Berkshire Eagle, Seven Days, Vermont Standard, Nantucket paper big rural winners in New England newspaper awards

Slide from awards presentation

The Berkshire Eagle scored big in the New England Newspaper and Press Association awards, which were announced Thursday during the group's semiannual online conference.

The Eagle, of Pittsfield, Mass., was judged the best small daily (less than 9,000 print circulation), with The Keene Sentinel of New Hampshire and the Record Journal of Meriden, Conn., as runners-up. 

The Eagle was judged to have the best editorial, "chastising the Catholic diocese in western Massachusetts for trying to subpoena a reporter's notes which would reveal confidential sources" and calling on legislators to pass a shield law like most other states have to protect reporters. 

And the Eagle won two of NENPA's Publick Occurrences awards, named for America's first newspaper and honoring 13 pieces that were judged to be the best in New England journalism in the past year. The rural or rural-impact winners included the Eagle's reports on nursing homes and hazardous-materials shipments on trains that go through its region; projects by Seven Days of Burlington, Vermont, on child care and the pandemic's impact on housing in the largely rural state; the Lewiston Sun Journal's "Homeless in Maine" series; the Concord Monitor's series on police spending and policies all over New Hampshire; and CT Mirror's "Elder Care Reckoning" series that prompted reforms in Connecticut.

The best small weekly newspaper in New England was judged to be the Vermont Standard of Woodstock, with runners-up the Milton Times of Massachusetts and the St. Albans Messenger of Vermont. The best large weekly (over 4,000 circ.) was the Inquirer and Mirror of Nantucket, Mass.; runners-up were the Martha's Vineyard Times and sister papers in Maine, the Mt. Desert Islander of Bar Harbor the Ellsworth American. The best mid-size daily (circ. 9,000-20,000) was The Day of New London, Conn., with Massachusetts' Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton and the Greenfield Recorder runners-up. The Concord Monitor was judged best small Sunday paper.