The New Dominion Magazine won three awards for journalistic excellence in its first year of eligibility in the prestigious Virginia Press Association News Contest. The awards were announced Saturday at the Association’s annual conference in Norfolk.
The competition was fierce in the top category for nondaily newspapers and magazines, whose 45 publications include Virginia Living, Virginia Business, Style Weekly and the Washington Business Journal. The New Dominion took home top honors in this grouping in Public Affairs Writing for a story in the Spring 2008 edition by editor Chris Graham entitled “The Senior Boom,” which examined issues faced locally related to our growing senior population.
Graham’s story on the criminal trial of a porn-shop owner in Staunton, “The People v. Rick Krial,” took second place in General News Writing. Graham won third-place in the News Writing Portfolio competition for his package of stories that included the story on senior issues, “The People v. Rick Krial” and “Leave them behind,” a special report on the high-school dropout problem in the Shenandoah Valley.
“This is obviously a tremendous honor for our magazine,” said Graham, who had also won recognition in the annual VPA News Contest as a staff writer at The News Virginian in Waynesboro and The Charlottesville-Albemarle Observer before joining with his wife, Crystal, to launch Augusta Free Press Online in 2002 and then beginning The New Dominion Magazine in 2007.
“Considering the competition, with magazines with circulations over 300,000 and staffs and resources that far exceed our little mom-and-pop operation here, we feel like a David in a land of Goliaths in this competition, which makes these awards that much more meaningful,” Graham said.
“What this says ultimately is the judges in this contest think we do a good job telling our readers what is going on in their communities and how it matters to them,” said Crystal Graham, the publisher of The New Dominion and the president of Augusta Free Press Publishing.
“That’s something that we strive to hear from our readers every day,” Graham said.
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