A little while back, the New Jersey Press Association (NJPA) announced winners of the 2009 Better Newspaper Contest for weekly and daily newspapers in New Jersey. And guess what? Yours truly has won an award! I won second place in the Interpretive Writing category for weekly newspapers – circulation over 6,400. As you could imagine, I’m really excited about this. The plaque is beautiful. It’s hanging in my living room as we speak. Now I can say in my biography that I’m an award winning journalist. That’s awesome.
The Interpretive Writing category is for articles that “delves more deeply into breaking news or an issue of wide public interest and explains or clarifies a situation,” according to the NJPA contest entry form. My article is about a Haskell man named Andrew who, in July 2009, tried to kill his brother by driving a meat cleaver through his head. Yes, you read that right! Last August, a high school friend of his e-mailed me, saying that his attempted murder is the result of his suffering from depression. Because his family can’t afford proper mental health care and treatment, his depression worsened. I’ve spoken to Andrew’s other friends and schoolmates, and his own mother. All have confirmed that he has been suffering from depression. Even Andrew’s lawyer requested the court to have a psychological evaluation performed on him.
Does all this sound shocking? Well, that’s why NJPA thinks it deserves this award.
To see the award-winning article, please copy and paste the following link: http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/60928067.html