Weekly three-peats Weekly three-peats (July 02, 2003)at CNPA awards

Paper captures 'General Excellence,' eight other awards
For the third year in a row, the Palo Alto Weekly received the prestigious first-place award for General Excellence from the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA).

A panel of eight judges from other states commended the Weekly for a "Great job. Well balanced paper! Great overall presentation and link to the community."

Overall, the Weekly received a company record of five first-place and four second-place awards at CNPA's annual Better Newspapers Contest. The awards were presented Saturday, June 28, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Other first-place awards received by the Weekly in its circulation category of large weekly and semi-weekly papers were for Editorial Pages (also for the third year in a row); Freedom of Information (for the Weekly's lawsuit against the City of Palo Alto over a Brown Act open-meeting-law violation and secret e-mails between council and staff); Local Spot News (for coverage of the Steven Wertheimer death in October, 2002, by the Weekly staff); and Photo Essay (for Chief Photographer Kate Robertson's spread on "Dancing Through the Years.")

The Weekly also garnered several second-place awards for Page Layout & Design (for several issues of a randomly selected month, by the Design Department under Director Carol Hubenthal); Best Web Site (for Palo Alto Online's design, configuration and content, the work of Webmaster Frank Bravo, Web site coordinator Lisa Van Dusen, Online Editor Tyler Hanley and others); Spot News Photo (for Staff Photographer Don Feria's photo of signs at a peace rally, "Signs of Peace."); and Special Issue (for the Palo Alto Neighborhoods publication edited by Assistant Editor Jocelyn Dong and designed by Scott Peterson).

Editor Jay Thorwaldson, in accepting the awards, said they reflect the dedication and effort of many staff people and a sense among the staff they can always do better. Only a handful of papers in any category received nine or more awards.

Publisher Bill Johnson said he is "particularly proud of the Freedom of Information award "because of our continuing efforts to improve public access to internal workings of government."

The Weekly's sister papers also picked up awards. The Almanac in Menlo Park received first-place in its circulation category for Environmental & Ag Resource Reporting and second place for General Excellence.

The Mountain View Voice picked up a first-place award for Public Service and a second place for Freedom of Information in its circulation category.

The Pleasanton Weekly won a first-place award for Lifestyle Coverage.

The Stanford Daily won second place in General Excellence for four-year university student newspapers. The Palo Alto Daily News picked up a first-place award for editorial comment.