We’re excited to launch the A-Mark Prizes to recognize and honor outstanding investigative journalism that reveals hidden truths, holds power to account, or drives public awareness or reform.

The awards will reward ambitious, well-researched reporting that may expose a wrong, hold powerful individuals accountable, or explore a complex problem, issue, or subject. 

In addition to professional recognition, winners will receive monetary prizes and have their work prominently featured on our website. Select entries may also be used in promotional campaigns across our digital platforms and publications, shining a spotlight on your reporting far beyond your newsroom.

We will award up to $15,000 in each New England state. If there are not enough entries in a state, or the judges determine that no entry is prize-worthy, we reserve the right to reduce the number of awards in any state, or not give any awards.

Deadline for entries extended through Friday, July 18, 2025.

Download 2025 A-Mark Prizes Guidelines

The prizes in each state (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT) are as follows:
▪ 1st Place: $5,000 to journalist(s), $2,500 to the outlet
▪ 2nd Place: $3,000 to journalist(s), $1,500 to the outlet
▪ 3rd Place: $2,000 to journalist(s), $1,000 to the outlet
If a winning entry was produced by multiple reporters, the prize amount will be split evenly among them.

The Prizes are funded by the A-Mark Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to supporting and encouraging journalism and investigative reporting through grants to organizations that offer awards recognizing journalistic excellence.

This contest is free to enter and open to journalists based in New England whose primary medium is the written word, including reporters, columnists, investigative journalists, and freelancers, working in newspapers and online news sites. NENPA membership is not required to enter.

This is your opportunity to inspire others, raise your profile, and be recognized for outstanding work.

Be Among the First Honorees

As part of the award’s inaugural year, winners will set the standard for what this honor represents—courageous, clear, and compelling journalism that makes a difference.

Submit your best work by July 18, 2025. Claim your place in New England journalism history.

All Publick Occurrences and First Amendment entries will automatically be entered for consideration in the A-Mark Prizes.

Judging will take place in August. Winners will be notified in September.

All awards will be presented at the 2025 Fall Leadership Conference in Northampton, MA, on September 25-26, 2025, at the Hotel Northampton.

Questions? Please contact Linda Conway at l.conway@nenpa.com.

Think you published the best local editorial in New England this year? Prove it.

We’re now accepting entries for the Allan B. Rogers Editorial Award, honoring exceptional editorial writing on local issues published between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025.

This award pays tribute to the late editor of The Eagle-Tribune (North Andover, MA), who left an enduring legacy before his untimely passing at 31. It’s open to all NENPA member newspapers, regardless of size or publication frequency.

Why enter?

• Highlight your newsroom’s commitment to strong local commentary
• Compete with the region’s best editorial voices
• Gain recognition at the 2025 Fall Leadership Conference, September 25–26 at the Hotel Northampton in Northampton, MA

Key details:

• Entry fee: $125
• Deadline extended to Friday, July 18, 2025.
• Judging: August 2025
• Winners notified: September 2025

Previous Winners:

2024 The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA – When police search classrooms for books
This editorial called out police overreach during a search for LGBTQ+-related literature in a middle school.

2023 The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA – Amid clergy abuse case, a chilling attack on a free press
This piece chastises the Catholic diocese in Western Massachusetts for trying to subpoena a reporter’s notes, which would reveal confidential sources, and delineates why such an assault on the First Amendment is dangerous.

2022 New Hampshire Union Leader – To our readers (William Loeb)
Front-page editorial confronting — and condemning — the shameful history of child sexual abuse by former publisher William Loeb.

2021 The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, MA – Fixing a broken system
This editorial lays out the issues plaguing the region’s gas lines with strong reporting, clear language, and a call to action for the state to fix this dangerous problem.

Don’t miss your chance to showcase your editorial excellence.

Submit your entry or learn more: https://www.nenpa.com/awards-recognition/allan-b-rogers-editorial-award/

Contact Linda Conway at l.conway@nenpa.com for questions or more information.

Learn more about the Newspaper of the Year Awards

Letting you know that our office will be closed on Friday, July 4th, in observance of the holiday. The eBulletin will take a brief pause and resume publishing the following Friday. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

NENPA Staff

Each year, as part of our New England Newspaper Awards Program, we have the honor of recognizing individual journalists, educators, and vital contributors whose commitment to our industry uplifts us all.

These awards aren’t about accolades for their own sake. They exist to shine a spotlight on people who have, in most cases, dedicated their professional lives to journalism in front of or behind the scenes in a support role, telling the stories that matter, strengthening their communities, supporting investigative work, and passing on their knowledge to the next generation.

Deadline extended for nominations to Friday, July 18, 2025.

This summer, we invite you to nominate outstanding individuals for these four special honors:

AP Sevellon Brown New England Journalist of the Year

This award honors the region’s most accomplished journalist—someone whose exceptional work embodies the best of our profession. It celebrates consistently high-quality reporting, storytelling skills, journalistic ethics, and impact on the public’s right to know.

✅ Nominate a peer or colleague whose work you admire.
✅ Let’s recognize the professionals setting the standard for New England journalism.
✅ Nominations are $60 each.
Learn more & nominate

Bob Wallack Community Journalism Award

Named for a champion of local news, this award honors a journalist who exemplifies dedication to community journalism. It recognizes meaningful, impactful coverage that strengthens civic life and empowers local readers.

✅ Know someone who has gone the extra mile for their town or region?
✅ Help us highlight the essential role of community-focused reporting.
✅ Nominations are $60 each.
Learn more & nominate

The Cornerstone Award

Journalism is a team effort, and some of the most critical contributions happen behind the scenes. The Cornerstone Award honors an individual whose work supports and strengthens a news organization in indispensable ways.

✅ This could be someone whose research powers investigative reporting, who provides outstanding production support, or who consistently helps deliver excellent journalism without always being in the spotlight.
✅ If you know someone who is truly a cornerstone of your newsroom’s success, please consider nominating them.
✅ Nominations are $50 each.
Learn more & nominate

New England Journalism Educator of the Year

Journalism doesn’t thrive without the people who teach it. This award honors an outstanding journalism educator in a university or college classroom. Many of the best journalism teachers in New England are “professors of practice”, experienced journalists who bring real-world wisdom to their students while continuing to work in the field. Others are dedicated instructors shaping the next generation with care and rigor.

✅ We’re asking for your help: If you know someone teaching journalism today whose commitment and mentorship deserve recognition, please nominate them.
✅ Universities and colleges, encourage your faculty to apply or nominate a colleague!
✅ Let’s honor those keeping our profession alive by investing in the future.
✅ Nominations are free.
Learn more & nominate

Why Your Nominations Matter

These awards exist because journalism is, at its heart, a profession of people—storytellers, investigators, educators, and community advocates. By recognizing outstanding individuals, we celebrate not only their achievements but also the values that make journalism essential to a healthy democracy.

We need your help to ensure these awards reflect the true excellence across New England. Take a few minutes today to think about who you’d nominate—and make sure their contributions don’t go unnoticed.

Learn more about the Newspaper of the Year Awards

The United States Postal Service is on the brink of a self-induced collapse.  The failed policies of the Delivering for America Plan have driven away customers through a combination of sky-high rate increases and degraded service.  David Steiner, who will take over as Postmaster General on July 14, 2025, has a tough job to do and little time to do it, with some estimates indicating the USPS could be insolvent as soon as 2028.

Congress has a key role to play in helping him right the ship, but must get off the sidelines and act.  A useful step occurred earlier this week with a hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. The National Newspaper Association (NNA) provided a statement for the hearing that lays out key actions Congress can take to help restore the USPS.   

We emphasized that NNA members serve their communities, providing news on local events and civic matters that are not covered anywhere else, and that they depend on the USPS to get their papers to subscribers. The USPS — and by extension the small businesses in the communities they serve — faces an immediate and existential crisis. We urge Congress to act swiftly and compel meaningful reform at the USPS.

Here are three actions Congress can take right now to get the USPS back on track and keep commerce in America moving:

• Demand the USPS Board halt the Delivering for America Plan, including the large rate increase planned for July 13, 2025.  This increase, far above the rate of inflation will only deepen the hole and ties the hands of incoming Postmaster General David Steiner, who should have the opportunity to assess the situation. The same holds true for the network consolidations and service cuts.  Every customer that is lost through these increases and service reductions is one less Steiner can rely on in the future. 
• Modernize and empower the USPS regulator. Effective checks and balances are needed to keep the USPS on track.  Congress needs to update and modernize the postal regulatory process to better safeguard against excessive rates and poor service by passing H.R. 3004, The USPS SERVES US Act.
• Measure newspaper costs accurately. Congress should compel accurate measurement of newspaper service and hold the USPS accountable for maintaining and improving service quality by enacting H.R. 2098/S.1002, the Deliver for Democracy Act

These are all commonsense steps Congress can take to address what has been clearly a failed approach by USPS management.  Steiner has a huge job ahead of him and will need all the help he can get.  

Congress must act now to make sure the nation’s next Postmaster General is not the last one.

By Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, Chair, National Newspaper Association
Publisher, The San Fernando Valley (California) Sun/El Sol Newspapers

Headshot image available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1enmZjAa0Kegv7y3SQC9Ddl5CVSRT_2w_?usp=sharing

Each year, the New England Newspaper & Press Association honors the most courageous and consequential reporting in our region through the Publick Occurrences Award. Named after the first newspaper published in America in 1690, this prestigious honor celebrates journalism that exposes injustice, drives reform, and uplifts the role of a free press in civic life.

Entries that receive this award exemplify the best of our profession — investigations that uncover systemic problems, stories that challenge the status quo, and coverage that sparks real-world change.

🗓️ Entries are $125 each and are open now through Friday, July 18, 2025.

You can view award submission guidelines and winning entries from past years on the Publick Occurrences page:
🔗 https://www.nenpa.com/awards-recognition/publick-occurrences

This year, all Publick Occurrences entries will also be considered for the A-Mark Prizes, a new awards program that includes up to $90,000 in cash prizes across New England. These prizes are designed to further elevate and reward ambitious, accountability-focused journalism.

If your newsroom has produced reporting that has made a difference — in your community or beyond — don’t miss the chance to enter.

We are pleased to announce that entries for the NENPA New England Newspaper Awards Program are open now through July 18, 2025. This year, in addition to our long-standing honors recognizing editorial excellence, transparency, and public service, we are introducing an exciting new series of awards—the A-Mark Prizes, which will provide up to $90,000 in monetary awards to journalists and newsrooms.

All Publick Occurrences and First Amendment entries will automatically be entered for consideration in the A-Mark Prizes.

All awards will be presented at the 2025 Fall Leadership Conference in Northampton, MA, on September 25-26, 2025, at the Hotel Northampton.

Newspaper of the Year Awards:

New England Newspaper of the Year
Celebrates overall excellence in reporting, design, photography, and public service. Judged holistically across all areas of newspaper production.

Publick Occurrences Awards
Honors journalistic work that has made a profound impact on the public or initiated important civic discussions, echoing the spirit of America’s first newspaper.

Allan B. Rogers Editorial Award
Recognizes editorial writing that makes a compelling, reasoned argument and contributes to the editorial voice of a publication.

New England First Amendment Award
Presented to individuals or organizations that champion freedom of the press and the public’s right to know, often at great personal or institutional risk.

AP Sevellon Brown New England Journalist of the Year
Awarded to an individual journalist for outstanding reporting, ethics, and leadership in news coverage over the past year.

Bob Wallack Community Journalism Award
Highlights a story, series, or body of work that strengthens connections within a community and elevates local voices.

The Cornerstone Award
Recognizes extraordinary service to the newspaper industry through innovation, mentorship, advocacy, or long-term leadership.

New England Journalism Educator of the Year Award
Recognizes a professor at a university or college in the six-state region who is doing outstanding work to prepare journalists to lead our newspaper organizations into the future.

A-Mark Prizes
Recognizes and honors outstanding investigative journalism that reveals hidden truths, holds power to account, or drives public awareness or reform. The awards will reward ambitious, well-researched reporting that may expose a wrong, hold powerful individuals accountable, or explore a complex problem, issue, or subject.

Registration is now open for the NENPA/NYPA Fall Leadership Conference, taking place September 25-26, 2025, at Hotel Northampton in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This joint conference brings together publishers, editors, and newspaper leaders from across New England and New York for two days of networking, roundtable discussions, and leadership sessions focused on the critical issues shaping the future of local journalism.

Reserve Your Spot:
Click here to register for the conference.

Hotel Reservations:
To book your hotel room, please call the Hotel Northampton directly at 413-584-3100 and reference the block name: NE/NY Press Association.

For additional conference information and updates, visit:
https://nynewspapers.com/fall-conference-2025/

We look forward to seeing everyone in Northampton this September!