Staffers recognized
Bill Coates, Phil Riske, and Jim Small were honored for their coverage of last April’s immigration march. Coates is a reporter and photographer for the Arizona Capitol Times. Small is the Arizona Capitol Times House reporter. Riske runs the Yellow Sheet Report, a political tipsheet.

The Arizona Capitol Times received two Sammy Awards at the during Dolan Media Company annual journalism summit held last month in Scottsdale.
Phil Riske, Jim Small and Bill Coates were honored with a third place award in News Photography for their photos of the immigration march in April 2006.
The judges said “Immigration reform brought out more than 100,000 for a march on the Arizona Capitol, and Riske, Coates and small captured it all in a special spread called “March for Change.” The category honors deadline news photos on their artistic and technical excellence and how well they illustrated or supported the accompanying stories, or for stand-alone photos, told a story.
Riske also received a special merit award for his series of stories that led to State Treasurer David Petersen’s resignation.
The judges said Riske “…followed it closely as the charges widened to include fraud, forgery and campaign violations.” Originally Riske’s story was entered into another category but Editorial Chairman John Kominicki, publisher of Long Island Business News, said the story didn’t fit exactly into any of the 15 contest categories but represented work too good to go unrecognized. Riske’s last piece in the series covered the treasurer’s plea deal and resignation.
These awards were among 46 Samuel B. Spencer Journalism Awards presented. The “Sammy” awards recognize the best of Dolan Media’s journalism for the previous year. Privately held Dolan Media Co., based in Minneapolis, is the parent company of the Arizona Capitol Times and Arizona News Service. Its business information division has two groups, business publishing and law publishing. Its professional services division is the nation’s largest provider of appellate services and the nation’s leading default services provider, both serving the legal profession.