Daily Herald reporters win four Blethen journalism awards
Published 1:30 am Sunday, December 16, 2018
EVERETT — Reporters from The Daily Herald brought home four awards in a prestigious contest for Pacific Northwest newspapers.
Four Herald staff writers were honored in this year’s C.B. Blethen Memorial Awards for distinguished journalism for coverage of a cold-case arrest, the Street Smarts series, Everett’s Casino Road neighborhood and a surprise increase to an environmental handling charge.
Melissa Slager won first place in the Debby Lowman Award for Consumer Reporting for her series of Street Smart columns. Judges commented that the collection was “a very creative consumer service column in an area with serious traffic issues.”
Noah Haglund won third place in the same category for his piece on the rise of a recycling fee for fluorescent light bulbs.
Rikki King and Caleb Hutton won first place for Deadline Reporting for a story detailing an arrest made in the cold case of the 1987 killing of two Canadian tourists. Remarks from judges included, “The writing was outstanding and it pieced together the case from decades past to the present.”
King also won third place in Distinguished Coverage of Diversity for a collection of stories about Everett’s Casino Road neighborhood.
All of The Herald’s Blethen awards were in the category for newspapers with circulations of 50,000 or less.
The contest also recognizes larger-circulation papers. Winners were announced Wednesday.
The awards are sponsored by The Seattle Times and are administered by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association.
