Daily Herald receives 31 awards at news industry conference; Feder gives keynote speech
The Daily Herald took second place in the large-market sweepstakes award Friday in the Illinois Press Association's 2020 newspaper contest.
The newspaper also finished second for general excellence.
The Stuart R. Paddock Memorial Trophy, named for the longtime editor of the Herald, went to the Chicago Sun-Times. The Chicago Tribune received an honorable mention in the sweepstakes award, which takes into account a news organization's overall performance in more than three dozen categories.
All told, the Daily Herald won 27 awards in the IPA contest, including first-place awards for:
• Rick West in the Spot News Photo category for "Protest Prayer.
• Brian Hill in the General News Photo category for "Centenarian's COVID Birthday."
• And Mark Welsh in the Sports Photo category for "Rush For Glory."
The Daily Herald also picked up four awards for its work in the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors annual contest. The two news organizations hold their annual conference jointly. The awards were announced Friday.
The IAPME awards include:
• Mark Welsh, first place in the Sports Photo category for "Championship Hug."
• John Starks, second place in the Feature Photo category for "Socially Distanced Santa."
• Marni Pyke, third place in the Breaking News category for "Pritzker issues shelter-in-place order."
• And Patrick Kunzer, third place in the Sports Photo category for "Performing on Beam."
Veteran Daily Herald media columnist Robert Feder gave the keynote address before the IAPME awards were announced. Feder has been covering the comings and goings in the Chicago-area media scene for more than 40 years, including the rise of Oprah and the faint memory of Jerry Springer. As a teenager, Feder started a fan club for his boyhood hero, Walter Cronkite.
Feder addressed the issue of confidence in the news media, which has dropped since the days of Watergate, when Cronkite took a stand against President Richard Nixon's assault on the press.
"As other speakers have talked about at the conference this week, we need to educate the public about what we do and how we do it," Feder said. "We need to do a better job of helping them distinguish between reporting and opinion, between truth and propaganda. And we need to teach media literacy to Americans of all ages.
"In spite of what any of our critics say, (journalism) remains a noble and honorable profession, and one that's so vital to our democracy it's enshrined in our Constitution."