DeKALB — Regional journalists gathered virtually Thursday for the Northern Illinois News Association’s annual awards presentation.
NINA shifted its annual journalism conference and awards presentation to an interactive digital program to increase accessibility to those throughout northern Illinois who practice and celebrate journalism.
The Daily Herald won the general excellence award. The general excellence award is presented for excellence in local news and feature content, enterprise and watchdog reporting, leadership on the editorial page, reader engagement, quality of sports content, use of photos and multimedia, design, headlines and use of art.
More than 15 nameplates and freelancers submitted 289 entries into the competition.
The banquet featured keynote speaker Bob Oswald, whose column Facts Matter runs in the Daily Herald. Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist who began his career with the Countryside newspapers, which eventually became Pioneer Press. He worked for the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune before returning to suburban journalism and is a former editor of the Elgin Courier-News. In addition to his Facts Matter column, he is a project editor for Town Square Publications, a division of the Daily Herald.
NINA serves journalists and journalism educators in Northern Illinois in conjunction with the Department of Communication at NIU.
For more information, go to ninaonline.org.
Northern Illinois News Association 