Commercial awarded 11 journalism honors at press convention

The Pine Bluff Commercial won 11 journalism awards at the Tri-State Press Convention held in Memphis.

The newspaper, which is owned by WEHCO Media, came away with four first place awards, two second place awards, two third place finishes and two honorable mentions in the “Smaller Dailies” category and picked up a second place award in competition with newspapers of all sizes.

Reporter Eplunus Colvin won first place for Best Reporting Series and first place for Best Covid Beat Reporter.

Colvin’s series reporting was about the George Floyd verdict.

“The reporter did a good job of localizing one of the largest national stories, and handled the interviews of the George Floyd’s family particularly well,” said the judges.

For covering Covid, judges said that what set Colvin’s work apart was her ability to humanize the story.

“It was the only submission in the category not to rely overly, or entirely, on official sources. The best stories in this entry highlighted the people experiencing it,” judges said.

Editor Byron Tate won first place for Best Editorial and first and second place awards for Best Feature Story. He also won second place for Best Single News Photo.

For the editorial, Tate wrote about the poor job Liberty Utilities had done to address some of the problems associated with the water crisis of February 2021.

“It isn’t easy to directly take on a powerful corporation,” judges wrote. “Straight to the point writing, well researched and reasoned, with sound suggestions for improving the situation.”

For the winning feature, Tate covered the behindthe-scenes story of how the medical staff at Jefferson Regional hospital came to learn that they had the first patient in the state to be diagnosed with covid.

“Finally, a feature off a significant news story!” the judges wrote. “Rivetingly readable; long, but justifiably long. Strong job of getting health pros [to] set aside their fears of talking about COVID. And kudos to the doc who stuck to his belief that he was seeing what others denied.”

Colvin and Tate also shared a second place award for Coverage of Health and Medical, a category that included newspapers of all sizes.

Senior Reporter I.C. Murrell and Tate also picked up two honorable mention awards, Murrell for Best Sports News Story and Tate for Best News Story.

The newspaper also received a third place award for Best Digital Presence and Audience Engagement and a third place award for General Excellence.

The convention, which started on Thursday, included the Arkansas Press Association and the press associations from Mississippi and Tennessee.

A total of 1,066 entries were submitted from 30 Arkansas newspapers. The entries were judged by members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.