Bridge wins awards for college drinking series, other efforts
Bridge magazine won three awards at the annual banquet of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Detroit chapter, held Tuesday, April 12.
Competing against the region’s largest newspapers, Bridge won first place in the Localization of a National Story category, for “Game Day,” a multi-part series on drinking on Michigan college campuses, reported and written by Bridge staff writers Nancy Derringer, Ron French and Mike Wilkinson working alongside student journalists at four public universities across the state. The visually rich project was designed by Scott Sendra and included the photographs of Brian Widdis.
A project on reported sexual assault of juvenile offenders housed in adult prisons won an honorable mention in the Investigative Reporting category. Written by Ron French and contributor Ted Roelofs, the prison series was also recently honored with the 2016 Wade H. McCree Jr. Award for the Advancement of Justice, sponsored by Michigan Press Association Foundation and announced last month.
Staff writer Bill McGraw’s profile of Detroit’s Eden Gardens neighborhood took an honorable mention for Feature Reporting.
The SPJ organization honored Ron Fonger, of the Flint Journal, as Journalist of the Year, for his work covering that city’s water crisis. Michael Martinez, of The Detroit News, won Young Journalist of the Year. Laura Berman and Tom Walsh, recently retired from the Detroit News and Free Press, respectively, received lifetime achievement awards.
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