J., the Jewish news weekly of Northern California, took home six Rockower Awards, handed out every year by the American Jewish Press Association to honor the best of the Jewish media. The awards, which recognized work produced in 2012, were presented June 26 in Seattle during the AJPA’s annual conference.
In the production category, j. art director Cathleen Maclearie was awarded two first-place honors: one for overall graphic design, and one for cover designs. Maclearie has racked up nine Rockowers since 2004 for her design work, an impressive record.
Freelancer and former j. staff writer Alix Wall took first place in the category of personality profiles for her Sept. 21, 2012 cover story, “Road to Atonement,” a clear-eyed yet sensitive piece on a local Jewish man who served 22 years for second-degree murder and is now trying to rebuild his life and re-engage with the Jewish community.
Senior writer Dan Pine’s Oct. 19, 2012 cover story “Jewish at U.C. — the real report, by the students themselves” won second place for investigative/enterprise reporting. Pine went behind the hype to find out what Jewish students at three U.C. schools — Berkeley, Davis and Santa Cruz — really thought about anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism on campus. It was old gumshoe-style reporting and it paid off.
J. editor Sue Fishkoff took second place in the commentary category for her writing in “The Column” on
page 1. She was credited by the judges for “smart and incisive takes on quirky slices of life” for her columns “Be a Jew, go to the movies,” “Prayer, there’s an app for that” and “Forgotten heroes of a long ago war,” as three columns had to be submitted in this category.
J. also took home a second prize for its editorials, another category in which three pieces had to be submitted. J. was honored for “Ode to a Kitchen Table,” “Anat Hoffman arrest at Wall is a shanda” and “Tit-for-tat provocations impede peace.”
In these, as in all j.’s efforts, many unsung heroes contributed to the final product, from assigning, reporting, editing, laying out the pages — and selling the ads that pay the bills. For a complete list of the winning entries, see www.ajpa.org/rockowerawards2013.php.