Rhode Island Current wins Best Website and six other honors in press association competition
Left to right, Rhode Island Current Editor-in-Chief Janine L. Weisman; Reporter Alexander Castro, and Christopher Shea hold some of the honors awarded at the Rhode Island Press Association annual banquet in North Kingstown on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Amie Wambach for Rhode Island Current)
Rhode Island Current took home seven awards — including first place for Best Website, General News Photo and Headline Writing — at the annual Rhode Island Press Association Editorial Awards Banquet on Friday, May 9.
The banquet at the Quonset 'O' Club in North Kingstown recognized the best work produced by Rhode Island news organizations in 2024 across 45 categories, including photography, writing and design. This year's contest drew a total of 463 entries.
Rhode Island Current, an affiliate of States Newsroom that launched in 2023, joined the association last year after the board voted to open membership to digital news outlets.
The Best Website category recognizes a news website that showcases an outlet's depth of work with emphasis on presentation, strength of content and use of digital tools and storytelling techniques. After Rhode Island Current took first place, second place went to The Boston Globe Rhode Island and third place to The Providence Journal.
Reporter Alexander Castro won first place in the General News Photo for his candid photo of a young girl about to drop her ballot into a voting box at the Providence Children's Museum last October as part of a civics education program geared for kids.
Editor-in-Chief Janine L. Weisman earned first place in the headline writing category, which required the submission of three headlines. Weisman entered:
'Whitehouse going for gold in Olympic ad spending with his U.S. Senate reelection campaign'
'Schoolkids already have enough on their plate. Will legislators take brown rice off it?'
'So many accusations in Providence House Democratic primary contest, so little time to investigate'
Reporter Christopher Shea took second place for Government Reporting for his story on a last-minute intervention in Rhode Island's U.S. Senate race by an unknown super PAC on behalf of GOP candidate Patricia Morgan, who lost her bid to unseat Democratic incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse.
The second place award for General Election Coverage went to Rhode Island Current's four-person staff for their coverage of all ballot questions, General Assembly contests, a U.S. Senate race and the Cranston mayoral race in the November 2024 election.
Senior Reporter Nancy Lavin won third place for Reporting on the Environment for her story on the offshore wind industry's struggles to overcome misinformation and negative public perception.
Castro also won a third place writing award in the Single Topic Series category for five stories he wrote last December on the RIBridges data breach as the personal data of 59% of Rhode Island's population burgled from the state's public benefits system started making its way onto the dark web.
Friday's awards banquet honored three inductees into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame: Providence Journal photographer Kris Craig; Marta V. Martínez, a community oral historian and executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts; and Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin.
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