New York Press Club Announces its 2020 Journalism Award Winners


THE NEW YORK TIMES WINS GOLD KEYBOARD IN
2020 NEW YORK PRESS CLUB JOURNALISM AWARDS

The New York Times is the major winner in the latest New York Press Club Awards for Excellence in Journalism. Times reporter Brian Rosenthal won the 2020 Gold Keyboard Award, the competition’s highest, for “Taken for a Ride,” an investigative series on corruption in the New York City taxi medallion business.

As previously announced, NY Times Writers Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor will receive this year’s “Gabe Pressman Truth to Power Award” for their reporting on the Harvey Weinstein Case. The Gabe Pressman Truth to Power Award recognizes the club’s late president, friend and supporter who was a staunch supporter of the First Amendment.

Other major award winners were Spectrum News NY1 for Spot News Reporting on a helicopter crash in Midtown Manhattan in June 2019 and WCBS Newsradio 880 for a shooting at a Kosher delicatessen in Jersey City in December 2019. The winners of the Mychal Judge Heart of New York Award were: Alex Vadukul for “Stories of New York” in The New York Times (newspaper); Sara Fishko, Olivia Briley, Bill Moss, Karen Frillmann of WNYC for “Wright and the Guggenheim” (radio); “Pizza-Spinning Chef Helps Others Get a Slice of the American Dream” by Matt Frucci, Jill Billante, George Itzhak, Mohammed Syed, Terry Tousey of NBC News/Nightly News with Lester Holt (TV) and “The Art of Surviving” from Elizabeth Van Brocklin of The Trace (online).

In addition, Claudia Irizarry Aponte, who covers Brooklyn for THE CITY, was named the Nellie Bly Cub Reporter for 2020.

All winners were selected from hundreds of entries submitted by TV, radio, newspapers, websites, magazines and newswires in New York City and around the U.S.

New York Press Club President Jane Tillman Irving applauded all the award recipients and added that the high number of entries is a testament to the great reporting being done in New York even amid the significant challenges being faced by journalists today, including budget cuts, lay-offs and restrictions imposed by government officials.

A decades-long tradition in New York media, the annual “New York Press Club Awards for Journalism” honor excellence by writers, reporters, editors, producers, photographers and multi-media journalists. Entries this year were judged in 30 categories, including sub-categories for print, broadcast, and the Internet. Prominent journalists, former journalists and academics selected for their expertise in each category serve as judges.

Here is the full list of winners:

Gold Keyboard

“Taken for a Ride”
Brian M. Rosenthal
The New York Times

Nellie Bly Cub Reporter

“Claudia Irizarry Aponte”
Claudia Irizarry Aponte
THE CITY

Rev. Mychal Judge Heart of New York

Newspaper

“Stories of New York”
Alex Vadukul
The New York Times

Radio

“Wright and the Guggenheim”
Sara Fishko, Olivia Briley, Bill Moss, Karen Frillmann
WNYC

TV

“Pizza-Spinning Chef Helps Others Get a Slice of the American Dream”
Matt Frucci, Jill Billante, George Itzhak, Mohammed Syed, Terry Tousey,
NBC News/Nightly News with Lester Holt

Online

“The Art of Surviving”
Elizabeth Van Brocklin
The Trace

Business Reporting

Newspaper

“The WeWork Delusion”
Eliot Brown, Maureen Farrell, Liz Hoffman, Eliot Brown, David Benoit
The Wall Street Journal

Magazine

“The Last Boys’ Club”
Claire Zillman
Fortune

Radio

“Boeing’s Grounded 737 Max”
Staff of Bloomberg Radio
Bloomberg Radio

Online

“How MoviePass went from Hollywood disrupter to flat broke in 18 months”
Jason Guerrasio
Business Insider

Commentary

Newspaper 

“Bloomberg’s Biggest Liability: His Billions, Seen as a Strength, Are Actually a Weakness”
Dan Morrison
New York Daily News

Online

“The Reality-Defying Shame of Log Cabin Republicans”
Tim Teeman
The Daily Beast

Consumer Reporting 

Newspaper

“How Amazon Puts Us at Risk”
Alexandra Berzon, Shane Shifflett, Justin Scheck, Khadeeja Safdar, Denise Blostein, Jon Emont, Dana Mattioli
The Wall Street Journal

Magazine 

“The Real Tide Pod Challenge”
Jake Meth
Fortune

TV

“CBS Sunday Morning: Deal or No Deal?”
Allison Aubrey, Dustin Stephens, Mike Levine, & Rand Morrison
CBS News

Online

“The Fumes in South Portland”
Sabrina Shankman
InsideClimate News

Continuing Coverage 

Newspaper

“Climate of Fear”
Will Van Sant, Victor Manuel Ramos
Newsday

Magazine

“New Red Scare”
Peter Waldman
Bloomberg Businessweek

Radio

“The Victim Compensation Fund”
WCBS News Team
WCBS NewsRadio 880 AM

TV

“Syria 2019”
Richard Engel
NBC News

Online
“Viral lies: Facebook’s Health Misinformation Problem”
Brandy Zadrozny; Aliza Nadi
NBC News Digital

Crime Reporting

TV

“Justice for Junior: Terror of the Trinitarios”
Anthony Carlo, Michelle Ross, Eric Steltzer, Anthony Circosta, Brooke Rothenberg, Jony Hurtado, Jose Sanchez, Juan De Jesus, Salomon Sarmiento, Chade Newton, Thuvia Jones, Pratik Parija
News 12 The Bronx

Online

“The NYPD’s Mental Illness Breakdown”
Ese Olumhense and Greg B. Smith
THE CITY

Critical Arts Review

Newspaper

“Dance Critic”
Gia Kourlas
The New York Times

Magazine

“Critic’s Notebook: ‘Some Like it Hot’ Turns 60, as Fresh and Frisky as Ever”
Simi Horwitz
The Hollywood Reporter

Radio

“Warhol’s Work”
Sara Fishko, Olivia Briley, Wayne Shulmister, Karen Frillmann
WNYC

TV

“Roma Reviews”
Roma Torre
Spectrum News NY1

Online

“Moments/Stories – Paintings by Peter Beston”
Alix Cohen
Woman Around Town

Documentary

Newspaper

“An Innocent Man?”
Thomas Maier
Newsday

Radio

“Shell Shock 1919: How the Great War Changed Culture”
Sara Fishko, Olivia Briley, Ed Haber, Karen Frillmann
WNYC

TV

“Amazon on Fire”
Subrata De, Beverly Chase, Ruben Davis, Craig Thomson, Seb Walker, Juanita Ceballos, Adam Desiderio, Lee Doyle, Daniel Vergara, Agnes Walton, Cameron Dennis, Ryo Ikegami, Kelly Kendrick, Joe Matoske, Javier Manzano, Daniel Vergara, Adam Desiderio, Lee Doyle, Zach Caldwell, Erik Whitestone, Lunae Parracho, Roberta Fortuna, Alan Lima, Lyle Kendrick
Investigations by VICE (Hulu)

Online

“Did Marsha P. Johnson Start the 1969 Stonewall Riots?”
Sal Bono, Rich Sullivan, Mara Montalbano, John Ostojic and IE staff
Inside Edition

Entertainment News

Newspaper

“Students and Cosplay”
Dave Paone
Campus News

Magazine

“Theatre’s Front Lines: For House Managers and Theatre Service Directors the Work is Invisible but Rewarding”
Simi Horwitz
American Theatre

Radio

“Oscar and Nat”
Sara Fishko, Olivia Briley, Wayne Shulmister, Karen Frillmann
WNYC

TV

“On Stage: Network”
Kevin Dugan, Frank DiLella, Roma Torre, Cody Williams, Ariella Weintraub, Adam Paul Verity, Jose Duran, Thibaut Rigeot
Spectrum News NY1

Feature Reporting

Newspaper 

“In the Shadows”
Victor Manuel Ramos
Newsday 

Magazine

“They Call Her The Savant”
Jessica Pels, Andrea Stanley, Meredith Bryan (Editor)
Cosmopolitan

TV

“CBS Sunday Morning: All Her Sons”
Seth Doane, Dustin Stephens, Steven Tyler, Rand Morrison
CBS News

Online

“Richard White Was a Homeless Kid. Then, with a Tuba, He Made Music History”
Tim Teeman
The Daily Beast

Feature – Science Medicine & Technology

Newspaper

“Going Under the Knife to Heal a Lifelong Wound”
Pam Belluck
The New York Times

Magazine 

“The Face of Change”
Jamie Ducharme
TIME

Radio 

“Event 201: Preparing for a Pandemic”
Janet Wu
Bloomberg Radio

TV

“Climate in Crisis Coverage”
NBC News Group Staff
NBC News Group

Online 

“Heartless Hospital”
Caroline Chen
ProPublica

Feature – Sports

Magazine

“How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?”
Mary Pilon
Fortune

TV

“Paper Super Bowl 3”
Kevin Maher, Daniel Scaturro Dave Dodds, Gregory Stevens
News 12 Long Island

Online

“Whatever Happened to Villanova Basketball Star Shelly Pennefather?”
Elizabeth Merrill
ESPN                                                          

Food Writing

Online

“In a Wheelchair and Hungry”
Robert Sietsema
Eater New York 

Infographics

Newspaper

“The Shed, Unveiled”
Heather Jones
The New York Times

Online

“Wealth Detectives”
Tom Metcalf, Andrew Heathcote, Pei Yi Mak, Sophie Alexander, Tom Maloney, Devon Pendleton, Venus Feng, Yoojung Lee, Blake Schmidt, Jack Witzig, Steven Crabill, Dave Merrill, Jeremy C.F. Lin, Andre Tartar, Blake Schmidt, Chloe Whiteaker, Adrian Leung and Demetrios Pogkas
Bloomberg News

News Special

TV

“They Come for Us at Night: China’s Vanishing Muslims”
Madeleine Haeringer, Josh Tyrangiel, Shane Smith, Subrata De, Beverly Chase, Nicole Bozorgmir, Isobel Yeung, T. Wang, Carina Wong, Paula Salhany
VICE News Tonight

Photo

Feature Photo

Newspaper

“Unstoppable”
Alejandra Villa Loarca
Newsday

Magazine 

“Rohingya Living in a Nowhere Land”
James Nachtwey
TIME

Online

“‘They Will Remember Us’: The Miners of Black Harlan
Radcliffe Roye”
NYR Daily, The New York Review of Books

Feature Video

TV 

“The Messages”
Michael DelGiudice
WNBC-TV

Online 

“Street Level Photography”
Digital Photographers
Spectrum News

Spot News Photo

Newspaper

“Tears for the Fallen”
Steve Pfost
Newsday

 Spot News Video

Online

“QuickTake: Hong Kong on Edge”
Virginia Lau, Josie Wong, Simon Fuller and Stephanie Chung
Bloomberg QuickTake

 Podcast

Newspaper

“The WeWork Trilogy”
Eliot Brown, Maureen Farrell, Kate Linebaugh, Ryan Knutson, Annie Minoff, Rikki Novetsky, Sarah Platt, Willa Rubin, Pia Gadkari, Annie-Rose Strasser, Griffin Tanner and Jarrard Cole
The Wall Street Journal and Gimlet

Radio

“Trump, Inc.”
ProPublica and WNYC Staff
ProPublica and WNYC

TV

“Article II: Inside Impeachment”
Audio Unit
NBC News

Online

“The Shrink Next Door”
Joe Nocera, Khrista Rypl, Francesca Levy, Jared Sandberg, Katie Boyce, George Lavender, Marshall Lewy, Hernan Lopez, Maya Kaufman
Bloomberg and Wondery

Political Coverage

Newspaper

“A Secretive Dinner Where $25,000 Buys Access to Cuomo (and Filet Mignon)”
David Goodman
The New York Times

Magazine

“Fortune: Death by a Thousand Clicks”
Erika Fry and Fred Schulte
Fortune and Kaiser Health News

TV 

“Out of Service: NY1 Investigation Finds Chronic Elevator Outages Plague NYCHA”
Courtney Gross, Dan Keese, Dan Komarinetz
Spectrum News NY1

Online

“Solitary Voices”
Reporting and Data Teams Staff
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Intercept, NBC News, Univision, WNYC and Latin American media partners

Special Event Reporting

Newspaper

“’Game of Thrones’ Final Season”
The Culture Desk Staff of The New York Times
The New York Times

TV

“Homeless, Not Nameless”
Courtney Gross, Dan Keese, Kristi Lee Neuberger, Shanel Dawson, Dan Komarinetz
Spectrum News NY1

Online

“Since Parkland”
The Trace, Miami Herald, and McClatchy
The Trace, Miami Herald, and McClatchy

Sports News

Radio

“Who Runs the World? THE USWNT”
Brianna Leverty
WFUV 90.7 FM

TV

“Foul Ball: Did a N.J. Man Get Duped into Buying $100K in Bogus Sports Memorabilia?”
Kevin Monahan, Stephanie Gosk, Rich Schapiro, Kenzi Abou-Sabe
NBC News Investigative Unit

Online

“Los Angeles Angels Employee Details Team’s Knowledge of Tyler Skaggs’ Drug Use to Federal DEA Investigators”
T.J. Quinn and Arty Berko
ESPN

Spot News 

Radio

“The Jersey City Shooting”
WCBS News Team
WCBS Newsradio 880

TV

“Midtown Helicopter Crash”
Spectrum News NY1 Staff
Spectrum News NY1

Travel Writing

Newspaper

“Her Uncle Died with the French Resistance, and She Had to Visit the Spot”
Sylvie Bigar
Washington Post

Magazine

“Hot and Unbothered”
Anjali Khosla
Gossamer

Online

“Not Italian Enough: Christmas in Castelfranco”
Valarie D’Elia, John Rattazzi
travelwithval.com