Newspapers in Columbus, Canton, Sandusky, Newark and Chillicothe were named the best in the state Saturday in the annual Ohio Associated Press Media Editors newspaper competition.
General Excellence awards for 2017 went to The Columbus Dispatch, The Canton Repository, Sandusky Register, The (Newark) Advocate and The Chillicothe Gazette.
The Lancaster Eagle Gazette won the First Amendment Award for outstanding accomplishment in pursuing freedom of information. The newspaper won with its entry "The Fall of Brian Kuhn."
Also Saturday, four journalists were inducted into the Ohio APME Hall of Fame for exceptional distinction and honor in the field of journalism: Ken Barhorst of The Sidney Daily News, Holly Geaman Koza of WLIO-TV, Thomas J. Mullen of The Lima News and Pershing Rohrer of the Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier.
Bethany Bruner, a reporter at The (Newark) Advocate, was named Ohio APME's Newspaper Rising Star. That award recognizes journalists with five years or less in journalism. Sixty-four daily newspapers submitted 1,922 entries in the contest, which featured news and sports stories, features, editorials, columns, graphics and photos from 2017.