WSKG Radio Morning Edition Host/Reporter Gabe Altieri has won two awards from the NYS chapter of the Associated Press. The first was for enterprise reporting (meaning that story didn't come from a press release or press conference, it came from sources he'd developed on his own). It was about how voters in the Town of Van Etten and the Village of Van Etten were deciding whether to dissolve the town and have it join the larger village. The process was fracturing the community.
Gabe’s other award was for a sports feature, an in-depth story on whether sports stadiums financially help or hurt small cities. He looked at the relative success of Binghamton's stadium and the Elmira Jackals stadium, which the city had to shut down. Turns out, a Double-A baseball stadium is good for a “Goldilocks” city - not too big, not too small. As long as it's used enough. "Binghamton and Elmira might not see a fortune from their sports facilities, but they could still be worth something."
Managing Editor Monica Sandreczki won two awards from PRNDI, Public Radio News Directors, Inc. She won second place for spot news, for a story about the City of Binghamton starting a shuttle for residents on the north side to go to the grocery store a few times a week. This particular community is considered a food desert--it's lacked a grocery store for 20 years. This is a common problem in so many communities in our northern Appalachia region.
Monica’s second award was first place for a soft feature. This one is called, "For a tense chess tournament, head to Cordisco's Convenience Store." John Cordisco runs a bottle redemption center and is a chess devotee. He's one of the few people in upstate New York certified to run chess tournaments, so he gets folks from all over coming to his convenience store to compete. A 10-year-old kid whose mom dropped off his lunch. A BU professor from Russia who trained under one of the top chess masters in the world until he was 14. The inside of the place is "like a shrine to Bobby Fisher."