Sun Sentinel Staffers Win Eight Florida Society Of News Editors Awards

More than a dozen South Florida Sun Sentinel staffers were awarded eight prizes in the statewide Florida Society of News Editors contest for their reporting on numerous beats and their photography and video work. The awards were presented at the annual luncheon in Orlando Thursday afternoon. The Sun Sentinel was among winners in the contest’s largest division, which includes the Orlando Sentinel, the Tampa Bay Times, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post. Winning first place in the niche site category were magazines editor Mark Gauert, Cassie Armstrong and Anderson Greene for “Explore Florida & the Caribbean,” and Gauert, Anderson and features editor Melina De Rose placed second in the category for their magazine, City & Shore PRIME. Breaking news and public safety reporter Shira Moolten earned second place for her enterprise reporting “Across the Fence,” an investigation that found South Florida’s smaller airports top the country in lead emissions. Moolten, senior reporter Rafael Olmeda and breaking news reporter Angie DiMichele won second place in the breaking news category for their reporting on a Georgia deputy who shot and killed Leonard Cure, the first man to be exonerated by the Broward State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit after serving more than 16 years in prison. Health reporter Cindy Krischer Goodman earned second place in beat reporting for her coverage of abortion, a story on how surviving a gunshot often depends on what happens in the first five minutes after being wounded and for reporting on the lasting trauma five years after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Reporter Ron Hurtibise placed third in the business category for his reporting on the shutdown of Boston Market restaurants across South Florida, car insurance premiums sharply increasing and why and Florida spending $1.5 million developing smartphone ID apps that hardly anyone is using. In the photo story category, photographer and videographer Joe Cavaretta placed second for his coverage of the historic storm in April 2023 that dumped 26 inches of rain on Fort Lauderdale in a matter of hours. Feature and entertainment writer Ben Crandell, senior staff photographer Mike Stocker and photography director Sean Pitts placed third for their video feature on how a rat scampering into the Florida Panthers’ dressing room decades ago led to the fan rat-throwing tradition and the man who started it.