Our news team is thrilled to announce that after just our first year publishing, The Lawrence Times has been selected for four Awards of Excellence from the Kansas Press Association.
In all divisions, the Times won second place for Best Digital Project for our COVID-19 stat dashboard, and third place in the Infographic category for a map of voter turnout in the 2021 city primary election.
In Division VII — which includes the largest publications in the state, with circulations of 5,601 or greater — the Times won two awards.
Equity reporter Tricia Masenthin took second place in the Sports Feature Story category for her article, “Social worker, coach weaves life experiences into empowerment lessons for Lawrence youth.” The article shared the story of Audrey Trowbridge — a townie, Free State High School social worker, and head coach of track at Lawrence High School.
Reporter Conner Mitchell took third place in the Investigative Story category for “Who killed Nick Rice?” The 10-part series examined the death of Nick Rice, a University of Kansas student who was shot and killed by Lawrence police in July 1970. The circumstances surrounding his death had remained murky for more than 50 years until this in-depth series finally shed light on the true story.
Nick’s brother, Chris Rice, told Mitchell, “It shouldn’t be this hard to find out the truth.” But it was, and it might never have happened without this series. Alongside our day-to-day coverage of issues and lighter features, that is the kind of purposeful journalism that we hope to keep producing well into the future.
We are not doing this work for the accolades. It’s all for the community, and our readers’ opinions are the ones that matter most to us. But it is truly an honor for our team and our fledgling news outlet — which just started publishing on March 8, 2021 — to be recognized among some of the largest publications in the state in this way.
Work entered in the contest must have been produced between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021. For the vast majority of that time, our news team consisted of only two or three reporters (myself included). I am extremely proud of everything we have been able to accomplish.
We need your support to keep growing in all that we’re doing and to keep our news coverage open for anyone to read. Our subscribers and advertisers are putting food on our tables — we have no corporate ownership, no major investors or benefactors, and no grants. We depend on the community we serve.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
We want to be the excellent publication that the Lawrence-Douglas County community deserves, and we want everyone to see themselves in the Times. Please share your stories with us.
Here are our award-winning posts:
— Article updated at 4:52 p.m. Friday, April 22
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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