Vermont Business Magazine Seven Days newspaper won 18 awards Thursday at the Vermont Press Association’s annual meeting in Montpelier. Those included six first-place prizes and the prestigious Mavis Doyle Award, which went to staff writer Alicia Freese
The paper swept the “Best State Story” category. First place went to the entire Seven Days news team for its five-week “Give and Take” series, which examined Vermont’s nonprofit economy. Staff writer Taylor Dobbs, political editor Paul Heintz and political columnist John Walters jointly took the second-place prize for their coverage of a pitched battle over the state’s gun laws. Third place in the category went to Heintz for a story documenting the decline of Vermont’s dairy industry.
Seven Days also took home all three prizes in the “John Donoghue Award for Arts Criticism” category. First went to associate editor Margot Harrison, second to assistant arts editor Dan Bolles and third to theater critic Alex Brown.
Other first-place finishers included staff writer Mark Davis, who won “Best Local Story” for his coverage of a murder-suicide in Maidstone, and staff writer Katie Jickling, who won the “Feature Writing” category for a story about a father grappling with his son’s mental illness.
Walters, author of the weekly “Fair Game” political column, took home top honors in the “Column Writing: Political/Hard News” category. Seven Days also came in first for “Best Website.”
Dailies and weeklies enter separately in most VPA contest categories, but all Vermont newspapers compete against one another for the Donoghue and Mavis Doyle awards. This was the second year in a row that Freese, who covers the Statehouse for Seven Days, won the latter. Named after the former dean of the Statehouse press corps, the Mavis Doyle Award recognizes a reporter’s “aggressiveness, determination, compassion, commitment to journalism, dedication to social justice and unwavering belief that journalism should be the watchdog of the government and the voice of the people.”
“We’re certainly not in this business to win awards, but we appreciate the recognition of our peers in the Vermont Press Association,” said Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. “Week in and week out, we strive to produce top-notch journalism that —we hope —is fair, accurate, incisive and well written.”
Here’s a full list of Seven Days’ prizes:
Best State Story:
-First place: Seven Days staff —”Give and Take: Examining Vermont’s Nonprofit Economy”
-Second place: Taylor Dobbs, Paul Heintz and John Walters —Entries included “After Florida Shooting, Vermont Governor Says No New Gun Laws,” “In Range: The Week That Changed Vermont’s Gun Politics” and “Into the Arena: Gov. Phil Scott Confronts the Gun Issue Head-On”
-Third place: Paul Heintz —”Selling the Herd: A Mile Price Crisis is Devastating Vermont’s Dairy Farms”
Best Local Story:
-First place: Mark Davis —”’Til Death Do Us Part: Maidstone’s Grisly Murder-Suicide Was Domestic Violence”
-Second place: Paul Heintz —”’The Last Minute to Play’: Oil Mogul Skip Vallee Takes the Fight to Cancer”
Feature Writing:
-First place: Katie Jickling —”Committed: A Son’s Mental Illness, a Father’s Fight”
-Third place: Paul Heintz —”’The Last Minute to Play’: Oil Mogul Skip Vallee Takes the Fight to Cancer”
-Honorable mention: Dan Bolles —”The Ballad of Feather River John”
John Donoghue Award for Arts Criticism:
-First place: Margot Harrison —Entry included “Earth Economies Are Easy”
-Second place: Dan Bolles —Entry included “Album Review: Lewis Franco & the Missing Cats, ‘With Cousin Joe, Sonny Joe & Grampa Joe’”
-Third place: Alex Brown —Entry included “Theater Review: ‘A Doll’s House,’ Northern Stage”
Best Arts & Entertainment Story:
-Second place: Dan Bolles —”Love Story”
-Third place: Amy Lilly —”Women of Note”
Column Writing: Political/Hard News:
-First place: John Walters —Entry included “Into the Arena: Gov. Phil Scott Confronts the Gun Issue Head-On”
Column Writing: Features/Lifestyle/Humor:
-Honorable mention: Jordan Adams —Entry included “Soundbites: ‘Tis the Week Before New Year’s”
Best Feature Photo:
-Third place: Matt Thorsen —From “DJ Melo Grant Celebrates 33 ⅓ Years on the Hip-Hop Airwaves”
Mavis Doyle Award:
-Alicia Freese —Entry included “Cruel and Unusual?”
Outstanding Website:
-First Place: Seven Days
About Seven Days
Da Capo Publishing Inc., dba Seven Days, was founded by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly in 1995, and is now owned by Polston and Routly, as well as deputy publisher Cathy Resmer and associate publishers Don Eggert and Colby Roberts. In addition to its seven free publications, the company also produces several annual events, the Stuck in Vermont video series and hosts a ticketing website, job board and dating service. Its award-winning staff has been recognized by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the Parenting Media Association, the New England Newspaper and Press Association and the Vermont Press Association.
Seven Days has been named Business of the Year by both the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Burlington Business Association. In 2013, Editor & Publisher selected Seven Days for inclusion in its annual feature, “10 Newspapers That Do It Right.” In 2015, Polston and Routly were inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame. The same honor was bestowed on Seven Days’ consulting editor, Candace Page, in 2017.
Source: December 14, 2018 —Seven Days