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South Jersey Observer (SJO), the Camden County based local news website edited and published solely by Anne Forline of Bellmawr, has won the Awbrey Award, one of the most prestigious honors in Garden State journalism.

In May, Forline won the Tim O’Brien Award for the best use of Open Public Records Law for work that was posted in 2016.


About the Awbrey Award

The Awbrey competition is judged by the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists or a committee of the board.

Since its creation in the 1990s, this award has sought to honor both hard-hitting investigative journalism that is public spirited, as well as more “uplifting” efforts.

The Awbrey pays tribute to Stu and Beverley Awbrey, who ran The Cranford Chronicle from 1978 to 1988. The Awbreys believed their 100-year-old weekly was more than a livelihood; they saw it as an opportunity to contribute to the civic life of Cranford.

Stu, who died in 2004 at the age of 66, wrote: “We asked ourselves: Isn’t a newspaper a public trust as well as a private enterprise? Don’t its proprietors have a responsibility to the community to serve as a means of communication and as a forum for opinion? Our answer was `yes’ to both questions.”

In their time, The Chronicle’s circulation and advertising both rose – demonstrating that committed community journalism could be both noble and profitable. Citizens took up a collection to help the paper successfully defend against a libel suit.

In an age when so many news outlets are struggling, we hope this award will serve as a reminder of why journalism matters. (Emphasis supplied)

The NJ-SPJ annual Excellence in Journalism Awards brunch is Sunday, June 25 at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark.

(All background information on the Awbrey Award credit: NJ-SPJ)

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