We are so proud!
Encore recently won several awards, including three first places honors, from the Michigan Press Association’s 2020 Better Newspaper Contest. The annual contest recognizes quality journalism produced by media across the state. As a monthly magazine, Encore competes in the Class D category for weekly news media (we know we’re not a newspaper or a weekly, but we’re a special case they don’t have a category for yet). In addition, The Homefront: Confronting Kalamazoo’s Homelessness Crisis, a deep-dive solutions journalism collaboration with Now Kalamazoo, won several top awards as well.
In the Feature Story category, writer Chris Killian took home First Place for “The Father of Legal Pot”, his profile on Martin Chilcutt’s lifelong effort to legalize marijuana in Colorado and Michigan, while Kara Norman earned Third Place honors for her story, “‘We’re Still Here’: Recognition of Kalamazoo’s indigenous roots has been a long time coming.”
Photographer Brian K. Powers’ poignant, intriguing and amusing “Porch Portraits” of families during the Covid-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020 nabbed First Place in the Photo Story category.
The Homefront: Confronting Kalamazoo’s Homelessness Crisis , a special publication with reporting by Ben Lando, Chris Killian and Miranda Drake on the homelessness crisis gripping our community, won several awards including:
- First Place, Special Section
- First Place, News Enterprise Reporting
- Third Place, Government and Education Reporting
The Homefront also did well competing in the Open Class category against the state’s major media including The Detroit Free Press and MLive, snagging an Honorable Mention in Public Service Award Open Class. Lando was the lead editor and publisher for The Homefront , with Encore providing photography, design, editing and production for the collaboration, as well as initial hosting the content on encorekalamazoo.com (which can now also be found at nowkalamazoo.com/the-homefront).
The Michigan Press Association has 320 members including print and digital media outlets across the state. Encore has been greater Kalamazoo’s lifestyle and culture magazine since 1972.
