'The Blade' Takes Grand Prize in National Headliner Awards

By: Joe Strupp When the National Headliner Awards were revealed late today the winners included coverage of last year's devastating hurricanes. That's because The Press Club of Atlantic City, which sponsors the annual awards, included a special hurricane category for this year's entries.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans ended up taking the prize.

""We added the category when we revised the entry form because we realized there would be a lot of hurricane entries,"" said Debbie Schurman, a spokeswoman for the awards. ""There were a lot of papers entering hurricane entries.""

Schurman said the special hurricane category likely affected the way submissions were made, although she noted the 1,300 entries overall was about the same as in most recent years. ""I don't know if those people would have entered in another category,"" she said declining to say how many hurricane entries were submitted.

A special category had been created several years ago for war coverage, Schurman said.

The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, took the grand prize for print with its ""Coingate"" coverage. Here are some of this year's newspaper winners:

Writing and Reporting

--Hurricane Coverage

First Place: The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA, Staff Entry, ?Coverage of Hurricane Katrina?

--Spot News

First Place:The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta, GA, Staff Entry. ?Killer Eludes Cops?

--News Beat Coverage or Continuing Story

First Place:USA Today, Gregg Zoroya, ""Home Front?

--News Series, circulation over 75,000

First Place:The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, CA., Larry Welborn,?Murder by Suicide?

--Local Interest Column on a Variety of Subjects

First Place:The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA, Chris Rose

--Special or Feature Column on One Subject

First Place:The Miami Herald, Miami, FL, Glenn Garvin
?Television Columns?

--Editorial Writing

First Place:The Oregonian, Portland, OR, Rick Attig & Doug Bates, ?Oregon?s Forgotten Hospital?

--Sports Writing

First Place: San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, CA, Gwen Knapp

--Feature Writing on a Variety of Subjects

First Place: St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, FL, Kelley Benham

--Business News Coverage

First Place:The News Journal, New Castle, DE, Staff Entry, ?MBNA Sale and Follow-Ups?

--Investigative Reporting

First Place and Grand Award in Print:

The Blade, Toledo, OH. James Drew, Mike Wilkinson, Steve Eder, Christopher D. Kirkpatrick, Jim Tankersley & Joshua Boak, ?Uncovering Coingate and Ohio?s Pay-to-Play Culture?

--Public Service

First Place:St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, MO, Deborah L. Shelton, ?Lives on the Line?

--Editorial Cartoons

First Place:The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta, GA
Mike Luckovich