photo by: Lawrence Journal-World

LJWorld.com

LJWorld.com has been named one of the best news websites in the state, and the Journal-World has won top awards for its writing, reporting and design, the Kansas Press Association has announced.

The Journal-World won 16 awards as part of the Kansas Press Association’s Awards of Excellence program. The newspaper will receive the awards on Saturday at the KPA’s annual convention in Topeka.

The Journal-World, which competes in the division with the largest daily newspapers in the state, won awards for the Best Newspaper Website, News and Writing Excellence, and Design and Layout Excellence.

“These awards are the reflection of the talents and hard work of all our fine journalists and staff members,” Editor Chad Lawhorn said. “While we never measure our success on awards alone, I’m pleased that the entire staff is receiving recognition for the important work it does to keep our community informed.”

The top award for LJWorld.com came after a multimonth project to completely redesign the website and create a new digital subscription program, which has attracted more than 2,000 additional subscribers to the Journal-World since its launch in September.

“The response from the public has been very gratifying,” Lawhorn said. “We are fortunate to live in a community that values journalism.”

In addition to the trio of staffwide awards, the newspaper’s coverage of the finances of Kansas Athletics, which detailed how athletic department spending is outpacing revenues, won three awards from the KPA. The newspaper’s follow-up coverage of a shooting that left three people dead in the streets of downtown Lawrence won a top award, as did an investigation into the city of Lawrence’s bidding practices.

Here’s a complete list of award winners:

• First Place Best Newspaper Website

• First Place News and Writing Excellence

• First Place Design and Layout Excellence

• First Place to the design staff for Best Front Page Design.

• First Place to Lawhorn for News Series on The Finances of KU Athletics.

• First Place to Lawhorn for Education story for an interview with KU Chancellor Douglas Girod about the role of athletics in higher education, which ran as part of the Finances of KU Athletics series.

• First Place to Joanna Hlavacek for Feature story for an in-depth look at what downtown bargoers were saying in the wake of the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting that left three people dead in downtown Lawrence.

• First Place to reporter Rochelle Valverde for Government/Political story for an investigation into how the city added more than $2 million to the cost of previously approved city bids by using a process known as “change orders.”

• First Place to sports and design staffs for Special Section for the Journal-World’s Guide to the Final Four.

Staff members receiving second-place awards include: reporter Dylan Lysen for agriculture reporting for an article on a pawpaw fruit grower; copy editor Sylas May for an infographic showing proposed plans for the Douglas County Jail expansion; Lawhorn for local business coverage for an article detailing athletic department spending, and for news coverage for an article reporting that KU had chosen not to produce a written report on its probe of basketball recruiting practices.

Staff members receiving third-place awards include: copy editor Melissa Treolo for infographic design; Valverde for investigative reporting on the city’s bidding process; and Lysen for sports reporting for his coverage of Silvio De Sousa eligibility issues.