Society of the Silurians EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS BANQUET The Players Club Wednesday, May 18, 2016 Drinks: 6 P.M. Dinner: 7:15 P.M. Meet old friends and award winners Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization (212) 532-0887 Members and One Guest $100 each of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 Non-Members $120 MAY 2016 The Silurians Celebrate Journalism At Its Best sterling list of winners highlights the Society of A the Silurians Excellence in Journalism Awards for coverage in 2015. In addition to two special citations —the Peter Kihss and Dennis Duggan awards — this year brought 85 submissions from print, broadcast and online media in 18 revised categories. Top awards for breaking news, features, and investigative reporting went to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Winning Medallions and Merit Award certificates will be presented at the Awards Dinner May 18 at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South. For the esteemed Peter Kihss Award, honoring The New York Times reporter who exemplified the highest ideals of dogged journalism and mentorship, the Silurians named Daniel Sforza, managing editor of The Record in Bergen County. Sforza, who groomed countless other prize-winners over the years, was the former transportation reporter who first broke the news, in a On Feb. 3, 2015, a Journal News photo assistant, Albert Conte, who is also a volunteer fire fighter, responded web posting, that Capt. Chesley (Sully) to a report of a commuter train hitting a car in Valhalla. He helped rescue commuters and also used his iPhone Sullenberger III landed a distressed plane to shoot photographs and video. Staff photographers soon joined him. Their series of photos won the Journal on the Hudson River in 2009, saving all News the medallion for Breaking News Photography. Another of their photos appears on page 3. on board. (Kihss, a 30-year-veteran of The Times, died in 1984 at 72.) Daily News. (Duggan, whose columns Andrew Tangel Andrew Grossman The Dennis Duggan Memorial celebrated New Yorkers over six decades A wide-ranging tour de force of the From its comprehensive lead, it Scholarship Award, given annually to a in five newspapers, died in 2006 at 78.) crash and its after-effects. It is old- details an intriguing timeline that student at the CUNY Graduate School Here is a list of all winners: fashioned journalism at its best, from often reads like a spy novel, with many of Journalism for exemplary coverage gathering quotes and information to government sources. of New Yorkers, was awarded to Megan NEWSPAPER, NEWS SERVICE recreating the horrific scene with a Feature News Cerullo of Brooklyn Heights, who AND ONLINE compelling narrative. Medallion The New York Times, profiled the Italian community in the Breaking News Merit Award Wall Street Journal, “The Lonely Death of George Bell” by Bronx, among other notable projects. Medallion Winner Wall Street “Brooklyn ISIS Plot” by Pervaiz N.R. Kleinfield She will intern this summer at The Journal, “Metro-North Crash” by Shallwani, Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Continued on Page 3 ceived his guidance as faculty advisor to reach a desired conclusion than to pres- In the Spirit the student newspaper. ent a conclusion myself.” That advice at times can be succinct, That approach may hold a clue to as one of his mentors, The Record’s why his role has spread from editor to Of Kihss new editor Deirdre Sykes, sums up: “be teacher to a mentor much in the spirit of BY MARTIN GOTTLIEB concise and laser-focused, don’t blather Peter Kihss. The reporters whose lives dd up the people who count when you’ve made your point.” It can he’s touched say that he’s helped them this year’s Peter Kihss Award also come in lengthy discussions about see themselves and trust themselves. Awinner, Dan Sforza, as a stories or be transmitted in the course of That’s often helped them produce their mentor and the numbers probably grow the personal kindnesses that have helped finest work. from the dozens to the scores and may- imbue the Record newsroom with a spe- “Dan’s even keel, his humor, and his be even tip into triple figures — not bad cial collegiality. In the aftermath of Su- chronic reliability have a calming ef- for someone who at 45 is a mere pup in perstorm Sandy, when a lot of the staff fect that gives reporters the confidence Silurian years. had no heat or electricity in their homes, to do their best work,” observed Shawn The evidence is there everyday at The Dan was the one who brought in his cof- Boburg, who benefited from Sforza’s fee maker and pods of coffee, tea and Record of North Jersey — known more Dan Sforza guidance and editing as he broke open familiarly as the Bergen Record. There cocoa. He deep fries turkeys in the park- the George Washington Bridge scan- reporters congregate at his desk in some moted to managing editor in January. ing lot every New Year’s for the work- dal and landed two years of sensational mix of bakery line and kaffeeklatsch, It’s also there in the front-page stories ing staff and he chats up his troops when scoops exposing systemic dysfunction bantering and awaiting instruction, cor- of the interns he invariably takes an in- they come by for a helping. at the Port Authority. rection and hoped-for pats on the back terest in and hears from over the years, “It’s better to ask questions and lis- Chris Maag, a lyrical narrative writ- from an estimable former reporter who and at Ramapo College in Mahwah, ten, rather than to spout out pearls of er, recalls fretting about whether he served as deputy assignment desk direc- where hundreds of students have taken wisdom,” he said recently. “I find it’s could mesh his talents with his new tor for a dozen years before being pro- his journalism classes since 1995 and re- much more effective to help someone Continued on Page 2 PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2016 President’s Report In the Spirit BY BETSY ASHTON Hello and Happy Spring to all. Of Kihss am delighted to announce that our board of governors has voted to Continued from Page 1 I grant two scholarships of $2,000 news-driven transportation beat. He each to worthy graduate students in jour- presented Dan with a deep spreadsheet nalism for this coming fall. One will go of ideas and asked which he should at- to the NYU Graduate School of Journal- ism program for Culture and Arts Re- tack. porting and will be the first scholarship “Dan was quiet for a few seconds,” designated for students in this program. I he recalls. “Then he said, ‘Just find sto- am even more thrilled to report that NYU ries that people want to read.’ decided to match the Silurians’ donation “That was the end of the meeting.” and make ours a $4,000 scholarship! Chris grasped Dan’s intent. “Behind The second $2,000 Silurians’ scholarship their message was the way he said it,” will go to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and we are hoping that he remembers, “a manner which seemed CUNY will also match the amount. The to say, ‘Calm down. You’re doing fine. scholarships were the first project to come Don’t worry too much about it, and just out of the board’s new Future Committee, do the work.’” chaired by former president Allan Dodds Sean Oates, who runs The Record’s Frank with Ben Patrusky, Carol Lawson, digital news operation, northjersey. Mitsu Yasukawa / Staff Photographer David Andelman and Gerry Eskenazi com, first met Dan 18 years ago, when The Record’s reporter Rebecca O’Brien, who was one of the finalists in participating. The Future Committee was he enrolled in the student newspaper established to consider worthwhile new 2014 for the Pulitzer Prize in the local reporting category, is celebrated initiatives for the society. These schol- class at Ramapo, just intending to fulfill by her editor Dan Sforza. arships may be continued, expanded or a course requirement. As the semesters increased in coming years, as our funds progressed, he says, “he stealthily add- dividual — the great circle of newsroom when he was promoted from town cov- permit. Given that college tuition now ed more to my plate, pushing me into life a few miles over the bridge. erage to junior transportation reporter. runs in the tens of thousands of dollars, more serious assignments, nudging me When I was at The Times awhile The senior transportation writer was a this is a worthy project, indeed! into leadership moments.” ago, a colleague, Ron Wertheimer, who buoyant, revered, tough-minded report- At the end of his junior year, while worked with me in Hackensack in the er named Pat Gilbert, who succumbed ANOTHER HELPING HAND Sean still embraced the role of “un- early 70s, counted 44 alumni on the staff. to cancer when she was only 45. Many members may not be aware that we have a fund that can provide help to der-the-radar kid,” Dan named him ed- That was more than an incredible num- Deirdre recalls how Gilbert shared fellow Silurians who are in financial itor-in-chief. ber on its own; it was reflective of the with Dan “her insights, her secrets of need. Any such requests to the Silurians “Had I fooled my hard-nosed report- enormous contribution of Record mento- the trade, her strict code of ethics, her Contingency Fund are held in strictest er/adjunct professor into thinking I was ring to the profession, which is populat- belief that hard work was at the root of confidence.