Stet NewsSociety of Professional Journalists also touts Stet’s local news coverage.
Stet News produces the best digital newsletter in Florida, as judged by the state’s oldest and largest contest recognizing excellence in journalism.
Last year, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Awards picked Stet’s newsletter as a finalist. This year Stet’s newsletter took first place.
- Stet also won best newsletter in this year’s Florida Press Club awards.
The free weekly newsletter is a conversation with the growing Stet community. It would not be possible without the readership and financial support of Stetters.
For the top honor, Stet entered three of its weekly newsletters 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 aims to make the newsletter an easy-to-read overview of the week’s news. Subscribers can scan the short items when it arrives in their inbox every Tuesday or dive deeper into the full stories linked at StetNews.org.
Stet News earned finalist honors in four other categories: best independent website, coverage of underrepresented communities, crime and courts and community news.
In the underrepresented communities category, Stet won finalist honors 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 coaches 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.
In the community coverage category, Stet co-founder Joel Engelhardt and reporters Holly Baltz and Mary Rasura are recognized as 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 took finalist honors 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.
In the best independent website category, judges are able to review the website on any given day. Stet finished as a finalist this year and last year.
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.
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. A list of winners and finalists is here.
The A-Mark Prize for Investigative Journalism went to Stet partner WLRN with the Miami Herald for its series on “Brightline: Florida’s Killer Train.”
