The Washington Times won 18 journalism awards — including a best-in-show and seven first-place honors — in the annual Virginia Press Association news and advertising contest.
VPA judges described a first-place news video that earned the best-in-show honors as “a powerful, newsy and well-done” report on Ukrainian resistance to Russian invaders in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
“Great job of using reporter footage with government footage,” the judges wrote in comments on the Sept. 25 video. “The narration was excellent too.”
The video features Guillaume Ptak, a foreign correspondent for The Times, narrating his footage of shelled buildings and vehicles “fitted with homemade metal armor” in Kostyantynivka.
As of this month, soldiers continued using drones to fend off larger Russian forces in the eastern Ukrainian city. It is a key line of defense that has become a ghost town due to civilian evacuations.
The Washington Times won first-place awards for the best podcast, website, lede, illustration, social media post and sports writing portfolio among publications with the highest daily circulation. This group includes The Washington Post, the Virginian-Pilot, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Roanoke Times and the Daily Press, among others.
“This recognition from the Virginia Press Association reflects what I see every day in our newsroom — journalists who combine deep expertise with real commitment to their craft,” said Christopher Dolan, president and executive editor of The Times.
“Winning Best in Show for our Ukraine video, alongside first-place honors for ’Threat Status,’ our website, social media, sports writing and more, is a testament to a staff that produces work that stands on its own merits across every platform and format,” Mr. Dolan added.
Additionally, The Times won eight second-place awards for multimedia content, breaking news coverage, health and science writing, sports writing, column writing and lede. It received two third-place awards for headline writing and a sports article.
The Washington Post, which co-sponsored the contest, won a third-place award for general news coverage.
Threat Status
The Virginia Press Association judges singled out The Times’ weekly “Threat Status” podcast in a first-place award for a “commitment to hard-hitting, objective national security reporting” that made it stand out in “a crowded field of political commentary.”
“The chemistry between [co-hosts] Ben Wolfgang and Guy Taylor, combined with a roster of high-level guests, provides listeners with a front-row seat to the issues shaping the next decade of American defense,” the judges wrote.
“This is precisely what a modern news podcast should be: informative, authoritative, and incredibly timely,” they added.
Launched in 2024, “Threat Status” is The Times’ hub for national security content. It features national defense influencers in videos, a weekly podcast and a daily newsletter.
Mr. Taylor, a former Iraq war correspondent, cohosts the podcast with Mr. Wolfgang, a Times national security correspondent and former White House correspondent. The two reporters release an episode featuring interviews with national security insiders at 5 a.m. every Friday.
Highlights from last year’s roughly 50 podcast episodes included a conversation with Army Chief Technology Officer Alex Miller, who discussed soldiers training alongside artificial intelligence-enabled defense systems.
Other exclusive interviews included Booz Allen Hamilton President and CEO Horacio Rozanski, who analyzed U.S.-China competition for AI dominance.
Jason Sickels, director of “Threat Status,” praised his team for “working at speed in war zones to bring some of the battlefield innovations to our audience.”
“This amazing and courageous journalism is clearly showing how warfare is changing right before our eyes,” Mr. Sickels said in a statement on the award. “The team at Threat Status has tremendous and in-depth experience and is finally getting credit for their craft.”
Sports awards
Sports reporter Liam Griffin won first place for best sports portfolio. Recognized articles included his coverage of parents spending thousands of dollars on youth sports and of Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record for all-time regular-season goals.
He also won a third-place award for his report on Mr. Ovechkin’s 895th goal and a second-place award for his lede in three stories.
“I’m honored to cover sports in the District each day,” Mr. Griffin said in a statement. “Receiving these recognitions alongside some of the region’s most talented journalists is an enormous privilege.”
The judges praised Mr. Griffin for “a great range of writing” that included a sense of fun.
“All had solid details and kept reader[s] engaged,” they noted in the first-place award.
In one of the stories that won him top sports writing honors, Mr. Griffin described the Taco Bell 50K, an ultramarathon in which hundreds of runners stop frequently at the fast-food chain’s locations to eat nine different menu items in 11 hours.
“The first Taco Bell on the route opened its doors early, allowing the frigid racers to huddle indoors for warmth, like grains of rice stuffed into a burrito,” he wrote in his Nov. 30 article. “Behind the counter of the establishment, a half-dozen Taco Bell employees weathered the storm of the busiest Saturday morning of their fast-food careers.”
