01-05-2025
American-Statesman columnist Bridget Grumet wins National Headliner Award
American-Statesman Editorial Page Editor Bridget Grumet has won the National Headliner Award for local newspaper columns, a prestigious honor recognizing the best community-based commentary in newspapers of all sizes across the country.
The award, announced Wednesday, recognizes Grumet's 2024 work as Metro columnist covering the sudden sweep of an Austin homeless encampment without the support services the city had promised; the state refusing for a year to hear the appeal of a Texas Ranger disciplined over the response to the Uvalde school shooting; and the resolution of Attorney General Ken Paxton's securities fraud charges that failed to deliver the reckoning sought by many Texans.
In announcing the award, the judges praised Grumet's work for 'excellent use of shoe-leather reporting, memorable details, snappy quotes and passion to shine a light on wrongdoing.'
"Once again, Bridget has been awarded for her commitment and passion for her community by digging into issues that are often glossed over or intentionally recast by those in power. She is the voice of reason we so desperately need at this moment in time," Executive Editor Courtney Sebesta said.
"There's no one better at uncovering wrongdoings and exposing hypocrisy of elected officials than Bridget."
The National Headliner Awards honor the best journalism in the United States, with various categories for newspapers, TV, radio and digital media. The annual contest, created by the Press Club of Atlantic City in 1934, is one of the oldest and largest in the country that recognizes journalistic merit in the communications industry.
Other finalists in local newspaper column writing were Karen Tolkkinen of the Minnesota Star Tribune and Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Separately, Grumet's work earned second-place honors in general column writing in the Texas Managing Editors Awards over the weekend. That entry included an in-depth piece about Austin's handling of homeless camp sweeps, in which city officials acknowledged Grumet's earlier coverage of the mishandled cleanup off Brandt Road in Southeast Austin was 'a wake-up call' and a catalyst for developing a policy on addressing encampments.
Last year, Grumet received the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for general column writing and the Best of Gannett honors in opinion writing for other pieces published in 2023. Her series on the 2003 murder of Ortralla Mosley on an Austin high school campus received the top honor among the Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2023, and the series was a finalist last year for the Edwin "Bud" Shrake Award for Short Nonfiction, a prize for newspaper and magazine writing administered by the Texas Institute of Letters.
Grumet left the Metro columnist role in March to oversee the Statesman's Opinion section.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: American-Statesman's Bridget Grumet wins National Headliner Award
