Morning News Earns National Honors for Deadline News, Features Writing

The Dallas Morning News has earned honors for its deadline news reporting, features writing and online platforms in a pair of national contests.In the recently-announced 2017 Associated Press Media Editors awards, the News' coverage of the July 2016 police ambush was named winner for deadline news reporting among newspapers with circulations of 150,000 and above."The Dallas Morning News provided the model for owning a big breaking news story," the judges said. "The staff did a first-rate job of making sense of events that created chaos in the streets and left police, marchers and readers unsure what would happen next."Meanwhile, the News' website, dallasnews.com, won APME's best mobile platform category, with the judges lauding its redesign and ability to increase reader traffic.In this week's 2017 Society for Features Journalism awards, arts and culture editor Christopher Wynn won second place in narrative writing for "Room, With a Muse," about an artist renovating a run-down Corsicana building. "The imagery in this story is lovely," the judges wrote. "The writer is concentrating on artists, and his story is a work of art, too."In general commentary, books editor Mike Merschel took third and dining critic Leslie Brenner earned an honorable mention for their writing.Merschel's portfolio included stories about Garrison Keillor and author Michael Chabon and an essay about an out-of-office reply, while Brenner's featured critiques of Dallas restaurants Uchi and Dolce Riviera, and the Dallas dining scene itself.The Morning News' entertainment website, Guidelive.com, also placed third, behind The Washington Post and CNN.com, with judges praising its "strong and lively visual style" and its integration of Instagram."We are pleased to receive these national awards, which reflect our commitment to both breaking news and in-depth feature coverage," said Mike Wilson, editor of the News. "I couldn't be prouder of this team."  Continue reading...