Story on community paper's coverage of Sandy Hook shooting wins Mirror Award for reporting on media

A story by Rachel Aviv in The New Yorker detailing the Newtown Bee's response to a local tragedy that made international news—the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 26 people dead, including 20 children—was named best single article in traditional or legacy media in the annual Mirror Awards for coverage of media issues.

In her article, "Local Story," Aviv wrote that Bee reporter and photographer Shannon Hicks, a volunteer firefighter, traveled two miles to the school in response to a scanner report of someone being shot in the foot, and "assumed that the crime stemmed from a custody battle or a fight between parents. Then she saw a young officer, William Chapman, come out of the school yelling, 'Get the bus!' He had a limp girl in his arms. Hicks began calling for an ambulance, but then she saw one already approaching. Through the lens of her camera, she watched as Chapman, only a few strides from the ambulance, fell to the ground, apparently losing strength. She saw that the child’s face had lost color and knew then that she would never publish the photographs she was taking."

"A few minutes later, officers began to lead the first class of children out of the school. The students had been instructed to keep their eyes closed as they walked through the hallway of the building, where the principal and the school psychologist lay dead," Aviv writes. "With their eyes clenched shut and their hands gripping the shoulders or the shirt of the classmate in front of them, the children appeared trusting, a mood that Hicks hoped to capture. Her photograph (above) of the class has become the iconic picture of the tragedy—the next day, it ran on the front page of the Times—but, at the time, Hicks was thinking that 14 sets of parents would see the photograph on the Bee’s website and know that their children were safe." To read the full article, click here. To visit the Bee, click here.

The Mirror Awards are sponsored by Syracuse University. Other winners are:

• Best Single Story – Radio, Television, Cable or Online Broadcast Media: “The Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook” by Brooke Gladstone, Katya Rogers, Alex Goldman, PJ Vogt, Sarah Abdurrahman and Chris Neary, "On the Media," WNYC, New York.

• Best Profile in Traditional/Legacy or Digital Media: “The Operator,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, by Michael Specter, The New Yorker.

• Best Commentary in Traditional/Legacy Media: Michael Meyer, Columbia Journalism Review, for “False fronts”; “Unfinished business” and “News havens.”

• Best Commentary in Digital Media: Jina Moore (Salon, Columbia Journalism Review, The Atlantic) for “Don’t blame the victim, or the photographer”; “Documenting domestic violence”; and “South African Violence’ Only Explains the Pistorius Case If He’s Not Guilty.”

• John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting: “Combat Journalism” by Frank Greve, CQ Researcher.