The Laurel Leader, a community newspaper of the Baltimore Sun Media Group, won 10 awards Friday, including two first-place awards, in the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association awards contest.
Among non-daily papers with a circulation greater than 20,000, Allison Eatough won first place for environmental reporting for "Laurel refuge gets whooping cranes into the wild"; and Jen Rynda won first place for multimedia storytelling, sports for her video, "Laurel High School cheerleader Erin McLaughlin."
Overall, the BSMG community newspapers won 50 first-place awards and 44 second-place awards at the MDDC contest. The Howard County Times was named News Organization of the Year among non-daily papers with a circulation between 10,000 and 20,000; and the Aegis was also named News Organization of the Year in its division of non-daily papers with a circulation greater than 20,000.
The Baltimore Sun was named News Organization of the Year among daily papers with circulations over 75,000. Sun staff won 31 first-place awards with 17 winners named Best in Show. The Sun also won the association's annual James S. Keat Freedom of Information Award for "using public records to give readers answers about the death of Freddie Gray." The West Baltimore man died last year after suffering injuries in police custody.