GREENFIELD — A regional news organization honored The Recorder Thursday as the “2016 New England Distinguished Newspaper of the Year” in the daily newspaper category.
The Distinguished Newspaper honor is given for excellence across the newspaper’s weekday editions, including news, features, sports and opinion pages, photography and design.
The honor was bestowed by the New England Newspaper & Press Association at a conference in Natick. The Recorder competed in the weekday newspapers in the 10,000 to 15,000 circulation category.
Accepting the award on behalf of the entire newsroom staff were reporters Tom Relihan and Aviva Luttrell.
“We asked Tom and Aviva to take a bow for us in Natick today because they are both hardworking and conscientious reporters, and therefore appropriate representatives of the entire staff whose diligence and work were being honored,” Recorder Editor George Forcier said Thursday. “Sometimes we forget what a quality community paper our small staff produces for The Recorder’s readers in this rural corner of the state. Happily, other professionals in the field have reminded us again.”
“Most communities our size elsewhere in the country just aren’t as fortunate to have a private, family-controlled newspaper that cares about our public service mission and is willing to support its dedicated staff,” Forcier added.
Relihan covers the paper’s human services and education beat and Luttrell covers Greenfield.
The Recorder’s sister paper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette also won kudos in Natick. A longtime Daily Hampshire Gazette editor, Stanley Moulton, was honored with the Bob Wallack Community Journalism Award. The Gazette itself was recognized as a “Distinguished Newspaper of the Year” in the weekend category. Also, a series that appeared in the Gazette’s opinion pages last December, “Letters from Inside,” won a Publick Occurrences award for public service journalism. The series, developed by Gazette Editor Larry Parnass presented first-person narratives by people incarcerated at the Franklin County House of Correction.