The Post-Intelligencer’s coverage of dangerous downtown traffic earned a first place award for Public Service from the state’s newspaper association.
The award was one of five received by the Paris newspaper during the 2024 Tennessee Press Association Newspaper Contest awards banquet held July 19 in Franklin.
Accepting the award was senior P-I reporter Ken Walker, who spearheaded the paper’s coverage of the issue. Walker also received an Edward J. Meeman Foundation prize from the University of Tennessee.
“We’re very proud of Ken, whose excellent writing helped highlight a growing problem for pedestrians in downtown Paris,” P-I Publisher Daniel Williams said. “Ken does a great job for us in many areas with his writing, but he’s at his best when he uncovers a story and keeps digging until he has it thoroughly covered. No one covers a more in-depth news story here locally than Ken Walker. I can’t say enough about all he does for The P-I, but it’s good to have his news writing once again validated with a second state press contest award.”
The coverage of the issue began with Walker’s Feb. 10, 2023, Page 1 story “Pedestrians, drivers must co-exist downtown.” Three days after that story was published, Parisian Kathy Sadler was struck and critically injured while crossing an intersection in downtown Paris. She died five days later at Vanderbilt Medical Center. Tragically, a second pedestrian, Pamela Posner, was killed at a different downtown street crossing about five months later, on July 25, 2023.
In all, the paper devoted six articles and one personal column to highlighting the problem. Contributing to the story were News Editor Glenn Tanner and Editor Michael Williams.
“The newspaper is clearly on top of a story that’s of the utmost importance to the community: pedestrian safety in downtown Paris,” the judge’s comments stated. “With two deaths in less than six months, the paper chronicles what is being done to fix the problem. This sustained type of coverage is vital in smaller communities.”
The paper’s coverage also received a fifth-place award for Investigative Reporting for its coverage of the downtown safety issue.
The paper earned a second-place award in the Best Personal Column category for Tanner’s April 14, 2023, column, “My doctor gave me an excuse for my missing columns,” which chronicled his struggles with, and diagnosis and treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
“Glenn is an excellent column writer for us, on top of his duties as news editor,” Daniel Williams said. “He has great ability to separate his unbiased news coverage from his columns and bares his soul in the latter in a unique way that resonates with readers. Glenn would never tell you, but the column that beat his out for first place came from a Knoxville-area paper publishing a retired New York Times columnist who lives in Nashville. In other words, our small-town underdog writer, Glenn, is the winner in my book.”
Tanner’s Jan. 23, 2023, photo of Madison Vermillion laughing with joy while being crowned Hostess Princess of the 2023 World’s Biggest Fish Fry received third place for Best Feature Photo.
“I’ll brag on Glenn one more time. He may be an old dog, but he’s definitely learned some new tricks over the last few years,” Daniel Williams said. “He’s become quite the photographer in the winter years of his career, even with the handicap of not having the best equipment. He won a state press award for his photography recently, and it was no surprise to see him do well again. He wears a lot of hats for us, but photographer is one that looks especially good on him.”
The paper competed in Class III, which included non-dailies with a combined weekly distribution of 7,000 and above and dailies with a combined weekly distribution less than 20,000. Entries were judged by members of the New York Press Association.
The banquet also marked the end of Publisher Daniel Williams’ one-year term as TPA president.
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