ALBANY — Spotlight Newspapers earned five awards in the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Award ceremony last week.
NYPA hosts the annual award ceremony to showcase exemplary work from newspapers and websites throughout the Empire State.
This year, judges honored Spotlight Newspapers with five awards, including a first-place award to Jim Franco for Best Feature Photo.
The award-winning photo captured the excitement of a young boy as he watched a science experiment at Colonie Central School District’s Raiderfest in 2019.
The online editor and Colonie Spotlight reporter also took home second place honors in the Sports Action Photo category.
Spotlight Newspapers earned another first place award for advertising.
Production Manager David Abbott earned top honors in the Best Large Space Ad category for a full-page advertisement he had designed for The Century House, which was featured in the Colonie Spotlight.
The Colonie Spotlight was further honored with NYPA’s Past Presidents’ Award for General Excellence, earning a third place award. The highly competitive category compares newspapers through a point-system and how they rate across multiple features, including news coverage, editorials, obituaries and more.
“It is a great honor,” said Publisher John McIntyre.
Diego Cagara and Michael Hallisey each earned a third place award for Coverage of Education from their collaborative work featured in The Spotlight.
Spotlight Newspapers produces The Spotlight (Delmar), The Colonie Spotlight and The Spot 518 weekly newspapers. It also prints and distributes the FamilyNow monthly magazine.
— Spotlight Staff
