Reporters Aliyah Veal, Nick Judin and Kayode Crown led the Mississippi Free Press’ tremendous showing in last night’s Society for Professional Journalists’ Diamond Awards in Little Rock, Ark. A total of 12 MFP team members shared in 17 honors, with ten of them first-place awards. The same day, Ashton Pittman won the Best News-Based Twitter Thread Award for his viral Brett Farve timeline.
Veal led the MFP’s honor roll with three first-place awards, including two for her powerful journalism leading the Hinds County/public-safety focus of our collaboration with the Jackson Advocate, the “(In)Equity and Resilience: Black Women, Systemic Barriers and COVID-19” Project, also called the BWC Project and supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. Veal’s solutions piece about Oresa Napper-Williams, a mother who lost her son to gun violence in New York City,” won first place for best profile. She also won first place for arts and entertainment coverage for her long-form piece on the “Great Migration” exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
Veal shared the first-place award for special section/niche publication for the BWC Project microsite, which she shared with Acacia Clark, Kristin Brenemen, Donna Ladd and project collaborator DeAnna Tisdale Johnson of the Jackson Advocate. She also was a finalist for Best New Journalist in the contest.
“This is a remarkably strong entry full of both tragedy and inspiration. Every article is strong,” judges wrote about the BWC Project. “… The deep look at poverty, crime, and housing problems in Hinds County stood head and shoulders above the other entries in the depth and breadth of its reporting along with its powerful visual presentation “It was all the more impressive in having been reported and written by young journalists. … This is such impressive journalism about people, events, and communities that are too often ignored by the mainstream media. Congratulations to all reporters, editors, researchers and photographers who produced such important work!”
Reporter Nick Judin won two first-place awards—both among top-tier special Diamond Awards. Judin won the Garrick Feldman Community Journalism Award for his impactful investigative reporting on deadly conditions in a Delta apartment complex in