Indiana Capital Chronicle takes home journalism awards

The Indiana Capital Chronicle team took home seven awards from Friday’s annual Indiana Society of Professional Journalists banquet.

The biggest win was third place for the A-Mark Foundation awards. The category is meant to promote investigative journalists and to encourage newsrooms to continue digging deeper on stories that impact Indiana. The journalists and their organizations won a cash prize as part of the award.

Leslie Bonilla Muñiz and journalists from the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism together examined spending behind the controversial LEAP project in Lebanon.

Other wins for Indiana Capital Chronicle were:

• Second place for Casey Smith in the non-deadline category for her reveal that Indiana taxpayers had paid nearly $500,000 for Attorney General Todd Rokita’s disciplinary defense.
• First place for Whitney Downard and the Arnolt Center in the business or consumer affairs category for an examination of how sports complexes are driving economic development across the state.
• Downard — who now works for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star — also took third place in the children’s issues category for breaking news that the state of Indiana opted out a summer program for hungry schoolchildren.
• Reporters Downard, Smith, Muñiz and Madelyn Hanes also took third place in race and diversity issues for breaking down a report on diversity, equity and inclusion in state government.
• Niki Kelly took second place for column writing and the Indiana Capital Chronicle took third place in the best website category.