News-media roundup: AL.com keeps winning prizes for police probe and commentary; latest on Aspen paper war ...

The winners of this year's Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting from the News Leaders Association are John Archibald, Ashley Remkus and Ramsey Archibald of AL.com, for “The Rise and Fall of a Predatory Police Force” in an Alabama town, and Michael Stavola of the Wichita Eagle for “Secret Messages,” an expose about racist messages openly shared among law-enforcement officers. The judges said AL.com "took what everyone in a community knew to be true about a local police department and brought reporting depth and a clarity of writing that is too often hard to come by." It said Stavola "local newsroom had widespread impact that tremendously benefited the community and shocked even its highest-ranking officials." Kyle Whitmire of AL.com won the Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing, for “State of Denial: How 150 years of whitewashed history poisons Alabama today.” Whitmire's work and the police series also won Pulitzer Prizes this year. AL.com is owned by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications, which stopped printing its newspapers in Birmigham, Mobile and Huntsville this year. Those are the NLA winners with rural resonance; the rest are here.

FEDERAL ADS: The Senate bill to fund health and human services would direct agencies to prioritize advertising in "local media in small or rural markets." The provison was added by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., after lobbying by the National Newspaper Association.

LOCAL LEGALS: The city council in Aspen, Colo., has moved its public-notice advertising from the Aspen Times to the Aspen Daily News, reports Corey Hutchins of Inside the News in Colorado. The Daily News became Pitkin County's paper of record a year ago "to punish the Aspen Times over how the newspaper handled a lawsuit from a billionaire developer," Hutchins writes, but "deliberation among city leaders was prosaic. Staff and council members kept their reasoning limited to a 'clear set of criteria' between the two rival papers including experience, efficiencies, and cost." The Daily News is locally owned and has the motto “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen;” the Times is owned by Ogden Newspapers. Hutchins notes, "Aspen is one of the few cities left in the United States with two daily newspapers." It has 7,000 people; the county has about 17,500.

Google map, adapted; click to enlarge

PRINT SITES: Hutchins also reports that the shuttering of the press at The Pueblo Chieftain "has put at least one newspaper out of business," the Eastern Colorado Plainsman in Hugo. It's the paper of record for Lincoln County; that status is likely to go to its sister paper, the Limon Leader, which says it is increasing prices and moving its printing to CherryRoad Media in Hutchinson, Kansas. That's a five-hour drive from Limon, but such hauls are becoming more common as newspaper chains consolidate their printing locations.