Powers of 10

It’s been a weird year here at SN&R. OK, they’re all weird years. But we may have been extra distracted recently by giving up our Midtown home for the wilds of north Sacramento.

Still, that hasn’t stopped SN&R from killing it in the annual California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest.

SN&R went up against other weekly papers with circulation above 25,001, and garnered 10 first- or second-place awards, more than any other weekly in the state.

We won first-place honors for:

Public Service: for our sustainability coverage in the weekly Green Days section.

Freedom of Information: for “Beyond driven” by R.V. Scheide (SN&R Feature; May 21, 2009), about how legislators pimp their rides with taxpayer cash.

Column: First place also went to R.V.’s “Race to the Bottom.”

Sports Story: Kel Munger won first place for “The fast and the curious”(SN&R Feature; June 12, 2008), her profile of (and exhilarating ride-along with) Sacramento stock car racer Jonathan Hale.

Front Page Design: for “Letters to Obama” (SN&R Feature; January 15, 2009; a project we did with Capital Public Radio) and “Escape from Baghdad” (SN&R Feature; January 29, 2009), both by designer Don Button.

We won second place in these categories:

Local News Coverage: “Five ways to fix City Hall” (SN&R Feature; February 26, 2009) by Cosmo Garvin.

Writing: “Run, Josh, Run” (SN&R Feature; November 27, 2008) by Josh Fernandez.

Feature Story: “Hell’s half-acre” (SN&R Feature; November 6, 2008) by R.V. Scheide.

Editorial Comment: “End run” (SN&R Editorial; July 9, 2009) about Kevin Johnson’s “strong mayor” initiative) by Kel Munger.

And finally, second place in the Photo Essay category for “Living Homeless” (SN&R Feature; June 11, 2009). That was part of a project on homelessness we did in conjunction with Capital Public Radio last year. Art direction by David Jayne, photos by Kevin Fiscus and Louise Mitchell. Story by Ted Cox.

Compiled from Snog.