Thing 1: The New York Times reports on the growing interest in street papers nationwide, including Street Roots, Real Change in Seattle and Street Sense in Washington, D.C. Street Roots vendor Kevin Bynum and Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl are both quoted in the article, which ran in today's business section.
The story focuses on the economic aspects of running street papers and the opportunities they provide for vendors, whose numbers are swelling across the country. But it's also important to recognize the role street papers play in informing the community, which brings us to...
Thing 2: The Society of Professional Journalists has honored Rosette Royale of Real Change with an excellence in journalism award for a feature he wrote last year on a man who jumped to his death from Seattle's Aurora Bridge.
Rosette did more than seven months of research for the three-part series, "The Man Who Stood on the Bridge." He talked to Street Roots about the story last July.
SPJ's national Sigma Delta Chi awards had over 900 nominees in 53 different categories. Rosette's story won for best feature writing in a paper with a circulation under 100,000. The story is missing from Real Change's website at the moment, but we'll try to get a link up soon. (Update: The Seattle P-I has posted a PDF file of the series, which you can download here.)
Congratulations, Rosette and Real Change!
Posted by Mara Grunbaum