The Richmond Free Press has received national recognition for its commitment to the local community with the Carl Murphy Award for community service presented by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

The NNPA Fund Messenger Awards 2021 were announced virtually on June 24 and recognize excellence in reporting, photography, advertising, website and other categories by the more than 200 newspapers owned by African-Americans across the United States. Judging was based on the best work completed during the 2020 calendar year.

The Free Press also won first place for layout and design among broadsheet newspapers, with judging based on use of headlines, copy, photos and graphics and overall layout and design quality.

The Free Press received second place recognition for the Ida B. Wells Award in social and criminal justice for a front page story by freelance writer Brian Palmer on demonstrators taking the first steps to tear down racist Confederate statues in Richmond in June 2020. The Free Press also won third place recognition for the Emory O. Jackson Award in health for freelancer Nichole M. Christian’s November 2020 front page profile of Jade Jones, a nurse in VCU Medical Center’s respiratory intensive care unit working on the front lines helping patients with COVID-19.

The Carl Murphy Award, named for the fiery editor and civil rights activist who served as president and chief editor of the Afro-American Newspaper Co. from 1918 to 1967, honors the Free Press for its breadth of articles, photo packages and editorials in service to its readers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The entry included a range of articles about the pain and triumph of people, families and businesses during the pandemic; the weekly front page feature informing readers of the latest free COVID- 19 testing sites — and now vaccination sites — in the Richmond area; locations and times where parents of Richmond’s 24,000 public schools students could pick up free breakfast and lunch for their children; instructions on how to make your own COVID-19 mask, how to boost your immune system and on accessing physical and mental health care through new tele-health efforts; and photo packages of families and school valedictorians on their front porches talking about the lessons learned during the pandemic.

“The Richmond Free Press news team has once again been hailed as one of the best newspapers in the United States by the National Newspaper Publishers Association,” stated Free Press Publisher Jean Patterson Boone. “I applaud the hard work and talent that the NNPA judges recognized. The Richmond community is exceedingly fortunate to experience their work each week.”

The 2021 NNPA Fund John Russwurm Pinnacle Award for the Best of the Best in the Black Press went to the St. Louis American and Publisher Donald Suggs.