BILOXI – The Dispatch staff took home 61 awards, including first in General Excellence in its audience class in both editorial and advertising, during the Mississippi Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.
The awards, announced Saturday during MPA’s Annual Meeting held this year in Biloxi, recognize work completed in 2025.
This is the sixth consecutive year The Dispatch advertising staff, led by Director Beth Proffitt, earned General Excellence.
Among the newsroom’s awards, Managing Editor Zack Plair, News Editor Emma McRae and former reporter Cadence Harvey were awarded the inaugural Center for Integrity in News Reporting’s Objectivity and Integrity in Reporting Prize for their coverage of a Columbus Police Department officer who falsely blamed a civilian for a high-speed crash.
The trio split a $5,000 prize for the award.
“Proportionally, this reporting gave balanced space to official explanations, rebuttals, victim’s perspectives and evidence-based contradiction – the story didn’t just present one side and then briefly mention the other,” judges wrote of The Dispatch’s work. “These articles are a model for how to present a restrained tone – no dramatic storytelling; no emotionally manipulative victim descriptions; and minimal rhetorical framing.”
Plair, McRae and Harvey also earned third-place in the Daniel M. Phillips Freedom of Information Award competition, which recognizes the best in-depth reporting on freedom of information issues, for their coverage of the CPD-involved crash.
The same story earned third-place among entries for the A-Mark Foundation Prize for Freedom of Information Reporting, earning a $2,000 prize to be split between the trio as well as $1,000 awarded to The Dispatch.
The editorial staff brought home 29 awards in all, including seven first-place titles.
Harvey received a first-place award in the feature story category, as well as second- and third-place awards in the business news story category, a third-place award and honorable mentions in both the personality portrait, photo series and spot news coverage categories.
Harvey and McRae shared a third-place award in the news package category and an honorable mention for in-depth investigative coverage. McRae also received a first-place award in the lede category and won second place in the personality portrait category.
Plair received a second-place award for in-depth investigative coverage.
Also for editorial awards, former Mississippi State Athletics reporter Colin Damms first- and third-place honors for sports news story as well as third-place for sports feature. Abigail Sipe Rochester, former news and lifestyles reporter, won third-place in the lede category.
Columnist Slim Smith won first- and third-place honors in the commentary column category as well as third place in the editorials category.
Columnist Clay Bowen received an honorable mention in the general interest column category.
The Dispatch also received first-place in the photo series category and third-place among all multi-day newspapers for its website. The newsroom also earned first- and third-place honors in the special sections category as well as second- and third-place in the planned series category.
Advertising honors
The Dispatch advertising staff won 32 awards Saturday, including 11 first-place titles.
Graphic Designer Jackie Taylor notched seven first-place awards in several categories, including home improvement/lawn and garden; small space ad; editorial speciation edition; ad series; digital ad; niche product; magazine ad-retail; magazine ad-institutions, financial or service; and magazine ad-health care.
Taylor also received second place honors in the small space ad, ad series and digital ad categories, as well as third place in the general retail, service, holiday and ad series categories. She also received honorable mentions in health care, food and beverage, house ad and magazine ad-health care categories.
Lauren Byrd, former graphic designer, earned first-place in the food and beverage category as well as second-place honors in both the health care and holiday categories. Byrd received third-place in the digital ad category.
Proffitt and Publisher Peter Imes swept the multimedia promotion category, winning first-, third- and second-place awards for ads related to the paper’s podcast, Between the Headlines. Imes also won second-place in the house ad category.
The Dispatch also won first-place honors in the editorial special edition and niche product categories; second-place in the niche product category; third place for advertising special section and an honorable mention in the theme page category.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
