Cited for photography, editorial, news writing, environmental, governmental reporting; graphic design
OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Sentinel won 25 awards in the 2022 New Jersey Press Association Better Newspaper Contest, including 14 citations for photography and 11 awards including editorial and news writing, environmental and governmental reporting and graphic design.
The Ocean City Sentinel, sister newspaper to the Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield, competes in the annual competition in the weekly newspaper division. The graphic design categories are open to daily and weekly newspapers alike.
Graphic Design Awards
Sam Hutchins, the Sentinel’s graphic designer who composes the advertisements in the newspaper and designs special publications, won three awards in the advertising portion of the NJPA Better Newspaper Contest, which was open to member daily and weekly newspapers across the state.
Hutchins received a second-place award for Best Special Section Cover for a Senior Lifestyles section in the newspapers.
He earned a third-place award for Best Special Section for Endless Summer, a special edition the newspaper produces to show visitors and residents alike everything Ocean City and the surrounding area continue to offer once summer is officially over.
Hutchins earned another third-place award for Best Health Care Ad.
“Sam has a great eye for combining graphics, text, typefaces and white space that bring a great look to the Sentinel newspapers, special editions and sections and to our summer Sure Guide issues,” Nahan said. “It’s great to have a graphic designer who grew up here working for us because he understands the Jersey shore aesthetic, which he incorporates into much of his work.”
Editorial Awards
Sentinel editors David Nahan and Craig D. Schenck took first and second place in the Responsible Journalism, Editorial Comment category. Nahan’s winning entry was two editorials, one about whether the state Board of Public Utilities would care about Ocean City’s objections to easements for the Ocean Wind 1 project and the other that making the decision for love and acceptance of our communities’ LGBTQ+ students was easy.
Schenck wrote how local governments should focus on the entire Constitution rather than a single amendment, such as the Second, and his other entry was about Northfield neighbors balking over a sober living facility because of tight quarters in the area where it was proposed. The contest judges called the editorials “excellent analyses” and “outstanding.”
Nahan also took first place for the content and design of the newspaper’s editorial pages as a whole and a second-place award for column writing with a serious entry entitled, “Is it better to be woke or blissfully asleep” and a lighter entry, “Forty Valentine’s Days,” about celebrating an anniversary with his wife.
“We view our opinion pages as a place for the whole community to write in, sharing their views in letters and guest columns, and where we offer our opinions, hoping to stimulate conversations,” Nahan said. “Although it seems more and more people prefer to argue online in comments sections with seemingly endless feuds that devolve into angry attacks, we hope providing a space for more thought-out, signed opinions produces more light than heat.”
News Writing Awards
The Ocean City Sentinel received one first-place and three second-place awards for its news coverage, much of which also appears in the Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield editions.
Nahan received a first-place award for environmental reporting for stories about the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) report on Ocean Wind 1. The stories included how the view from the Ocean City Music Pier could encompass 612 wind turbines — not just the 98 proposed in one project — because of all of the wind farm projects proposed along the southern New Jersey coast, and other issues revealed by a citizen’s close-eyed analysis of the report.
Nahan and Schenck earned a second-place award for news writing for their combined coverage of a pair of rallies — one hosted by school board candidates blasting sex education standards, the other in support of the LGBTQ+ community — and related actions at Ocean City Council and the Ocean City Board of Education.
Schenck earned second-place in the Coverage of Government, Art Weissman Memorial Award for his reporting on the Somers Point City Council appointing a member in spite of a criminal conviction. That member was forced to resign.
The newspaper also received a second-place award in the Special Issue category for its annual Be Prepared Guide. Last year’s guide focused on the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and included stories by Schenck and contributor Rachel Shubin.
Photography Awards
Schenck won first place in the General News category for his photo of the implosion of the cooling tower at the former B.L. England Generating Station in Beesleys Point.
“Craig’s photo captured the initial explosion showing the base of the cooling tower being blown outward toward trees and utility poles, revealing the scope of the demolition,” Nahan said. “It was great timing.”
Nahan earned 13 photography awards, six of them first-place.
“In the 2014 Press Association competition, I won Best of Show for a photo I took of then-Gov. Chris Christie being confronted by protesters at the Ocean City Music Pier,” Nahan said. “That was unusual, not just because I’m a weekly newspaper photographer competing against daily newspaper photojournalists, but because that kind of newsworthy confrontation is unusual for this area, particularly Ocean City.
“It’s not that there isn’t news happening, but this resort in particular more often makes the news for silly and fun things like Martin Z. Mollusk seeing his shadow and the Baby Parade — events befitting America’s Greatest Family Resort,” he added.
Speaking of that, Nahan won a first-place award for Features for a photo of two youngsters during a Wacky Wednesday pie-eating competition and a third-place award in the Feature Picture Story category for a photo essay on that contest.
“Among my favorite goofy family events to cover are pie-eating and taffy sculpting,” the photographer noted.
Nahan took first and second place in the Portrait category. The third-place award was for a photo of an elderly woman wearing an Easter bonnet in the resort’s annual Easter Fashion Parade. The contest judges noted it was a nice change from girls wearing bonnets. Nahan’s first-place portrait was of smiling Sea Isle City lifeguard Madeline Seybold balancing a rescue board on her head amid one of last summer’s lifeguard competitions. It was entitled, “Happy warrior.”
Not that there aren’t straightforward news events locally.
Nahan won first place in the General News Picture Story category for a photo essay on the funeral of beloved Somers Point firefighter Eric W. Jones, an Ocean City High School graduate who died at age 49 in January 2022. Jones served for more than 28 years at Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 in spite of having only one leg, a fact, colleagues noted, that did not stop him.
He won second place in the Spot News category for a photo of Ocean City firefighters during a flare-up as they fought a house fire.
Nearly half of Nahan’s awards in this competition were for sports photography, which he said is fitting given the caliber of athletes he gets to cover in high school and summer lifeguard competitions.
In the Sports Action category, Nahan swept first, second and third places.
The first-place photo was of an Ocean City football player leaping up to stop a touchdown by Cedar Creek in front of a scoreboard showing time expiring in the half. Second place was for a shot of a diving save by Mainland Regional soccer goalkeeper Genevieve Morrison in a game against the Red Raiders. The third-place action award was of a lifeguard in the Cape May Point Women’s Lifeguard Challenge trying to avoid a hard-landing during the rescue board leg of the mini-triathlon.
Nahan won first and third place in the Sports Feature category, the former for Ventnor City Beach Patrol lifeguard Stacey Price, a 2014 Mainland Regional grad, raising her arms in victory as she is held aloft after a women’s lifeboat race, and the latter for the Ocean City High School girls field hockey team celebrating their Cape-Atlantic League Championship.
Nahan also won first place in the Sports Feature Picture Story category for an essay of the Bill Howarth Women’s Lifeguard Invitational in Ventnor last summer.
He took second place in the Portfolio category, which includes a range of work.
The Sentinel staffers and other award winners from the state’s daily and weekly newspapers will receive their awards during an April 27 New Jersey Press Association awards celebration at Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township.