04190
April 22, 2004

PC(USA) publications receive awards

PNS, Presbyterians Today among ‘Best of Christian Press’ winners

by Jerry L. Van Marter

            The Presbyterian News Service (PNS) and Presbyterians Today magazine received five awards apiece for work done in 2003 during the 88-year-old association’s banquet here on April 20.

            Church & Society magazine and the independent Presbyterian Outlook won two awards each, and HORIZONS, the magazine of Presbyterian Women, earned one.

            PNS, Presbyterians Today and Church & Society were winners of prestigious “Best in Class” awards.

            The denomination’s news service, managed by the Rev. Jerry Van Marter, was named the second-best religious news service in North America, finishing behind Religion News Service in the “Best in Class” category. Church & Society, edited by Bobbi Wells Hargleroad, placed second in “Best in Class” for journals, and Presbyterians Today placed third among denominational magazines.

            All four PNS reporters won individual writing awards. John Filiatreau placed first in the news story category for newspapers and news services for a June 17, 2003 story on Cincinnati Presbytery’s expulsion of pastor Stephen Van Kuiken. Alexa Smith won a first-place award for in-depth coverage for stories she wrote during a lengthy assignment in East Jerusalem in the winter of 2003. Jerry Van Marter placed second in the “personal reflection” category for “The last 8-ball,” his account of his last visit with his father before the elder Van Marter’s death last year. And Evan Silverstein took third place for his Sept. 17, 2003 feature article on Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s rebuilding of a destroyed El Salvadoran village.

            Presbyterians Today, edited by Eva Stimson, received third-place awards in the “devotional/inspirational” category for Ed McNulty’s 2003 Advent Calendar; in the Biblical interpretation category for Steve Yamaguchi’s “A New Way of Eating: Our Daily Bread” in the Sept. 2003 issue; by Sharon Kutz-Mellem, the magazine’s promotions manager, in the “circulation campaign” category; and in “in-depth coverage” for magazines for its Nov. 2003 package, “Is It Ever Right to Fight?” which included stories by Mark Douglas, Alan Wisdom, Anne Barstow and Gary Payton.

            Church & Society won second place in the “scholarly article” category for Charles W. Rawlings “Steel Shutdown in Youngstown” in the Jan./Feb. 2003 issue of the PC(USA)’s social justice journal.

            The Presbyterian Outlook, published in Richmond, VA, won second place in the news story for magazines category for Leslie Scanlon’s July 7, 2003 story on the Van Kuiken case; and third place in the “redesign” category for Stan Bailey’s makeover of the magazine.