Johnson City News & Neighbor repeats strong showing in national awards competition

The Johnson City News & Neighbor has won five top awards, including four first-place honors, in national newspaper competition. The newspaper competed against nearly 500 entries from across America and Canada. Originally scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting in Denver, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the honors were presented virtually last week by the Independent Free Papers of America.

The paper won first-place in news ‘Local Business Coverage,’ for Food City’s ‘All hands on deck’ stocking programs during the pandemic and written by Scott Robertson. Other first place awards went to the graphics department for Best Internet Site; Original Writing Personal Column by Bill Derby for his column ‘National Flirting Week.’ and News Editor, Dave Ongie’s Original Photography (Sports or News) for his photo of young Rugby players. The second place award went to Scott Robertson for his coverage of the COVID-19 panidemic story, ‘Aryou #suddenlyremotelyworking?’

“The repeat performance in writing, top spot in news reporting, photography and top website honors all stem from a concerted effort to provide more relevant news and editorial coverage while maintaining News & Neighbor’s important role as a community newspaper,” Publisher Bill Derby said. Now, as the only locally owned major media in our market, it proves the caliber of our talented journalists as well as our graphic department’s top design award.”

Derby added, “We are extremely proud of our small staff producing our monthly business publication, The Business Journal of Tri-Cities Tennessee/Virginia and each week publishing the News & Neighbor with our carriers delivering over 30,500 homes each week, the fifth highest in Tennessee. It’s a huge job in addition to our other special editions and publications we print on a regular basis. We are a hard working group and that makes us all proud to be recognized by our industry.”