arney were named winners of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star's top awards for excellence in reporting and writing. Motoya Nakamura won first place in photography, and Buddy Moore took top honors in copy editing.
A new award, the Landmark Graphics and Illustrators Award, was presented to Bob Voros.
Other winners were:
Features: Debra Gordon, second place, and Earl Swift, third place.
Sports: Steve Carlson, second, and Jim Ducibella, third.
News writing: Warren Fiske, second, and Lynn Waltz, third.
Photography: Beth Bergman, second, and Bill Tiernan, third.
Copy editing: Latane Jones, second, and David Simpson, third.
The Slover Awards are named for the late Samuel L. Slover, former chairman of the board of the newspapers. The 35th annual ceremonies, held in the papers' newsroom, recognized day-to-day excellence in reporting, feature writing, photography and copy editing.
The Landmark Graphics and Illustrators Award recognized the best artwork from Landmark's metro newspapers in Roanoke and Hampton Roads in Virginia and Greensboro, N.C.
Frank Batten Jr., publisher of the Pilot and the Ledger, presented checks for $1,000 to first-place winners, $500 to second-place winners and $250 to the third-place winners.
Geri Migielicz, director of photography for the San Jose Mercury News, judged the photo entries. Bob Rosenthal, associate managing editor for breaking news at the Philadelphia Inquirer, was the writing judge. The copy editing entries were judged by the staff of the News and Record of Greensboro. The Landmark Graphics and Illustrators Award was judged by Ed Kohorst, design editor of the Dallas Morning News.
Rosenthal said of Tennant's work: ``Great newspaper writing is based on great reporting. It means bringing the reader to the story and making them feel they are there. It means making them see. And it can mean making the reader's heart race with tension, or bring tears as universal human pains are felt.
``This writer does all of these things. With telling detail, she brings the reader along as a witness on a journey that no reader would ever wish to make.''
Among Tennant's entries was ``Tina's Heart,'' a series of articles about a young girl's heart transplant.
Molinaro's columns are ``direct, precise, informed and opinionated,'' the judge said.
``If there are any pedestals in this writer's world, no athlete ever graced them. Maybe, a house plant or two. He does not write about sports with sentimentality. He integrates sports and athletes into the world we are all part of.''
In the news writing category, Arney and Jackson entered as a team. Of the entry, Rosenthal said:
``As the founding fathers knew, one of the key roles of the press in a free society was to serve as a watchdog and to right wrongs done to individuals, whether abused by government or others.
In their entry, ``these values are certainly upheld.''
``The series `Norfolk's Tainted Justice' does so with in-depth reporting and clean, powerful prose. By giving faces to the faceless, and showing how the system that is supposed to protect all citizens equally failed, these writers reach the highest and perhaps most difficult standards in American journalism.''
Moore's copy editing work was the winner because it ``showed the best command of The Virginian-Pilot's editorial strategy to devote most or all of a section front to a single subject. Most of these pages effectively combined photographs, graphics and typographic elements in appealing packages that demanded readers' attention and made the information easily accessible.''
The photo judge said Nakamura's portfolio ``exhibited an extraordinary range of skills, from news to sports to illustration to a picture story comprised of strong single images, a couple of which can only be described as brilliant.''
Voros' entry had ``a solid understanding of the information and uses his considerable visual skills to clearly tell the reader a story,'' the judge said. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Arney
Jackson
Molinaro
Moore
Nakamura
Tennant
Voros
by CNB