Newsday wins 15 Folio Awards from Fair Media Council

Newsday captured 15 honors from the Fair Media Council’s Folio Awards, including a lifetime achievement award for Newsday’s editorial page editor Rita Ciolli.

Newsday was given a dozen awards for its news coverage, marking the most awards given in news by the Fair Media Council in the organization's history.

The awards were led by staff coverage in the arrest of Rex Heuermann in the Gilgo Beach serial killings. Newsday staff was honored for the Folio Award’s story of the year, best newspaper and continuing news story for coverage of the Gilgo Beach investigation.

Ciolli was honored for her career of more than 50 years at Newsday as a reporter, a Washington correspondent and editor. She has led the Opinion section and Editorial pages for the past 17 years.

“My entire career has been at Newsday,” Ciolli said. “Any honors or recognition for my work is because of the remarkable colleagues who have taught, supported and copy edited me for the past five decades.”

The judges of the Fair Media Council said Ciolli was honored as she “witnessed the events that shaped today’s Long Island — and paved the way for women to pursue careers in news.”

Organizers said, “Her work influences the public conversation on issues most important to Long Islanders.” She was introduced during the awards ceremony by Newsday publisher Debby Krenek.

“Congrats to Rita on this well-deserved honor. She has been a tenacious reporter during much of her career here, and her passion for Long Island makes her a strong leader of our editorial board,” Krenek said after the event. “And I'm very proud of the Newsday team whose deep coverage of Long Island was honored today.”

The Fair Media Council is a Long Island nonprofit. It advocates for quality news coverage and works to create a media-savvy society. The awards were delivered during a ceremony Friday at the Garden City Hotel.

Newsday staff was also recognized for community affairs news, enterprise news and best multimedia storytelling for the project, “Feeling the Squeeze: The high cost of living crisis on Long Island.”

Newsday reporters Jim Baumbach, Joie Tyrrell, Dandan Zou and Grant Parpan were honored for their story, “Teacher Misconduct on Long Island,” in the categories of watchdog news and community news.

Newsday reporter Maura McDermott was recognized in health news for her story on Long Island hospital rankings.

Reporter Tiffany Cusaac-Smith was given the Msgr. Thomas Hartman Award in religion reporting for her story, “Episcopals on LI Confront Slavery’s Past.”

Business reporter Victor Ocasio was recognized for employment and work issues for his story, “Trans workers on Long Island face bias, lack of acceptance on the job.”

Newsday also received social media awards, including for the story, “TikTawk as a Career: Meet 6 Long Island content creators who made it big on TikTok.” Staff members included social media director Gabriella Vukelic; social media producers Priscila Korb-Kane and Vincent Matula; reporter Beth Whitehouse; editor Meghan Giannotta; and digital/UX designers Jennifer Brown, Mark Levitas, Christopher McLeod, Kavita Mehta and James Stewart.
Also awarded were photo editor David Trotman-Wilkins, quality analyst Sumeet Kaur and copy editor Estelle Lander.

Newsday was also awarded “Best in Social by a Media Outlet.” The Folio Awards recognized, “How Newsday's social media team changed their strategy and increased video views by 56%”

Honorees included Vukelic, Korb-Kane and Matula.

Newsday contributor John Hanc was also awarded in history news, for his article, "Occupied LI," about the British occupation of Long Island during the Revolutionary War.

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.