Triad City Beat wins two NC Press Association Awards, is up for two national awards

Triad City Beat has won two awards through the NC Press Association’s annual awards contest for 2023-24.

The NC Press Association is a statewide organization of the state’s newspapers and has been in operation since 1873.

Both awards won by Triad City Beat were in the editorial category.

Gale Melcher, TCB‘s City Beat reporter took 2nd place in the City, County Government Reporting category for her series of articles on the Greensboro City Council’s behind-the-scenes conversations about potentially enacting a 1-percent food tax on residents. The series, which spans more than five articles, covered emails sent between city council members, business leaders and lobbying groups discussing the reasons why the city wanted to pass this tax without citizens’ input.

Sayaka Matsuoka, TCB‘s managing editor took 3rd place in Feature Writing for her piece connecting the lynching of Eugene Hairston in Guilford County with the hogtying and killing of Marcus Deon Smith by police in 2018 as a way to explain the city’s history with racial terror.

The awards will be formally presented during the NC press Association’s annual conference on Sept. 19 in Raleigh.

In 2023, TCB won two awards through the NC Press Awards for Best Lede (2nd place by Sayaka Matsuoka) and Best Column (2nd place by Brian Clarey).

The newsroom is also up for two national awards through the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. Sayaka Matsuoka is up for the award for Beat Reporting for police misconduct reporting and also for the Arts Criticism award for her review of SECCA and Reynolda House exhibits from 2023. Winners of those awards will be announced on July 12.