Carmage Walls Commentary Prize

Roger Chesley and John Hackworth honored with top awards

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Roger Chesley, a columnist with The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., and John Hackworth, editor of The Charlotte Sun in Port Charlotte, Fla., took first-place honors in this year's Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition.

The awards were presented during an awards breakfast on Thursday, Sept. 15, at the News Industry Summit.

The judges noted that the high quality of entries in this year's contest made choosing winners particularly difficult.  They said the communities served by all of the writers who submitted entries are fortunate to have passionate advocates writing for their local newspapers.

Under 50,000 circulation:

John Hackworth was the judges' top choice based on the strength of his writing and the fact that he achieved results against a difficult-to-move prison bureaucracy.  The Carmage Walls Award exists to recognize that sort of success, they said, adding: "When things go wrong in prison as they did in this case, it is far too easy to look away because they are just inmates.  If newspapers will not stand up, no one will."

Hackworth wrote about an inmate at Charlotte Correctional Institution who was beaten to death. His face was smashed so badly that one account said it looked like Jell-O.  The Sun newspapers took on the challenge of seeking justice for the dead inmate after the 10 guards who beat him were able to return to work. John Hackworth led the charge, and – as a result of stories, editorials and cartoons – all 10 guards were either let go or resigned and the warden was transferred to another prison. View his entry, which also earned a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing earlier this year.

Second place went to Dink NeSmith, president, Community Newspapers, Inc., Athens, Ga.  In mid-January, The Press-Sentinel in Jesup, Ga., learned that America's second-largest waste-management company, Republic Services, had filed for a rail-spur permit – through wetlands – to serve its private landfill.  If the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants the permit, Republic would move forward with its plan to haul and dump 100 railcars (10,000 tons) per day of toxic coal ash.  The Press-Sentinel broke the story and has led the community's fight against the rail spur and coal ash dumping into the county's environmentally-sensitive ecosystem. 

Judges said NeSmith demonstrated a fantastic ability to turn a great phrase that drives home a point.  Vivid lines like "I know of no one who would lick their lips to eat hog meat that, in its previous life, had wallowed in beryllium, mercury, lead or arsenic-tainted mud or slurped Penholloway Creek water that was downstream of a coal-ash dump" captured judges' imaginations as they read about the important local issue of coal ash disposal.  Judges said, "Editorials on environmental topics can easily turn into something that reads like a government report, but NeSmith avoided that pitfall and got results."  View his entry 

Roger Chesley and Matt Reed

Over 50,000 circulation:

Judges said Roger Chesley of The Virginian-Pilot impressed them with his success in tackling a tremendously local issue.  They said: "His work advocating for a public swimming pool might sound frivolous, but his arguments made clear that it is anything but. Low-income communities especially need a place to learn to swim without paying fees for a private club."

Chesley argued that this was a matter of amenities and safety: This region of Hampton Roads is surrounded by lots of water, and 10 people die every day from unintentional drowning in the United States.  A few months after a two-part package ran in the paper, the mayor announced that the city would build a public facility with a local nonprofit.  Read his entry

Matt Reed, opinions editor/public interest columnist with FLORIDA TODAY, Melbourne, took second place. "You don't often hear about a newspaper that submitted draft legislation," one judge noted in discussing Reed's excellent entry. He and his editorial page took the lead on a corruption bill in the Florida Legislature and succeeded. They said his active editorial leadership on the page and testifying at legislative hearings hit home in a tangible way.  Judges also were impressed with the creative use of the page including the use of technology such as a QR code to bring readers additional information. 

Reed conceived of, campaigned for, and succeeded in winning passage of an anti-corruption bill that will benefit taxpayers throughout Florida for generations to come. With a combination of columns and editorials, Reed revealed the scope of the problem, pointed to a solution, and put out a statewide call for sponsors of a model anti-corruption bill he had drafted with a Melbourne attorney.  His work engaged and empowered audiences from four Gannett news sites, which published Reed's pieces simultaneously, sometimes on their front pages.  A slightly modified version of the bill championed by Reed passed the Florida Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott in March. Read his entry

Honorable Mentions went to:

  • Phillip Tutor of The Anniston (Ala.) Star for conversational writing that was evocative of time, place and attitude. Judges said he presented a very reasonable approach to the emotional issue of the Confederate flag. By avoiding heated rhetoric and respectfully articulating the history, he offered a compelling narrative.  His courage arguing against the flag in the deep South also impressed judges. Read his entry
  • Greg Awtry, Star-Herald, Scottsbluff, Neb.  Judges said: "Awtry's folksy writing made his writing very readable.  The depth of his research and strength of his arguments made his writing effective.  Together, they were a powerful combination in engaging readers on the local effects of fracking wastewater." Read his entry
  • David Barham and Paul Greenberg of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock.  For several of the judges, Barham and Greenberg's entry was the best written of all of the entries. It expressed an opinion about county clerks and same-sex marriage that one might not expect from a newspaper in Arkansas.  Read their entry
  • Sharon Grigsby, The Dallas Morning News. In recent year, writers from The Dallas Morning News have consistently impressed – not only with the strength of their writing, but also with the creative use of maps, photos and charts to tell a story and make a strong argument. Grigsby's entry continued that tradition. Each of her editorials added something new to the discussion, never relying just on repetition to make her case.  Read her entry

The prize is named for the late Benjamin Carmage Walls whose newspaper career spanned seven decades.  Walls primarily owned community newspapers and advocated strong, courageous and positive editorial page leadership.

Carmage Walls Commentary Prize, Chesley, Reed, Barham, Greenberg, Grigsby, Hackworth, NeSmith, Tutor, Awtry
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