Staff report
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Nine reporters and an editor for TheStatehouseFile.com won honors Monday in the 2019 Indiana Pro SPJ Best in Indiana Journalism competition.

TheStatehouseFile.com also claimed second place for Best News Website in the category of publications, websites, and news services with circulations of more than 30,000.

Reporter Erica Irish captured two first-place awards.

The first for Irish was for “Is your family complete?: Experts say Indiana surrogates need legal protections and social visibility” in the Best Business or Consumer Affairs Reporting competition. The story explored the challenges faced by Hoosier gestational surrogates.

Irish’s other first-place award came in the Best Criminal Justice Reporting category for her stories on Indiana’s public defender system. The judges wrote about Irish’s reporting: “Irish tackles the state of indigent defense decades after the Supreme Court’s Gideon decision and finds it sorely wanting in Indiana.”

Mary Beth Schneider, an editor for TheStatehouseFile.com, also claimed second place in the Best Column Writing competition.

And nine reporters for TheStatehouseFile.com captured third-place honors in the Best Documentary competition for “The Children’s Crusade Revisited: Slaughterhouse-Five at 50,” a joint production of TheStatehouseFile.com and WFYI Public Media.

The nine reporters are Irish, Emily Ketterer, Ariana Lovitt, Haley Pritchett, Carolina Puga Mendoza, Victoria Ratliff, Zach Roberts, Hope Shrum, and Taylor Wooten.

“Once again, Franklin College journalism students have demonstrated they are capable of competing with anyone and accomplishing remarkable things,” said John Krull, director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com.

This was the eighth straight year that staff members for TheStatehouseFile.com have won awards in the SPJ competition.

The StatehouseFile.com is a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students that provide stories and other content for roughly 35 news partners in Indiana. Individual subscriptions also are available for either $5 per month or $50 per year.

FOOTNOTE: TheStatehouseFile.com is a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.