Miami Today Wins Four Awards In National Newspaper Contest

Written by Miami Today on July 12, 2007

Miami Today won four national writing awards in the National Newspaper Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.

One recognizes Susan Kahn for her Life in the Magic City columns, ranked the best humorous column in the nation last year. Another recognizes Richard Goodman for writing the third-best humorous column.

Publisher and Editor Michael Lewis received two awards, second in the nation for editorial writing and third for a serious newspaper column.

In her winning column, "Blame it on "The Traffic,’" Ms. Kahn wrote this way about the relative importance of a good drink holder versus high-performance engineering when buying a new car: "But in any event, just how much performance do you need when you can’t get above 30 mph in Miami anyway? Does performance really matter on the Palmetto Expressway? Wouldn’t a golf cart get you where you’re going just as fast?"

The national award is Ms. Kahn’s third this year for her Life in the Magic City columns. The Florida Press Association ranked her best in the state and the Society of Professional journalists ranked her second for another column, suggesting tongue-in-cheek that we color-code roof tarps for the hurricanes they represent.

In his award-winning column, "Memo to Miami Bankers: Dead men don’t borrow money," Mr. Goodman wrote about two decades of identity confusion with a neighbor with a similar name and address, setting the stage this way: "I received shocking news the other day from American Express. … I was dead."

The award-winning editorial by Mr. Lewis, "A raise for county commissioners is only fair — to taxpayers," asked voters to increase the $6,000 annual pay of county commissioners, saying, "It’s not about what commissioners deserve but what taxpayers deserve. We deserve more than $3-per-hour thinking or $6,000 and all you can steal."

The award-winning column "Herald’s salvation: Call off the dogs, return to newspapering," said the local daily "is consumed by firestorms that have caused the newspaper to repeatedly dominate its own pages" and suggested that "the best way to get the Miami Herald off the front page of the Miami Herald is not to worry about whom to please or avoid offending but to remember how to serve all of the readers every day."

The National Newspaper Association, which presented the awards, is the voice of the nation’s community newspapers, with more than 2,500 member newspapers. Miami Today’s awards were presented in the non-daily division.

The latest awards bring to eight the number Miami Today has received this year. Others were for the newspaper’s Viewpoint page and for editorial writing by Mr. Lewis, both presented by the Florida Press Association.