SDX presents more than 50 awards for excellence

By Mary Barczak
The Working Press

For the third year in a row, KARE-TV in Minneapolis received an award for television feature reporting on Saturday at the Sigma Delta Chi Awards banquet, one of more than 50 that the organization presented.
SDX presented the award for the station’s continued work on its series, “Land of 10,000 Stories,” which profiles Minnesota residents and their daily lives.
Boyd Huppert, the reporter on the piece, said the series started seven years ago.
“Everyone has a story and we go out and try to find the best of them,” he said.
Huppert said it usually takes his team two to five days to put a piece together.
The station used to run the stories once a month until this June but started running them once a week due to positive public response.
“I think there’s an appetite for well-told stories [in Minnesota],” Huppert said.
“The great thing is that we’ll never run out,” he added. SDX presented awards in categories recognizing the best in professional journalism for print, radio, television, newsletters, arts and graphics, online and research reporting.
There were more than 1,400 entries this year.
For deadline reporting, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald won an award for their coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. Within hours after the earthquake struck, the organizations had about 10 journalists in the country.
Carolyn Cole, of the Los Angeles Times, was also recognized for her personal images chronicling the destruction in Haiti. Cole was one of the first on the scene to document the earthquake.
For non-deadline reporting, John Sutter, CNN.com, won an award for “Deep-Sea Mysteries.” Judges praised what they called Sutter’s unique approach to the story, along with his breadth of coverage using interactive graphics.
FactCheck.org won an award for a piece called “Fact-Checking Deceptive Claims About the Federal Health Care Legislation.” The story sought to separate truth from fiction surrounding President Barack Obama’s health care bill.
For breaking news, Natalie Morales, Kerry Sanders and the “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” staff won an award for their coverage of the Chilean mine rescue.
WRIC-TV8 in Richmond, Va., won an award for breaking news for “Family Feud.” The story was about an elderly man who shot his family because of a dispute about property lines.
SDX was founded in 1909 as the journalism fraternity at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. After expanding into several other states, the organization changed its name to the Society of Professional Journalists in 1988. Photo gallery of the awards banquet →

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