Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Picks Its Favorite Education Reporters

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The Ohio Chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists has recognized nearly one dozen Ohio education reporters, including StateImpact Ohio’s Ida Lieszkovszky.

Lieszkovszky won first place in the education reporting category in the SPJ’s annual “Best of Ohio Journalism Awards” competition.

Other education reporting recognized by the SPJ include:

Newspapers with circulations over 100,000

• Jennifer Smith Richards, Columbus Dispatch (First Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: K-12)
• John Higgins, Akron Beacon Journal (Second Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: K-12)
• Karen Farkas, Cleveland Plain Dealer (First Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: Higher Education)
• Encarnacion Pyle, Columbus Dispatch (Second Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: Higher Education)
• Jennifer Smith Richards, Columbus Dispatch (First Place, Best Defense of Literacy)
• Cleveland Plain Dealer staff (First Place, Best Special Section for “School Transformation”)

Newspapers with circulations under 100,000

• Melissa Dilley, Upper Arlington News/Suburban News Publications (First Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: K-12)
• Carrie Ghose, Columbus Business First (First Place, Best Public Records Use for “OSU Putting Money Where its Mouth Is”)

Television

• Byron Stirsman, Caryn Golden, WHIO-TV (First Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: K-12 for “Knowing Your Facebook Friends”)
• Lance Barry, Mike Mattingly, WCPO TV (First Place, Best Education Issues Reporting: Higher Education for “College Placement”)

See the full list of Ohio SPJ awards.

And that’s not all: The NPR’s entire StateImpact team is a final­ist for the Online News Association’s 2012 Online Jour­nal­ism Awards in the explanatory reporting category. Other nom­i­nees include two NYTimes.com entries, The Guardian and The Toronto Star.

The nomination covers all eight of NPR’s StateImpact states.

And our colleagues at StateImpact Florida have also been nominated for an Online News Association award in the “innovative investigative journalism” category for an investigation that found that Florida charter schools are less likely than traditional public schools to enroll students with disabilities.

The Online News Association will announce winners on Sept. 22.