Well News Named Finalist in DC Chapter SPJ Awards

WASHINGTON — For the third year in a row, The Well News has been named a finalist in the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual Dateline Awards for journalism excellence.

This year, The Well News is up for honors in the online Business News category, with two stories up for consideration: “Can AM Radio Be Saved? Should It Be?” And “Businessman Strives to Bring Luxury to DC’s Once-Stigmatized Cannabis Sector.”

In June 2022, The Well News was recognized as a finalist in the beat reporting category for its coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2023, the publication brought home two 2023 Dateline Awards for Online Breaking News and Feature Reporting.

This year’s winners will be announced at the SPJ chapter’s annual Hall of Fame and Dateline Awards dinner held at the National Press Club on June 11.

The annual Dateline Awards contest is designed to honor the best in local journalism throughout Washington D.C. and surrounding areas of Northern Virginia and Maryland. The contest features multiple divisions including online, magazine and radio along with dozens of categories from beat reporting to photojournalism. 

The master of ceremonies for the evening is expected to be Mark Seagraves of News4 Washington.

In addition to saluting its contest winners, the chapter will also be inducting three veteran journalists into its Hall of Fame, and awarding the SPJ-DC Distinguished Service in Local Journalism Award.

The Hall of Fame inductees are:

Joie Chen, a former reporter and anchor for CBS News, CNN and Al Jazeera America, who is now director of Northwestern University’s Medill programs in Washington, D.C.

Since 2016, Chen has been a consultant and host for CNN’s branded content production studio. 

From 2013 to 2016 she was an anchor and correspondent for Al Jazeera America’s flagship current affairs program, America. She was a Washington-based correspondent for the CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday Morning from 2002 to 2008, serving as a correspondent at the White House, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. 

Chen was awarded a national Emmy as a lead correspondent covering the D.C. sniper attacks and awarded a national Emmy as anchor and lead correspondent of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing.

John Kelly, the former Washington Post columnist known for his look at Washington’s less-famous side.

In his nearly 20 years as author of “John Kelly’s Washington” he estimates he wrote roughly 4,600 columns. 

Born in Washington, Kelly’s first job at the Post was deputy editor in the Weekend section. He later edited Weekend, founded KidsPost and was a general assignment reporter in the Metro section. 

There, he said, he wrote “mainly feature stories about such things as weather, bomb-sniffing dogs, Girl Scout cookies and adulterous lawyers.” 

Harvard and Oxford awarded him journalism fellowships. A rock-and-roll drummer, Kelly is two-time winner of “Journopalooza” Battle of the Bands.

Michel Martin, currently a host of NPR’s Morning Edition, previously was the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast. 

She also has hosted “Michel Martin: Going There,” a live event series in collaboration with member stations. 

Martin came to NPR in 2006 and launched “Tell Me More,” a one-hour daily NPR news and talk show that aired from 2007-2014

 Martin joined NPR from ABC News, where she began work in 1992. She served as correspondent for Nightline from 1996 to 2006. 

Before joining ABC, Martin covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and national politics and policy at The Wall Street Journal, where she was White House correspondent.

 Distinguished Service to Journalism Award

This year’s Distinguished Service to Journalism award goes to Jesse J. Holland, journalist, author and journalism educator at George Washington University.

Holland, associate director at The School of Media & Public Affairs at George Washington University, is author of four books and editor and author of the award-winning short story anthology “Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda.” 

Holland serves as a guest host on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and was co-host of BBC World Service Radio’s A Home For Black History. 

He is a former distinguished visiting scholar in residence at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and a former Race & Ethnicity reporter at the Associated Press in Washington, where he also served as a White House, Supreme Court and Congressional reporter. 

Holland was awarded a doctorate of humane letters from LeMoyne Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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