Wins 24 editorial, advertising, photo awards

The Highlands Current was again named as the Newspaper of the Year by the New York Press Association on (Saturday) April 1 at its annual convention in Albany.

For the first time, there was a tie for the award, which The Current shared with the Times Union of Albany. The honor is based on the number of editorial and advertising points scored in the NYPA’s annual Better Newspaper Contest. The Current also won the top prize in 2022.

The Current received 24 awards in editorial, advertising, design and photography categories, bringing its total since 2013 to 121. In all, 154 newspapers submitted 2,657 entries from 2022 for the contest, which were judged by members of the Colorado Press Association.

Among all newspapers, The Current repeated as the winner of three awards: advertising excellence (Michele Gedney); environmental coverage (Brian PJ Cronin); and local business support campaign (Teresa Lagerman, for our annual Ice Cream Passport).

Topfield Center
In a photo by Leonard Sparks recognized by the NYPA, Ailee Debberman gets a nuzzle from Duke, one of the therapy horses at the Topfield Equestrian Center in Philipstown.

Cronin also won first place for coverage of religion for his series, The Challenge for Churches, and Chip Rowe and Leonard Sparks won the top prize for Historical, Anniversary and Progress Editions for an expanded reprint of their series on the Black history of the Highlands.

The Current won second-place awards for photographic excellence; photographer of the year (Ross Corsair); news website; and advertising media kit. It won third-place awards for coverage of health, health care and science; coverage of diversity; and podcast; and honorable mention for Skip Pearlman’s sports coverage.

Among smaller papers, Jeff Simms won first-place in the news story division for his report on the 100th anniversary of the killing of Beacon police officer Charles Lucy; the paper won first-place for its coverage of education; and Rowe and Sparks won for best news or feature series for their Black history reports. In that same category, Simms received an honorable mention for his series on the effect of the pandemic on local students.

pow wow
One of Ross Corsair’s winning photos from 2022.

Second-place finishes among smaller papers went to Cronin for column (“Out There”); Pierce Strudler for small ad; and Sparks for feature photo. Third-place finishes were given for overall excellence; investigative/in-depth reporting to Simms for his education series; and picture story to Valerie Shively for her photo essay on the annual Wee Play sale in Beacon.

Behind The Story

Type: News

News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Articles attributed to "staff" are written by the editor or a senior editor. This is typically because they are brief items based on a single source, such as a press release, or there are multiple contributors, such as a collection of photos.

One reply on “Current Repeats as Newspaper of Year”

  1. Tears came to my eyes when I saw that award-winning photo by Leonard Sparks topping this completely unsurprising story about The Current being recognized once again as the best paper in the state. All of The Current’s regular readers knew this already, and all of us are so lucky to have this marvelous weekly publication provided free to our community. To all of us who can afford to support this essential publication with monthly donations: I sincerely hope that we are doing so. Congratulations to the editor and all The Current staff!

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