My colleagues took home a couple well deserved Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awards this weekend: Ben Joravsky won second place for best political column (first place went to the Voice‘s Tom Robbins), and Anne Ford took home second place in the arts feature category for her wonderful cover story on local comedian TJ Jagodowski. You’re likely aware of Ben’s work (he won specifically for three columns, on Bensenville, the relationship between Daley and Obama, and the Midway lease) but do check out her feature if you haven’t – it’s a remarkable, moving piece, one of my favorites we’ve run.
Our sister Washington City Paper had a good weekend, with a first-place media crit award to Erik Wemple, writing about the Washington Post; a first-place “format buster” award for their darkly hilarious “Washington City Paper Seeks Journalism Bankruptcy”; and a first-place art crit award to Jeffry Cudin (his piece on Christo will probably be of broadest interest). Their blog City Desk took home a second-place finish, and their outstanding photographer Darrow Montgomery (love it, this too) won third.
Creative Loafing Atlanta won second place in the feature story category, for Thomas Wheatley’s moving account of the alcohol addiction that almost killed him.