The Colorado Sun collected 10 awards in the annual Colorado Press Association journalism contest this year, including first-place honors for health and investigative reporting.
Sun journalists, who were entered in the Class 3 category along with Colorado’s largest newspapers and outlets, were also honored with four second-place awards for stories produced in 2024.
In addition to individual reporting awards for reporting and visual journalism, The Sun took a first-place finish in best website and tied for first in the contest’s sweepstakes. The honors were announced over the weekend at the CPA annual conference in Northglenn.
“I am so proud of the entire team at The Sun for all of the work we did together in the last year, and these awards are an affirmation that we’re picking compelling stories and telling them in ways that really resonate with our community or readers and supporters,” Dana Coffield, editor of The Colorado Sun, said.
“It is exciting to see collaboration among reporters, designers and data visualization folks called out for their work. And I can’t say enough about the work our writers did to distill extremely complex subjects into readable, engaging stories,” she said.
Sun reporter John Ingold was part of a team of journalists who took home third place in CPA’s A-Mark Prize for Responsive Journalism, which recognizes deep reporting that responds to a community’s needs. The series, Diagnosis: Debt Colorado, examined the causes, scale and impact of medical debt and was led by COLab and KFF Heath News with 9News and Colorado Newsline.
Earlier this year, The Colorado sun won 24 honors, including eight first-place awards, in the four-state Top of the Rockies contest sponsored by the Colorado Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. That contest was open to news organizations in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, and winners were judged among more than 1,850 entries.
Here are The Sun’s CPA awards from this year’s contest:
First Place
- Best Health Enterprise/Health Feature Story: Sharing the smallest of hearts: A Colorado girl lives because of another family’s loss. Jennifer Brown.
- Best Investigative Story Package: Wrecked rain gauges. Whistleblowers. Million-dollar payouts and manhunts. Then a Colorado crop fraud got really crazy. Michael Booth.
- Best website: The Colorado Sun. Eric Lubbers, Danika Worthington, Kevin Jeffers
- Best cover design: Colorado Sunday: Protecting the valley of the cranes. Kevin Jeffers.
- Best informational graphic: Studies show Colorado property taxes are “extremely low.” So why do they feel so high? Danika Worthington.
Second Place
- Best Environmental Story: “Do your job”: Colorado lawmakers tell Congress to boost funding for deteriorating southwestern water system. Shannon Mullane.
- Best Health Enterprise/Health Feature Story: My family’s $2,000 popsicle and why health care costs so much in Colorado. John Ingold.
- Best Politics Reporting: If voters adopt statewide ranked choice voting, Colorado may prevent it from taking effect. Jesse Paul.
- Best Social Justice or Equity Reporting: Is racism fueling claims about a Venezuelan gang “takeover” of apartment buildings in Aurora? Jennifer Brown.
- Best Serious Column Writing: Trish Zornio’s column collection.
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