Metro Times kicked ass at the SPJ awards

Your favorite alt weekly (us) was well-represented at the annual Society of Professional Journalists awards Detroit chapter ceremony on Wednesday night, competing against the dailies, radio, and other outlets.

The highest honors went to our longtime Politics & Prejudices columnist Jack Lessenberry, who earned a lifetime achievement award alongside WDIV-TV's Carmen Harlan. As Lessenberry noted this week, his first column appeared in the pages of Metro Times 24 years ago. He's written 1,167 columns so far, and we're looking forward to many more.

Senior editor Michael Jackman's "Standing up for Brightmoor" won first place for a Personality Profile. Enterprise reporter Violet Ikonomova's "Patients behind bars" won third place for Investigative Reporting, and former dining editor Serena Maria Daniels earned second place, Feature Story for "How Mexico's national dish is feeding Detroit's dining scene."

Meanwhile, former investigative reporter Allie Gross took home three awards for her work with MT. "Lawmakers deciding the future of Detroit schools accepted thousands from pro-charter DeVos family" earned first place for Consumer/Watchdog Reporting. Her cover story "The Throwaways" about violence against transgender women earned third place for Best Localization of a National Story, and her work on the Flint water crisis earned an honorable mention in the Blogging category. (She also earned first place, Feature Story for a long-form piece for VICE News about the school choice disaster in Detroit.)

As for me, I won a couple of awards from my brief stint at Hour Detroit magazine: first place, Explanatory Story for "A new day for DPS?" and first place, Feature Story as part of a group effort, "Ode to Michigan food."

Thanks for reading!