The Bucks County Courier Times took home eight awards in this year’s Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association’s annual Keystone awards including the state’s most prestigious journalism award.
The winning entries in the Division III newspapers category were picked from among more than 2,660 entries this year from 132 Pennsylvania news organizations. The entries were judged by journalist members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
The awards were presented Thursday at a luncheon ceremony at the Sheraton Harrisburg Hershey Hotel.
The Courier Times staff took first-place honors in the breaking news category for its extensive coverage of the fatal flash flooding that took the lives of seven people in Upper Makefield in July 2023. The staff included reporters Jo Ciavaglia, Michele Haddon, J.D. Mullane, Peg Quann, Chris Ullery, Damon Williams and the late James McGinnis, and photographer Daniella Heminghaus. Regional news director Jerry Staas-Haught and executive editor Danielle Camilli oversaw the breaking coverage and its aftermath with help from newsroom planner Tom Haines.
"The flooding devastated our community and we were proud of the work we did that night and the weeks and months that followed," Camilli said. "That coverage, giving readers the information they needed and highlighting those lost, is what local journalism is all about and why we work so hard every day. We are truely grateful for the recognition."
Reporter J.D. Mullane won second place in personality profile for his prison interview with the infamous “Straw Hat Bandit,” who now says he was wrongly convicted.
Reporter Bethany Rodgers won second place in the investigative reporting category for her story on a turf recycler who was hit with environmental violations.
Main Street Reporter Michele Haddon won honorable mentions in the business and consumer story category for her piece on the opening of a new gay bar in New Hope, for her small business beat coverage and for her feature video on a Quakertown distillery.
Reporter Jo Ciavaglia was named this year’s winner of PNA's most prestigious honor, the G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service for her ongoing project focusing on the unclaimed dead in Bucks and Montgomery County coroner offices.
The Dew award recognizes an individual or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to its community or state through an article or series of articles.
Since 2019 Ciavaglia has written stories highlighting the impact of the growing number of unclaimed remains whose living relatives are unable or unwilling to accept custody.
Following the publication of the series in 2019, coroner offices in Bucks and Montgomery counties adopted new practices including publicly posting the names of abandoned and unclaimed dead in their possession and reviewing old cases to look for possible missed information about family or final arrangements.
Ciavaglia also oversees and updates a searchable online database containing the names of more than 550 people whose remains are in county custody.
As of Thursday, the remains of 156 people have been moved out of the coroner offices into final resting places, including individuals who had been unclaimed for more than a decade.
Last year the Unclaimed project was featured in an “NBC News” series “Lost Rites,” which investigated how coroner offices in southern states failed to notify family before cremating and burying remains in pauper fields. NBC identified the award-winning series as one of only two known U.S. media organizations routinely attempting to shed light on the problem of unclaimed dead in county morgues.
The award was established in 1983 to honor G. Richard Dew, former general manager of the PNA and former executive director of the Pennsylvania Society of Newspaper Editors.
The Bucks County Courier Times previously won the Dew award in 2017 for its award-winning “Unwell Water” series on PFAS, or forever chemicals, in local drinking water.
This year Ciavaglia also won an honorable mention for her personality profile of former Bucks County Judge Clyde Waite that highlighted his experiences during the Civil Rights era.
Local News
