Left to right: physician Rafael Garabis; Dominick Armijo, RN; Yvonne Cordova, director of radiology; Ezekiel Sundown, an environmental services department tech; and respiratory therapist Edith Danielson became the first five frontline healthcare workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in New Mexico on Dec. 14, 2020. Photo by Julia Goldberg.
Staff from the Santa Fe Reporter earned nine awards at the 2022 Top of the Rockies regional journalism contest in the medium newsrooms classification.
Keeping up with daily COVID-19 reports and weekly news conferences from public health officials is just part of what Senior Correspondent Julia Goldberg did to maintain her first-place-winning beat coverage of the pandemic, including deep dives and explainers, plus milestones such as the one-year mark since the rollout of vaccines.
Goldberg also received second place in arts criticism for her reviews of the Santa Fe Opera’s 2021 season and first place for a science and technology feature on the new Avian Zoonotic Disease Network called “For the Birds.”
Staff Writer William Melhado’s education reporting earned top honors in the education feature category with a first-place award for “Dot-com Desert,” a story reporting how a lack of internet connectivity continues to unfairly challenge some New Mexico students. His “Rates of Return,” about disparity between students returning to in-person classes based on relative wealth and race, also earned second place in the education news category.
Anson Stevens-Bollen
Bella Davis, a reporter who recently completed a fellowship at the Reporter with the New Mexico Local News Fund received first place for her stories on the South Meadows open space being targeted for development. (News continues to develop as the Planning Commission again postponed a vote last week.) Davis also won second place for her business feature “Bottom Dollar,” about pay stagnation and the lack of political will in the City of Santa Fe to hike its minimum wage for the private sector.
Cover illustrations for “Toxic Threat” and “Here’s Cannabis,” by SFR Art Director Anson Stevens-Bollen, earned first and third place.
editor@sfreporter.com
Seventy-five media outlets plus a dozen freelancers from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico entered this year’s Top of the Rockies contest, submitting 1,507 entries, according to sponsors with the Society of Professional Journalists’ professional chapters in the four states.
“Top of the Rockies showcases the best in journalism from 2021, and it is evident that journalists in the four-state region are doing excellent work,” said Deb Hurley Brobst, the contest coordinator. “Every year, I am thrilled at the strong news reporting, feature writing, photography and design that is taking place in cities of all sizes in our region.”
See all the winners and read comments from the judges here.
