Heralds win Community Leadership, 18 other NY Press Association honors

“This is what newspapers do best,” the judges of the New York Press Association’s Sharon R. Fulmer Award for Community Leadership said in conferring on the Merrick Herald the coveted and significant journalism honor, “grab an issue, provide essential background, comment from time to time on editorial pages — and basically cover the hell out of it until the people win.”

The judges were describing the Herald’s “creative, thorough coverage of the dangers of driving while intoxicated spurred by real-life tragedies. Persistence resulted in positive legislative outcome. This staff should be proud.” The Merrick Herald’s staff of Reporter Sari Zeidler and Senior Editor Scott Brinton took First Place in the Excellence Awards’ community leadership category.

And that was but one of the 18 awards the staff of Herald papers earned in 15 categories from independent judges in the New York Press Association’s statewide “Better Newspaper Contest.”

The awards recognize the quality of the Heralds’ journalism, writing, photography, art, design and advertising excellence. The award presentations were made this weekend at NYPA’s annual spring conference in Saratoga Springs. A total of 2,908 entries were submitted by 176 newspapers in the state of New York. 

In addition to the First Place Community Leadership Award, the Heralds won First-, Second- or Third-Place awards in 15 other categories: coverage of education (Third Place–Merrick Herald), coverage of election/politics (Third Place–Merrick Herald), feature photography (two separate awards: First Place to Andrew Vardakis for the Lynbrook-East Rockaway Herald, and Second Place to Claudio Papapietro for the Nassau Herald), art photography (Second Place for the Long Beach Herald), feature story writing (First Place, Mike Russo, Baldwin Herald), column writing (two separate awards: Second Place to Scott Brinton, and First Place to Randi Kreiss), news-feature series writing (First Place–Mike Russo, Baldwin Herald), sports-action photography (Second Place, Kathy Leistner for the Long Beach Herald), sports feature writing (Second Place, Scott Brinton, Merrick Herald) and spot news photography (First Place, Andrew Vardakis for the Oceanside-Island Park Herald).

The Heralds also earned awards for its circulation promotion (First Place, Jeff Negrin, Nassau Herald), its special holiday edition (Second Place for "Holiday Magic," Nassau Herald), special section advertising (Second Place, Advertising Vice President Rhonda Glickman, Nassau Herald), and best color ad created by the newspaper (two awards – First Place and Third Place – were also earned by Jeff Negrin).

The Herald also won a second-place award for “Blooper of the Year.” 

“I’m happy about the awards,” the Heralds’ Executive Editor John O’Connell said after the conference Saturday night in Saratoga. “The staff should be deservedly proud of the recognition in all these extremely competitive categories. And, frankly, I’m proud of the work the entire Herald staff does each and every week in Editorial and in all the other departments to bring our readers – and visitors to our liherald.com – real, quality journalism that matters to the people in the communities we cover.”