Rocky columnists No. 1 and 2 in nation
Rocky Mountain News
Published June 25, 2007 at midnight
The Rocky Mountain News' Bill Johnson and Tina Griego were named top and second- best columnist in national awards announced over the weekend.
The National Society of Newspaper Columnists honored Johnson and Griego in the general-interest category for newspapers with more than 100,000 circulation. That the two top winners came from the same paper, when there were about 150 entrants nationwide, was "quite a feat," one conference official said.
Johnson's winning column was written about the bittersweet homecoming of a Fort Carson combat squadron.
"The U.S. faces plenty of issues, but none is bigger than the Iraq War, and Mr. Johnson takes it on headfirst," the judges wrote. "In the process, we bear witness to how war works its changes on the soul. He captures, with deep empathy but without polemics, the river of grief that courses beneath this costly misadventure."
Griego was recognized for her work on "Border Street," a yearlong series in which she examined the tensions between citizens and newly arrived immigrants on a single Denver block.
"In her look at the ever-more- timely issue of immigration, Ms. Griego takes us literally to the streets of Denver, where she finds two cultures, white and Hispanic, simultaneously clashing and coming together," the judges wrote. "She gets inside a working-class neighborhood, increasingly representative of so many from coast to coast, where residents wage a struggle to survive in a new world.
"In this sampling of her 38-part series, so vivid, so heartfelt, so rich in grace, she delivers a story that feels truly lived."
The awards were announced Saturday night at the group's annual convention, held this year in Philadelphia.
"This is wonderful and well-deserved recognition for the work of two fine columnists," Rocky managing editor Deb Goeken said. "We're very proud of Bill and Tina for winning the two top spots in such a rigorous competition."
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