Mail makes its mark

THE Mountain Views Mail has again been commended for its coverage of the Black Saturday bushfires and the aftermath.
Last week, the Mail was Highly Commended by judges at the Victorian Country Press Association 2010 Awards for Journalism for its Black Saturday Anniversary edition.
The judges said the paper stood out “for their restrained but respectful coverage of the anniversary of Black Saturday with full coverage of what a year of grieving and picking up the pieces actually meant for this community”.
“The coverage in words and pictures was genuinely moving without mawkish over-sentimentality,” the judges said.
The judges particularly highlighted the story of Tony Parisi’s family escaping from an exploding cool room but facing a future with never a doubt that they would return to their walnut orchard, calling it “particularly memorable”.
“As I learnt from this story walnut trees don’t burn and while it may take up to a year for them to return to normal, return they will, as will the human spirit reflected in the pages of this newspaper,” the judge said.
“Of course it was not just the Black Saturday revisited theme that earnt this entrant a gong but a total sense of community engagement with good local stories, good local features including “pages from the past”, “community diary” and “notes from the local member’s desk”.
They also commended the good use of colour throughout, lively copy and pictures in the sports coverage and great headlines.
This is just one of many commendations for the Mail’s coverage since Black Saturday.
This year the Mail was awarded Best Newspaper in the Community Newspapers of Australia Awards for Excellence, was highly commended at the 2009 Quill Awards for the Best Regional or Rural Affairs category, and received the Victorian Country Press Award for local reporting in 2009.
The Mail also dominated the Star News Group’s All Stars Awards with reporter, Kath Gannaway, winning Best News Story for her article titled Fire Hero Jailed about a series of brutal attacks by a Black Saturday hero on his wife. Chief of Staff, Melissa Meehan won Best Feature Story for her piece titled Force Proved Lethal for Cop, about former Healesville police Sergeant Tony Van Gorp.
The Mail team also won Best Editorial Feature for their Black Saturday – One Year On edition.