There’s a strained saying about being a journalist that essentially amounts to, ‘the pay is bad and the hours are horrible, but at least everyone hates you.’ While there is some truth to the saying, as there would be with any public-facing job, Street Roots’ staff has a different perspective.
The newspaper team at Street Roots is comprised of working class people who first worked in manual labor and service jobs; server, table busser, dishwasher, fast food worker, custodian, construction laborer and so on. Our backgrounds guide our work as professional journalists and remind us who we serve on a daily basis.
We enjoy regular interactions with readers reaching out to let us know they learned something they hadn’t from another paper, or they were grateful we told a story in a unique way. Support from readers in the form of story tips, kind emails and donations are what truly keeps us going.
There’s another form of accolade for journalists that carries weight in our newsrooms: awards. Awards in journalism are usually small — trophies or plaques without any cash prize — but they are important. Awards help us see where we stack up against other newspapers and remind us of work that was particularly important to our communities.
Last week, Street Roots won four awards in the Society of Professional Journalists 2021 PNW Excellence in Journalism Contest, which covers papers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. If you subscribe to our newsletter through our website (which you should), you already know Street Roots took home the top honor in the small newsroom division — first place in General Excellence.
A story and a series our readers are certainly familiar with also won awards. The Expendable by Chris May and Emily Green, a March 2021 person-by-person examination of all 42 prisoners lost to COVID-19 in Oregon prisons (at that point), won first in Social Equity Reporting and first in Crime & Law Enforcement Reporting in the small newsroom division. Our solutions journalism series, Foster Care Shuffle, written by Libby Dowsett and published in five parts last fall, won first in the Series category in the medium newsroom division.
Solitary confinement and Christmas in prison, written by incarcerated columnist Enrique Bautista, won second place in Editorial & Commentary in the small newsroom division.
Street Roots has long carried a reputation for punching above its weight class with regard to covering stories with the depth and vigor often associated with much larger newsrooms. The awards we won last week offer further justification for our reputation, and we hope further confirm the value and pride in buying, reading, and donating to Street Roots.
Good journalism is a public service and requires public support, particularly for a small, nonprofit paper like ours. Every dollar you give to vendors or directly to the newspaper via our website helps us tell stories that haven’t been told and hold the powerful to account.
Street Roots’ newspaper team wants to thank each reader and donor for their support of our newspaper and vendors. We couldn’t do it without you.
Sincerely,
K. Rambo
Editor in Chief
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
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