InvestigativeMEDIA’s John Dougherty was awarded First Runner up in the Arizona Press Club’s Virg Hill Journalist of the Year contest Saturday night for his reporting on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
The Arizona Republic’s Bob Ortega received top honors for the state’s most prestigious journalism award. Evan Wyloge of the Arizona Capital Times was named second runner up.
“I’m delighted and honored for my one-person news operation to have been named a finalist for this award competing against major daily and weekly newspapers,” Mr. Dougherty said.
“Congratulations to Mr. Ortega for winning top honors for his excellent work on immigration issues and Mr. Wylodge for his important reporting on lobbying at the state Capitol,” he said.
The contest was judged by three out-of-state judges including Kathy Best, editor of the Seattle Times, Brad Schrade, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Mark Katches, editorial director for the Center of Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif.
Mr. Schrade described Mr. Dougherty’s work as “powerful, aggressive reporting. Dougherty’s determination to get at what went wrong raised accountability questions about the events that led to the Yarnell Hill fire tragedy. His immersion in the story produced significant information on a major state and national story.”
Mr. Dougherty, 57, has won the Virg Hill honors three times and has been named first runner up on three occasions.
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