2001 Alternative Newsweekly Award Winners Announced

Posted on July 13, 2001

Gambit Weekly led the field of winners with four first-place awards in the Sixth Annual Alternative Newsweekly Awards. The awards, announced at the Association of Alternative Newsweekly annual convention, recognize superior journalism and graphic design among the 118 AAN member papers, which represent urban alternative newsweeklies across the United States and Canada.

Convention host Gambit Weekly took first places in the small circulation (below 54,000) division in column (Andrei Codrescu), cover design (Dora Sison & Ben Delery), media reporting (``Investigating the Investigator,'' Allen Johnson Jr.) and sports reporting (``Cold Warriors,'' Scott Jordan). In all Gambit Weekly won nine awards, the largest number of awards for any paper in either category.

Nate Blakeslee of The Texas Observer (also in the small circulation division) won two of the paper's three first-place awards: for investigative reporting (``Color of Justice'') and news story (``The Gray and the White.) The Texas Observer's third first-place award was in arts feature (''Play About the Playwright,`` Michael King). Blakeslee also placed second in media reporting for ''Writing the Ruckus in Seattle.`` In all The Texas Observer took home six awards.

In the large-paper division (circulation above 54,000), Dallas Observer, Chicago Reader and LA Weekly each won two first-place awards. Dallas Observer won firsts in column/political commentary (Jim Schutze, who also won an award in 2000) and investigative reporting (``Good Cop, Bad Cop,'' Christine Biederman).

Chicago Reader placed first in arts feature (``Has Anyone Seen Clyde Angel?'' Jeff Huebner) and music criticism (Monica Kendrick). LA Weekly took away firsts in feature story (``Jena at 15,'' Nancy Rommelmann) and illustration (Dana Collins).

LA Weekly received five awards in all, followed by Baltimore City Paper and Washington City Paper with four each.

Judges included three of this year's Pulitzer Prize winners, David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, Tom Hallman, Jr., of The Oregonian and David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, along with such journalistic luminaries as David Halberstam, Keith Olbermann, David Maraniss and Richard Reeves.

AAN is a not-for-profit organization representing the alternative newsweekly industry, which includes publications such as The Village Voice, Chicago Reader and LA Weekly. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AAN represents 118 newsweeklies in the United States and Canada with combined total weekly circulation of more than 7.6 million and a reach of more than 20 million readers.