Today wins most SPJ awards among CT magazines
Updated: Oct 14
• 68 Awards in 6 Years for Today Publishing
Special to Today Magazine
See below for an awards list by category with links to the award-winning content
Today Magazine has received 28 awards this year from the Society of Professional Journalists — 10 first-place, 13 second-place and five third-place. Other state magazines collectively received 12 awards, with Connecticut Magazine receiving the second-most: five, all first-place awards.
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is widely considered the nation's foremost journalism organization, and the Connecticut SPJ Chapter presents awards annually through the Excellence in Journalism Contest. The 2024 contest celebrates media excellence during the 2023 calendar year.
Today Publishing — producer of the monthly Today Magazine and the digital news site Today Online — has garnered 68 awards in six years. This young media outlet debuted its first publication in October 2018, launching Canton Today Magazine as a print-and-digital monthly that covered only Canton, naturally. In July 2019, a rebrand established Today Magazine, so this July is the rebranded publication's fifth anniversary.
Currently, Today Magazine covers the five core Farmington Valley towns — while also recording Connecticut's underreported upside via community news that matters nationwide. Today defines the Valley towns as follows: Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury. Today Magazine has been a digital-exclusive publication since January 2021 because the COVID shutdown and other factors impacted the advertising revenue that supported a print product.
Connecticut Magazine — perhaps the most well-known publication in the Constitution State — was founded in 1971. Compared with this veteran 50-something media behemoth, Today Magazine is a mere kindergarten student. 2024 is the first year that Today has won the most awards in the Connecticut SPJ's Magazine Division. Last year, Today's 16 awards were second-most to Connecticut Magazine's 23.
This year, the math is straightforward: Today Magazine has garnered more than twice as many awards as all other state magazines combined — to be more mathematically precise, Today has eclipsed other Connecticut mags by a ratio of 2.3 to 1.
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
Are Today’s 28 awards in 2024 the most in a single year for a magazine in SPJ history? The answer is unknown because the Connecticut SPJ hasn't tracked such historical information, according to an SPJ spokesperson. The same applies to the question of the most awards for a nascent publication in its first six years.
"To say I'm surprised by this award news is an understatement," says Today Magazine editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert. "More accurately, I'm shocked and dumbfounded — pleasantly shocked, I suppose."
He won 18 awards this year — seven first-place, eight second-place and three third-place.
"My hope was to approach Connecticut Magazine's total in this year's contest," says Deckert, who also serves as Today’s publisher. "But there's no way I expected Today Magazine to surpass Connecticut Magazine and the other state magazines in this manner."
FIRST-PLACE AWARDS GALORE
Besides Deckert, 13 Today Magazine contributors won awards in this year's Connecticut SPJ contest, including six who received first-place prizes — Stuart Abrams, Sylvia Cancela, Christopher DeFrancesco, Sarah Klepack, Lillian Peng and Wendy Rosenberg.
Abrams, a social studies teacher, won two first-place awards and a second-place. He began teaching at Avon High School in 1994, and was honored in 2010 as Avon's district-wide Teacher of the Year. For two-plus decades he has taught an innovative college-level course called Genocide and Human Behavior.
Cancela won a first-place and second-place award. A professional public relations consultant, she is the founder and owner of Canton-based Red Barn Communication. She was previously the public relations officer for the Canton Fire & EMS Department, and she currently serves as the chair of the Canton Community Health Fund.
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
DeFrancesco also received a first-place and second-place award. He is a communications professional at Farmington-based UConn Health, and was formerly an award-winning reporter and anchor with WTIC Radio NewsTalk 1080. Last year he likewise won a first-place SPJ award with Today Magazine.
Klepack won a first-place and third-place award for a story she wrote in collaboration with Deckert, who contributed substantially to her bylined report. She is a 2024 Endicott College graduate with a major in communications and a minor in digital journalism, and she has had internships at Firelight Media and Connecticut by the Numbers.
Lillian Peng likewise received a first-place and third-place award. A 2024 graduate of Avon High School, she has been a contract actress at the Hartford Stage and a project intern at The Storytelling Strategist. She also received an Ensign-Darling Vocal Fellowship at The Bushnell.
Rosenberg garnered a first-place and second-place award. A Canton resident, she has been Today Magazine's featured wildlife photographer for five-plus years. Rosenberg has displayed her work at numerous exhibits across the Farmington Valley. She has now won five SPJ awards with Today in addition to her multiple photography honors from various organizations.
FURTHER HONORS
Seven other Today Magazine contributors won SPJ awards this year — Matthew Broderick, Shayaan Khan, Chloe Kieper, Tom Kutz, Bebeann Oh, Penny Phillips and Aliyana White.
Broderick won a second-place award for a double-byline story he wrote with Deckert — a journalism occurrence whereby two people contribute substantially to the reporting and/or writing of a single story and therefore are both credited with a byline. A longtime Simsbury resident, Broderick has freelanced frequently for magazines statewide and formerly served as the VP of development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford. He penned a solo Today cover story in February 2020 about the nonprofit's innovative Men on a Mission program.
Khan likewise received a second-place award. A soon-to-be freshman at Simsbury High, he was in eighth grade when his award-winning story was published. As a fourth-grader and fifth-grader, he also contributed cogent stories to Today Publishing about his experience of COVID.
Is Shayaan Khan the youngest award-winner ever in the SPJ’s Excellence in Journalism Contest? The likely answer is yes — but the definitive answer is unknown because the Connecticut SPJ hasn’t tracked the ages of contestants or award recipients.
Kieper received a second-place award for a double-byline story she wrote with Deckert. She is a student at the University of Connecticut majoring in political science and government. A 2023 graduate of Avon High School, Kieper served as a Today Magazine intern and won a first-place SPJ award in 2023. Further, she received the 2023 Today Magazine Bart + Ann Memorial Scholarship via Avon Dollars for Scholars.
Kutz won a third-place award. A Canton-based photographer and videographer, he has served thousands of companies in a career that spans 35-plus years.
Bebeann Oh garnered a second-place award. An artist and writer, she is a 2024 graduate of Avon High School. She painted a portrait of Holocaust survivor Abby Weiner that was unveiled at the April 2023 dedication of a special library at Avon High in his honor.
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
Phillips, a longtime Canton resident, also won a second-place award. She is the director of marketing and communications at Canton-based Favarh, a nonprofit that serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities aka IDD.
Aliyana White likewise received a second-place award. She is a soon-to-be senior at Avon High, and has been a member of the school's UNICEF and Amnesty International club — Abrams is the club's adviser.
So four Avon High School students or graduates have won awards in this year's SPJ contest. Moreover, for four straight years an Avon High student has won a first-place award as a Today Magazine contributing writer. Overall, six Avon students/graduates have received SPJ honors in the past four years — three served as interns with Today via Avon High's distinctive Achieve Internship Program.
"I’m so psyched that our student writers continue to win awards,” says Deckert, who served as an English and journalism teacher before segueing into the media full-time. “Winning an SPJ award is a great honor for a professional journalist. For younger writers, wow, it's a fantastic accolade — it's something they can include on a resumé for the rest of their career."
Counting his 18 awards this year, Deckert has won 43 SPJ awards overall, including 15 first-place prizes — 41 have come since he started Today Publishing, and the other two were from his time with the Journal Register Company. He sounds a complementary cautionary note about the honors phenomenon.
"Recognition can cut both ways," Deckert observes. "An award can be a tremendous encouragement, like getting an A-plus from a teacher or professor — but an award can also lead to hubris and complacency. I hope and pray all of Today Magazine's award-winners can appreciate the upside — and grow in healthy confidence and healthy humility — and avoid the downside like the plague."
Founded in 1909, the Society of Professional Journalists "is the nation's most broad-based journalism organization," according to the SPJ website. The Connecticut SPJ Chapter was established in 1966. +
• See below for a short history of Today Publishing and a brief publisher's bio
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LIST OF TODAY MAGAZINE’S AWARDS
Society of Professional Journalists
Excellence in Journalism Contest
Connecticut SPJ Chapter • Magazine Division
• Here’s the rundown of Today Magazine’s 28 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists — 10 first-place, 13 second-place and five third-place — the 2024 contest commends journalism excellence during 2023.
• Awards are listed in alphabetical order by category and by the award-winner’s last name, from first-place to third-place — the SPJ allows a story to be entered twice, and a few of Today's contest entries have won two awards.
FIRST PLACE — 10 AWARDS
Business — First Place
• Christopher DeFrancesco • Today Magazine
Diversity Coverage — First Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Education — First Place
• Stuart Abrams • Today Magazine
Headlines — First Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
– Volunteer Vitality: Valley Volunteers Give Back While Paying Forward
– Search and Rescue: Favarh’s Project Search Makes Job Hunt Inclusive
– Post-Holocaust Hope: Avon High School Honors Shoah Survivor
Health — First Place
• Sylvia Cancela • Today Magazine
Government — First Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Investigative — First Place
• Sarah Klepack and Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Local Reporting — First Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Page 1 Layout — First Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Reporting Series — First Place
• Stuart Abrams, Bruce Deckert, Lillian Peng, Wendy Rosenberg • Today Magazine
SECOND PLACE — 13 AWARDS
Arts & Entertainment — Second Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Diversity Coverage — Second Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Education — Second Place
• Matthew Broderick and Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Feature Photo — Second Place
• Wendy Rosenberg • Today Magazine
Feature Story — Second Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
General Column — Second Place
• Shayaan Khan • Today Magazine
Health — Second Place
• Chloe Kieper and Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
In-Depth — Second Place
• Christopher DeFrancesco • Today Magazine
Investigative — Second Place
• Sylvia Cancela • Today Magazine
Local Reporting — Second Place
• Penny Phillips • Today Magazine
Page 1 Layout — Second Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Religion — Second Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Reporting Series — Second Place
• Stuart Abrams, Bruce Deckert, Bebeann Oh, Aliyana White • Today Magazine
THIRD PLACE — 5 AWARDS
Arts & Entertainment — Third Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Diversity Coverage — Third Place
• Lillian Peng • Today Magazine
Education — Third Place
• Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
Feature Photo — Third Place
• Tom Kutz • Today Magazine
In-Depth — Third Place
• Sarah Klepack and Bruce Deckert • Today Magazine
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TODAY HISTORY + FUN FACTS
Did you know that when Today Publishing premiered in 2018, our news focus was on only one Farmington Valley town? Here's a rundown of Today Publishing history, from roots to awards to the publisher's bio and his ESPN connection:
SHORT TODAY HISTORY
• Publisher and editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert organized BWD Publishing LLC in January 2018 and debuted its initial publication, Canton Today Magazine, in October 2018 — Today Publishing is the DBA name (doing business as) of BWD Publishing.
• Canton Today was a print-and-digital monthly that focused solely on Canton and its attendant village Collinsville — fast-forwarding to the present day, Today Magazine is a digital-exclusive monthly that covers the Farmington Valley and beyond — the five core towns of Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury.
• In April 2019, Today Publishing expanded to cover Avon and Simsbury as well as Canton via three town publications — and thus produced Avon Today, Canton Today and Simsbury Today magazines in April, May and June of 2019 — these were print-and-digital monthlies.
• In July 2019, those three town-specific publications consolidated and Today Publishing introduced the tri-town-focused Today Magazine — so this July marks the rebranded magazine's fifth anniversary.
• Also in July 2019 — Today Publishing launched Today Magazine Online, our dedicated digital news site that reaches the far-flung global Internet realm across the Farmington Valley, throughout Connecticut and around the world — in 2021, Today Magazine Online rebranded and streamlined as Today Online.
• In July 2020, Today Magazine again expanded its specific community-focused coverage area to include Farmington and Granby, thus covering the entire Farmington Valley — the timing coincided with the reopening of many businesses in Connecticut after the state's COVID shutdown in March 2020.
• The all-Valley version of Today Magazine operated as a print-and-digital monthly publication until December 2020 — in January 2021, Today Magazine became digital-exclusive after ad revenue dried up throughout COVID’s first year.
• In the present day, Today Magazine continues to cover the heart of the Farmington Valley and beyond via community news that matters nationwide, aiming to record Connecticut's underreported upside.
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
AWARDS RUNDOWN
• In the 2019 Connecticut SPJ contest, Today Publishing won one award for the cover story in its October 2018 debut edition of Canton Today Magazine — Deckert wrote that article.
• In the 2020 contest, Today Publishing won two awards — including a first-place honor for Deckert's cover story about volunteer firefighters and the 9/11 connection — followed by nine awards in the 2021 contest, 12 awards in 2022, and 16 awards in 2023. Each annual SPJ contest recognizes media excellence in the previous calendar year.
• By the way, in the 2021 contest, Noelle Blake won Today’s only first-place SPJ prize — when she wrote the article, she was an an Avon High School student and a Today Magazine intern — that's right, in 2021 Deckert received no first-place award while an Avon High student achieved this distinction.
• With the 28 SPJ awards Today Magazine has received in 2024, the Today Publishing award haul now totals 68 overall, in six SPJ contests.
• However, Today of course hasn't been able to enter six full years of news coverage in those six annual contests — only five years and three months of coverage — because Canton Today was produced just three times before the 2019 contest, in October and November and December of 2018.
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BIO — Bruce William Deckert
Publisher + Editor-in-Chief
Bruce William Deckert is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Today Publishing and Today Magazine. He founded this mini-media outlet in 2018 after working in the journalism realm for 20-plus years.
For about 17 years, from 1999 to 2017, he served as an editor at ESPN.com and ESPN Digital Media in various roles. In October 2015 he was part of a historic workforce reduction at ESPN that made national headlines, and after his severance package concluded in April 2016, he returned to the ESPN Digital Media copy desk via a six-month contract position that was renewed twice and thus ran for 18 months through September 2017.
Deckert says he "hustled the job search as much as a human being can reasonably hustle" — yet the lone job offer he received (and accepted) post-layoff and pre-Today launch was a part-time content editor's role for a niche publication called Granby Living.
"Today Publishing was a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention venture," Deckert says. "Trust me, the day after that major ESPN layoff, Today Magazine wasn't even remotely on my radar. It wasn't like I thought: Let's see, how can I pay the bills and the mortgage — hey, I'll launch a startup media company! Not at all."
He notes that while startups can benefit from venture-capital investments or business loans or grants, and can realize profits early, startups can also struggle financially — and by conventional standards, the latter has been the case for Today Publishing, especially since the COVID shutdown and other factors impacted ad revenue.
"Yet in the midst of a significant income shortfall after COVID hit, a quasi-miracle occurred," Deckert observes. "Through a series of unexpected real estate events, I was able to sell a Cape Cod house in Simsbury and downsize to a ranch in New Hartford — and I'm now mortgage-free for the first time in my life. This of course eases the financial pressure of depending on ad revenue for housing expenses."
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
"Today Publishing was a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention venture" — Today editor Bruce Deckert
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
Deckert says this process required some fiscal maneuvering on his part, yet he affirms, "I believe in my better moments that a healthy dose of divine intervention has been a key component of this journey — if not the key component."
Before his ESPN tenure, he was a newspaper editor and reporter in Connecticut from May 1996 to December 1999 with the Journal Register Company aka JRC— including a stint with the former Imprint Newspapers group comprised of weekly papers that covered 11 towns in Greater Hartford. Four of those weeklies highlighted the Farmington Valley towns, except for Granby: the Avon News, Canton News, Farmington News and Simsbury News. The Farmington Valley Herald also published at that time under a different ownership group.
Deckert began his post-college journalism career at the Post in '96 — not the New York or Washington outfits, but the Wethersfield Post in Connecticut. The Post was part of Imprint, then based in Bristol.
When Deckert was a JRC employee, Imprint was housed in the same building as The Bristol Press — previously the weekly newspaper group was located in West Hartford. After his Imprint stint, he served at two other JRC newspapers: as a Bristol Press news editor and as editor-in-chief of The Herald Press, a joint Sunday paper of the New Britain Herald, The Middletown Press and The Bristol Press.
Serendipitously, ESPN is based in Bristol.
“My career has come full circle," he says, "from hyper-local community-focused journalism to the Worldwide Leader In Sports and back to community journalism — yet with an emphasis on topics and themes that intersect and connect with human communities statewide, nationwide and worldwide."
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
"My career has come full circle — from hyper-local community-focused journalism to the Worldwide Leader In Sports and back to community journalism — yet with an emphasis on topics and themes that intersect and connect with human communities statewide, nationwide and worldwide" — Today editor Bruce Deckert
SEO Keyword – Today Wins Most SPJ Awards
When Deckert established Today Publishing in January 2018, the fledgling media outlet was based in West Simsbury, a distinct section of Simsbury. Canton Today, the first ancestor of Today Magazine, was initially produced in October 2018.
He was a Simsbury resident for more than a quarter-century (1995-2022) before moving to New Hartford, the small town that is now the physical location of Today Publishing — the company's mailing address, however, is a Collinsville P.O. box. From 2018 to 2023 the media outlet had a West Simsbury P.O. box.
Deckert has won 43 SPJ awards overall in his career, including 15 first-place honors — 41 of those awards have arrived via Today Publishing, while the other two came during his JRC days: a first-place with Imprint and a second-place with The Bristol Press. He received no such professional recognition during his 17-year ESPN tenure.
A native of New Jersey, Deckert was born in Newark and was raised in Bloomfield and Plainfield — yes, in New Jersey, not their namesakes in Connecticut. He graduated from Gordon College (Wenham MA) and Plainfield (NJ) High School.
While in college, Deckert undertook his first professional journalism role via a six-month cooperative education (aka co-op) placement at the Salem Evening News in Massachusetts — now the Salem News — where he was the assistant to the city editor. The college co-op model is essentially a full-time paid internship.
His first journalism experience was at a New Jersey high school: He served as co-editor of the Plainfield High newspaper. Yet neither Deckert nor his school newspaper colleagues won an SPJ award as student journalists — though to be fair, they didn't have the chance to enter an SPJ contest either.
A further award observation: Deckert says he believes all human beings merit awards daily when they utilize their God-given talents for good in our local, national and global communities. +
Today Magazine covers the heart of Connecticut's Farmington Valley and beyond — Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury — via community news that matters nationwide
• 2023 Awards Story — Sweet 16: More SPJ awards for Today Magazine
• 2022 Awards Story — Today Magazine wins 12 more SPJ awards
• 2021 Awards Story — 9 more SPJ awards for Today Magazine
• Today Magazine won one SPJ award in 2019 and two in 2020 but didn't publish any news stories about the awards
Editor's Correction Note
• This news story was first published here in Today Online in July 2024, and a shorter version of this story was published in the August 2024 edition of Today Magazine.
• In those stories, the number of Today's 2024 award-winners besides editor Bruce Deckert was incorrectly reported as 12 — but one first-place award-winner had been overlooked.
• In this updated story, the number has been correctly reported — in fact, there are 13 Today award-winners besides Deckert in this year's SPJ contest.
• CT SPJ Contest Winners — announced: June 2024
• Celebrating journalism excellence in the 2023 calendar year
Source — Society of Professional Journalists: Connecticut Chapter
Congratulations to Bruce Deckert for achieving this fine award distinction for Today Magazine...Thom Turner, Simsbury