Leaf-Chronicle, Tennessean, Southern Standard take top newspaper awards from TPA

From the TPA press release:

The Leaf-Chronicle also earned the most first-place honors with eight. It won for make-up and appearance, local features, best personal humor column, best spot news story, best education reporting, investigative reporting, public service and best sports photograph.

Scene's Woods is finalist for national honor

The Nashville Scene's Jeff Woods is a finalist for the new public service category in the 2008 AltWeekly Awards. The prize "recognizes the impact that stories and series done by member publications have had on their communities." He'll compete in a group with the Fort Worth Weekly, the Jackson Free Press, and the Weekly Alibi.

Scene Editor Liz Garrigan lauded Woods' work as "kicking tail":

In fact, I named the package of pieces "Mayor Bubba Smackdown," and we argued to the judges that the Nashville Scene provided a public service to Nashvillians by reporting and editorializing over several months' time that Bob Clement was far from the best choice to run this $1.8 billion major American city. An independent panel of judges apparently agrees, though the best we can hope for is probably third place as these types of journalism awards typically go to papers discovering that corporations are poisoning poor people, not to grumpy, unshaven wretches singularly obsessed with picking on political hacks desperately in search of power.