Des Moines Register wins prestigious storytelling awards for caucus, pandemic coverage

Register staff report
·2 min read
Jennifer Harrison prays as she holds the hand of her father, Rodney Eurom, while visiting him in the ICU at Mary Greeley Medical Center.
Jennifer Harrison prays as she holds the hand of her father, Rodney Eurom, while visiting him in the ICU at Mary Greeley Medical Center.
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The Des Moines Register won three awards from the Society for Features Journalism, which honors excellence in storytelling and narrative writing.

The Register picked up one first place win and two second place nods in the annual national contest, which drew more than 900 entries for awards in three circulation categories.

Iowa Columnist Courtney Crowder won first place for a portfolio of her work from 2022.

“Crowder’s voice is remarkably compelling in this selection of stories about a mariachi band uniting an Iowa town, a Black soldier whose heroic acts were never awarded with a Medal of Honor and a daughter losing her unvaccinated father to COVID,” judges wrote. “Crowder’s work keeps the reader hooked with rich detail, stellar reporting and cultural context.”

Denison High School senior Esteban Castellanos plays his violin as the Mariachi Reyes del Oeste, the high school's top mariachi ensemble, performs during the 2022 Fiesta Mariachi.
Denison High School senior Esteban Castellanos plays his violin as the Mariachi Reyes del Oeste, the high school's top mariachi ensemble, performs during the 2022 Fiesta Mariachi.

A piece from “Inside COVID’s Siege,” the Register’s series following doctors, nurses, patients and families inside a stressed hospital fighting a COVID-19 surge, won second place in narrative storytelling. That category specifically honors “techniques such as character development, use of dialogue, sense of place, scene building, narrative arc and adherence to theme.”

“One of the signature achievements of memorable feature writing is to make the familiar feel not just fresh again, but vital,” judges wrote of the story, "’We Had a Way Out’: Exhaustion, anger, courage and sorrow in an Iowa ICU fighting another COVID wave."

“The toll of the pandemic came to include our capacity for both sorrow and admiration. This story shakes us out of that stupor and makes us feel both again. No small thing.”

Chief Politics Reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel and Crowder were honored with second place for their three-part series on the Death of the Iowa Democratic Caucuses.

"This competition attracts some of the best journalism produced across the country each year," said Des Moines Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter. "It's gratifying to see two of our veteran reporters receive national recognition for their exclusive reporting and in-depth storytelling."

Respiratory therapist Sally Balvanz and ICU nurse Amy Olson remove the breathing tube to take a COVID-19 patient off the ventilator at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames on Dec. 7, 2020.
Respiratory therapist Sally Balvanz and ICU nurse Amy Olson remove the breathing tube to take a COVID-19 patient off the ventilator at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames on Dec. 7, 2020.

Both Crowder and Pfannenstiel have been on staff for eight years. Crowder, who hails from the suburbs of Chicago, specializes in narrative writing ― skills she recently used in a different medium as the co-director and producer of “SHIFT: The RAGBRAI Documentary.”

Pfannenstiel, a native of Lawrence, Kansas, is covering her third caucus cycle and was the co-moderator, along with Wolf Blitzer and Abby Phillip, of the seventh Democratic debate in 2020.

The Register’s class in the contest featured such other publications of note as the Chicago Sun-Times, St, Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Kansas City Star and San Diego Union-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Society for Features Journalism honors Des Moines Register writers