TCB’s Sayaka Matsuoka wins national awards at AAN Publishers convention in Charleston

Featured photo: TCB’s Managing Editor Sayaka Matsuoka wins the Spirit of AAN Award at the 2024 Annual Convention.

Last week, the bulk of TCB’s staff headed to Charleston to attend the AAN Publishers’ (formerly the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies) annual national convention.

The association has been around since 1978 and has more than 100 news organizations in its membership, including Triad City Beat. The organization works to provide services, training and advocacy to its members and is a home to news organization that work to hold the powerful accountable.

At this year’s annual convention, TCB‘s Managing Editor Sayaka Matsuoka helped put together several editorial panels and sessions including one about improving election coverage, the importance of culture coverage and increasing diversity within newsrooms. For her efforts, Matsuoka, who is the diversity chair on AAN’s Board of Directors, won a Spirit of AAN Award, a new round of awards that will be given out annually for people’s contributions to further AAN’s mission.

TCB’s newsroom also won two editorial awards: one in beat reporting and one in arts criticism.

In the arts criticism category, Sayaka Matsuoka won second place for her piece tying a SECCA exhibit and a Reynolda piece exhibit together from March 2023.

In the beat reporting category, Sayaka Matsuoka won an honorary mention for her reporting on police killings and misconduct in Greensboro.

The judge commented as follows: “A well-researched and reported series on police misconduct by a reporter who starts beating a drum won’t stop. After a shocking spate of sex crimes by police employees, Matsuoka asks the right question: What does this reveal about police culture? Excellent use of public records requests.“

Read that reporting here.

Both Matsuoka and fellow TCB reporters have won AAN awards in years past.

In 2023, freelancer Autumn Karen won second place for her piece on transgender health access in the Triad while freelancer Luis H. Garay got honorable mention for their piece on local panaderías in the food writing category.

In 2022, former Senior Editor Jordan Green won honorable mention in the right-wing extremism coverage for his reporting on NC Oath Keepers, Brian Clarey won third place for his editorial in political columns and Sayaka Matsuoka won second place in vaccine coverage for her piece interviewing people who had changed their minds about getting the COVID-19 shot.