Announcing the 2021, 2022 Rookie of the Year Winners
Editor's note: Ryleigh Norgrove's Honorable Mention has since been revoked by the board, after an investigation revealed several acts of plagiarism during her tenure at The Chronicle.
Every year SPJ Oregon chooses a Rookie of the Year, an award that honors a journalist who has excelled in their first year. We received so many strong candidates, so deciding the 2021 and 2022 winners wasn't easy.
In this year's announcement, we're sharing the words of the people who know these reporters so well: the peers and supervisors who wrote letters of recommendation for them.
2021
The 2021 Rookie of the Year is Sophie Peel. Peel is the city hall and politics reporter for Willamette Week (and we all may know her for her recent reporting that led to the resignation of Secretary of State Shemia Fagan).
"In these days of shrinking newsrooms and deepening partisanship, Sophie’s commitment to telling uncomfortable truths and to the humanity of her subjects gives me reason to hope for the future of our profession," said editor Aaron Mesh.
The runner up for the 2021 Rookie of the Year is K. Rambo, the editor of Street Roots.
In 2021, Rambo worked at the Gazette Tribune/Democrat Herald and reported on Oregon State University, holding its leadership accountable for hiring of former President F. King Alexander and misinforming the public about the price tag of Reser Stadium.
"The reporting process was demanding and difficult," said Jarrid Denney, who worked with Rambo at the newspaper then. "It would not have been possible without K.’s single-minded determination to unearth the truth and hold Oregon State’s leadership accountable."
2022
“The 2022 Rookie of the Year is Piper McDaniel.
McDaniel began working at Street Roots in January 2022, becoming its first-ever investigative reporter.
"Within days, Piper was contributing in-depth stories examining tenant’s unions, labor laws and lax environmental regulations on the Oregon Coast," said K. Rambo, who is now Street Roots's editor. "As 2022 went on, investigations into evictions, prison deaths, housing production and homelessness — all sourced primarily from public records — became her calling card."
The 2022 runner up is public safety and diversity, equity and inclusion reporter Austin De Dios of the Oregonian/OregonLive. In his first seven months on the job, he reported on the disproportionate effect of heat waves on mobile home residents, profiled the first Laotian judge in the U.S. — and more — while juggling daily stories about wildfire threats and crime.
"He is a valuable part of the team at the Oregonian/OregonLive, and this year he has continued to shine," deputy editor Beth Slovic said.
SPJ Oregon also wants to recognize three other finalists for the 2022 Rookie of the Year: photojournalist Kylie Graham of the Democrat-Herald in Albany, as well as reporters Ryleigh Norgrove and Pierre Weill, both of the Chronicle, a weekly newspaper that serves Creswell, Springfield and Cottage Grove.
Graham's editor, Penny Rosenberg, said that she's been "an incredible asset" to the newsroom, and that, "If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then I hope (her pictures) show better than I can describe Kylie's contribution to the newsroom and in journalism in general."
Chronicle owner and publisher Noel Nash shared high praise about Norgrove. "I served as the vice president of the Stats and Information Group at ESPN/Disney for a decade and had the distinct pleasure of interviewing and hiring many high performers. None were any more impressive than Ryleigh."
About Weill, Chronicle editor Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller said, "Readers love Pierre, and subscriptions frequently come rolling in tandem with a comment about Pierre’s sports coverage being a catalyst for subscribing.”