Stet NewsCommunity Voices launch honored for boosting coverage of underrepresented communities.
Your Stet News is being honored with five finalist nominations in Florida’s oldest and largest contest recognizing excellence in journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Awards.
The competition for work published in 2025 recognizes Stet for its coverage of underrepresented communities, most notably through its Community Voices pilot program with Inlet Grove High School that trains and pays students to cover Riviera Beach.
Stet is also a finalist for best independent website, best digital newsletter, crime and court coverage and community news.
In the underrepresented communities category, Stet is a finalist for its story announcing the launch of Community Voices, led by Stet’s Liz Capozzi and Inlet Grove’s C.B. Hanif. Also honored: stories on a historic Black cemetery by Stet’s Holly Baltz and efforts to revive the long-dormant Northwest Neighborhood in West Palm Beach by Stet co-founder Carolyn DiPaolo.
The Community Voices program relies on the work of five Inlet Grove students who covered city meetings in person and published 14 stories on the Stet News website. Among the stories: developers vying for the city’s blessing to rebuild large sections of town and the city’s pursuit of a new police station and water plant.
“Building a program that trains and pays students to cover their city was a bet, and a panel of Florida journalists placed it among the state’s best work covering underrepresented communities in its first year,” Capozzi said. “This recognition tells us that the model is sound, and the students are the reason it’s working.”
Four more honors
Stet and WUSF are the only two finalists for best digital newsletter, the second year in a row Stet reached the finalist stage in that category. Stet entered three of its weekly newsletters, available for free to anyone who signs up, that complement the StetNews.org website.
Each newsletter covered at least five topics and included the firing of a Palm Beach Post editorial page editor over a cartoon deemed to be antisemitic; severe cuts that threatened the existence of TriRail; and the report in November after Stet’s Jan Norris and Joel Engelhardt led a team to shop at 19 area grocery stores to find the best Thanksgiving dinner deals.
Stet is one of two finalists, the other is Florida Politics, for best website. Stet finished second in the category last year. Stet’s website and newsletter also were selected as best in Florida last year by the Florida Press Club.
In the community coverage category, Stet co-founder Joel Engelhardt and reporters Holly Baltz and Mary Rasura are finalists for three stories: coverage of the struggle to open the Nautilus 220 condominium building in Lake Park, the surprising merits of landfills in the debate over garbage incinerators, and the transformation of a West Palm Beach housing project from 1940s cottages to high-rises.
In the crime and courts category, Stet reporter Jane Musgrave is a finalist for her clear and compelling coverage of Wellington developer Glenn Straub’s efforts to wrest control of the Miss America pageant; how the infamous Tate brothers’ lawsuits in Palm Beach County influenced their Romanian criminal case; and how a longtime operator of G-Star School of the Arts in Palm Springs fought back against his firing.
The Florida Society for Professional Journalism has now honored Stet News’ commitment to reliable news and information every year since three journalists founded the local news operation in 2023.
“We’re very proud of our work over the past year,” Engelhardt said. “We believe readers appreciate how we provide the news and it’s gratifying to find that our work resonates with judges as well.”
This year’s contest drew entries from nearly every major news operation in the state, including the Miami Herald, the Tampa Bay Times, The Palm Beach Post and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The full list of finalists is here.
First-place winners will be announced at the society’s Aug. 29 awards ceremony in Fort Lauderdale.
