Chronicle Staff Win Three Awards in Regional Journalism Competition

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Chronicle staff took home three awards Monday for photography and reporting in the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2019 Northwest Excellence in Journalism competition, including two runner-up awards and one first place. 

Chronicle photographer Jared Wenzelburger took the top honor for The Chronicle, with a first place in the Spot News Photography category for a January 2019 photo of a fatal Centralia house fire. 

He also won the runner-up award in the Feature Photography category for a photo titled “Fall on the Road to Mt. Rainier,” also published in 2019. 

“Jared, or ‘Nightcrawler,’ as he’s affectionately known in the newsroom, continually impresses us with his talent, his tenacity and his uncanny ability to know when a fire or car crash has happened — and photograph it — before anyone else does,” said Editor Natalie Johnson. 

Regional Executive Editor Eric Schwartz hired Wenzelburger on a part time basis in 2017. Since then, he’s become a valued full-time staff member. 

"Ever since he wandered into our newsroom as a teenager in search of experience, he's been a valuable contributor to The Chronicle's journalistic mission,” Schwartz said. “He's talented and fearless beyond his years, even if we have to remind him from time to time to take a step away from the danger. It has been a joy to see him grow into the photographer he has become, and both The Chronicle and the community are better for his efforts."



Former Chronicle reporter Alex Brown also took home a runner-up award in the Environment and Natural Disaster Reporting category for his story “Coming Down the Pipe: Saving Washington’s Salmon May Require Replacing Tens of Thousands of Culverts, and Nobody Knows Where the Money Will Come From,” from August, 2019. Brown has since moved on to a reporting position at stateline.org. 

This is the most SPJ awards The Chronicle has won in a single contest since the 2014 competition. 

Winners of the annual competition were announced Monday night on Twitter. 

The Chronicle competed in a category against print, online, and multimedia organizations with 15 or fewer newsroom employees in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska and Montana. Other winning organizations in the same category include The Inlander, The Bellingham Herald, The Astorian, the Missoulian, The Daily News in Longview, the Kitsap Sun, KNKX and the Malheur Enterprise, among others.

The competition included work published online or in print in 2019.The full list of winners is available at spjwash.org.