The Vineyard Gazette was named weekly Newspaper of the Year in its circulation category by the New England Newspaper and Press Association yesterday, the top prize in the annual newspaper competition among weekly and small daily newspapers in New England.
The Gazette also won a prestigious Publick Occurrences Award for Outstanding Journalism. The award went to Gazette senior writer Mike Seccombe for his series of stories on offshore wind development last year.
“This is the story of a lifetime for a weekly newspaper, and the staff writer stayed on top of it . . . what great newspaper coverage,” judges said.
The awards were announced at the 2010 fall conference and awards ceremony held yesterday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Natick.
This is the eighth time the Gazette has been named Newspaper of the Year since 1990.
The New England Newspaper and Press Association was formed two years ago when the New England Newspaper Association and the New England Newspaper Society merged, forming a single association.
Following the merger, the newspaper of the year contest for the first time this year was split off from the association’s February awards in individual categories and made into a separately judged event. Also for the first time the judging included both industry professionals and focus groups made up of newspaper readers.
The Gazette Newspaper of the Year award is for weekly newspapers in the over-10,000 circulation category. Other winners in the same circulation category who received Distinguished Newspaper awards were the Greater New Milford Spectrum, the Newton Tab and The Ellsworth American, published in Ellsworth, Me.
“A hearty congratulations goes out to the hard-working staff of the Vineyard Gazette for the Newspaper of the Year award; what a wonderful achievement,” said Gazette editor Julia Wells yesterday.
“It is no secret that these are financially straitened times for newspapers of every size and description all over the country, and the Gazette has been no exception. What I have found is that despite limited resources, the enthusiasm, passion and dedication of the staff at the Gazette knows no limit. They are an inspiration and a model and I thank them for their unflagging commitment to the newspaper and its readers.”
Five distinguished journalists who have made significant contributions to small newspapers in New England over the years were also inducted into the Newspaper Hall of Fame yesterday.
Other winners of Newspaper of the Year in their respective circulation categories included the Cape Cod Times, a daily published in Hyannis, and The Day, a daily published in New London, Conn. The Mount Desert Islander, the Ellsworth American’s smaller sister paper, won Newspaper of the Year in the under-5,000 circulation category.
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