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Gazette earns award for series on poverty

    The Daily Gazette has won a New York Newspaper Publishers Association award for distinguished investigative reporting.
    Sunday reporter Sara Foss, Schenectady reporter Kathleen Moore and Saratoga County reporter Stephen Williams were recognized for the project, “The Faces of Poverty,” which ran Dec. 3 through Dec. 6, 2006. The announcement was made at NYNPA’s Excellence Awards reception and dinner Wednesday evening in Albany.
    NYNPA judges called the poverty series “an ambition project that blends data with humanism and covers many bases from economics to housing to hunger to government agencies.”
    The project was the result of six months of research and interviews by lead reporter Foss, who, accompanied by Gazette photographer Marc Schultz, visited soup kitchens and food pantries, apartments and drop-in centers, and a makeshift camp by the Mohawk River to tell the stories of people living below the poverty line. Moore and Williams contributed articles on economic and education challenges. The series included welfare and policy issues, and information on regional programs designed to help people out of poverty.
    “We’re proud of this recognition” said Gazette Managing Editor Thomas L. Woodman. “The writers and photographer got us to see a world that too many people are conditioned to avoid.”
    In addition to the investigative reporting award, NYNPA gave out awards in 14 other categories, including breaking news, business, sports, editorial and photography in five different circulation categories. The Gazette won in the 25,000 to 50,000 circulation category.