Contacts: Ben Everson, SPJ Webmaster, 317/927-8000 ext. 205 or beverson@spj.org; Guy Baehr, SPJ Awards Committee chairman, 973/392-1538 or gbaehr@starledger.com

INDIANAPOLIS — The Society of Professional Journalists has launched an online gallery for the winning entries of the Sigma Delta Chi Awards for Excellence in Journalism, the nation’s second-oldest national journalism awards program.

The gallery is located at www.spj.org/awards/sdx/2000/ and includes partial and full-text transcripts, photographic images, and video and audio clips of the 2000 Sigma Delta Chi Award winners’ entries.
The online presence, which will be updated annually, provides illustrative examples of top-quality journalism in all media that others in the profession can learn from and emulate.

"Putting these winning entries online is a way to let anyone with access to the World Wide Web use them as models of journalistic excellence," said Guy Baehr, SPJ Awards Committee chairman. "The best way to honor our winners is to give their work the widest possible opportunity to inspire equally good work by others in the future."

The Society’s first national awards honoring excellence in journalism were presented in 1932 to six individuals for contributing to "the dignity and responsibility to the profession of journalism." In 1939, Sigma Delta Chi, forerunner of SPJ, established the first Distinguished Service Awards competition. These awards later became the Sigma Delta Chi Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Recipients of the 2000 Sigma Delta Chi Awards were announced April 23, and the complete list of winners can be found online. The award winners also are displayed in a special section of the June issue of Quill, the Society’s magazine, which now is available at SPJ Headquarters in Indianapolis.

The 2000 contest drew 1,542 entries in 45 categories, and journalists from across the nation judged the entries.

The awards will be presented Oct. 4-6 at the 2001 SPJ National Convention in Seattle/Bellevue, Wash., where recipients receive plaques featuring the traditional bronze medallions that have been given to each winner since the awards ceremony became an annual event in 1939. At the convention, many award winners will participate in professional development programs and discuss their work.