The Times-Journal is the winner of a top award in the New York Press Association’s 2010 Better Newspapers Contest.
The T-J took second place in Best News or Feature Series (Division 2) for its coverage of the racism charges that divided Cobleskill last year.
The award was presented at the NYPA’s annual convention in Saratoga over the weekend.
The entry by Editor Patsy Nicosia and Publisher Jim Poole included nearly two dozen articles, photographs, and editorials, that began in June with charges that elected officials had used the “n-word” and ran through the end of the year.
“A thorough job on a controversy over racial slurs between a mayor, a supervisor, and a town employee. Covered from all the angles,” the Better Newspaper Contest judges wrote.
The unusual nature of the issue required extensive coverage, said Ms. Nicosia.
“In 30 years, we’ve never had anything like this before,” she said. “It seemed to open raw wounds every week, and for that reason, we kept on top of it.”
Breaking in June and continuing into the fall, the story had more angles than first appeared, Mr. Poole said.
“There were issues of Cobleskill’s image in the area, how the slurs might impact kids, healing the community, those sorts of things,” Mr. Poole said. “And then there was the whole other side of how the words were made public.
“Altogether, the story deserved the coverage we gave it.”