Pittsburgh City Paper received two Golden Quill awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania's 2020 annual awards ceremony Thursday evening, including the winner of Excellence in Written Journalism, Daily for Columns/Blogs for contributing writer Tereneh Idia's column "Voices."

"These columns focus on the issues of justice for people who don't have the same level of influence as the writer does," said local media personality Susan Brozek Scott, the master of ceremonies for the evening's virtual event, which aired online and on local cable channel PCTV because of the coronavirus pandemic. "From children protesters to Black women, she addresses uncomfortable truths without letting the readers off the hook."

This marks the second year in a row for Idia receiving the prestigious award. "Worst place to be you" is one of this year's award-winning columns which earned her the recognition.

Also winning a Golden Quill for the second year in a row is Pittsburgh City Paper photographer Jared Wickerham who received the 2020 award for Excellence in visual Craft Achievement-Sports Photo for his photograph of Pittsburgh Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster.

"Judges said, 'hands down the best entry in the category.' Great anticipation of the action and perfect timing," said Brozek Scott of Wickerham's photo when announcing his award.

Other Pittsburgh City Paper Golden Quill finalists included Wickerham's photo of Summer Lee for Excellence in Visual Craft Achievement-Personality Profile Photo; Wickerham's photo of "Barron's Entrance" for Excellence in Visual Craft Achievement-Sports Photo; and, Hannah Lynn's "Port in a Storm" for Excellence in Written Journalism, Daily-Traditional Feature.

•  Best Local Farm
•  Best Tanning Salon
•  Best Children's Party Entertainer
•  Best Hummus

Last week when we announced the launch of this year's readers' poll, we asked readers for suggestions on 10 new reader-submitted categories. Above are the final selections, which are now open for nominations, along with the 255 previous categories, until Wed., July 22.

Once the nominations portion of the poll closes, Pittsburgh City Paper staff will sift through the nominations and disqualify any that we discover to have posted harmful defamatory racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, or transphobic commentary on social media or elsewhere, as stated last week in our new elimination policy.

Then, the submissions that have gotten the most nominations in each category will move on to the final voting round on Wed., Aug. 5.

Nominate your favorites today at: https://citypaper.secondstreetapp.com/Best-of-PGH-2020/

Last month, after posting a news story about a public official who is trans on Pittsburgh City Paper's official Facebook page, our feed was soon filled with transphobic comments. Dozens of them in a short time span.

When hateful comments appear on our website or social media pages, we do our best to monitor and delete them. We also alert readers of our policy against hate speech, then block people's pages who ignore our warnings.

After June's transphobic comments, which were the worst examples of hate speech on our platforms we have seen in recent times, we added a long list of filters to our Facebook page moderation settings, where you can block posts or comments containing certain words or phrases. Still, more hateful comments continued to make their way through our page, despite our filters, which meant if we weren't monitoring our page 24/7, offensive posts could remain on our page for hours at a time.

Today, City Paper's management team — which includes myself (editor in chief Lisa Cunningham), ad director Jasmine Hughes, and our director of operations Kevin Shepherd — have made the decision to turn off all comments on pghcitypaper.com.

This decision comes in light of the difficult decision of company-wide furloughs and cutbacks on Friday, including three editorial staffers. This decision is made based on the fact that we no longer have the staff to monitor comments on our website. We would rather disable comments entirely than risk having even one transphobic, racist, or hateful comment appear on our site.

The past few months have been some of the hardest in my 20+ years at Pittsburgh City Paper, with periods of uncertainties, watching our small staff of under 20 full-time employees work their asses off to keep our publication going during a pandemic.

Today was without a doubt the hardest.

Just yesterday, Millvale Music Festival — the last large Pittsburgh music fest to have a date still listed on this year's calendar — finally announced it was postponing to 2021. This morning, 61 new confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 were reported in Allegheny County. And this afternoon, months after launching a membership campaign, after working day and night to bring you more stories than we've ever put out before, after putting out new products as way of trying to generate additional funds we lost because of events and businesses closing their doors and discontinuing advertising, Pittsburgh City Paper faced a day we've been trying to avoid since the pandemic first began, a day none of us ever wanted to see.

Today, we had to bring company-wide cuts in order to ensure that our paper survives post-COVID. The hits are devastating, and they will be noticeable. For the most part, though, we are optimistic they will largely be temporary.

There's no denying it. Our editorial furloughs are huge.

They include managing editor Alex Gordon and senior arts writer Amanda Waltz, and I honestly don't know how we're going to survive the next month without them.

Alex is the main copy editor on almost all of our stories, and our content is going to suffer immensely without him here. I'm very worried errors are going to slip by. I'm worried weaker stories are going to pass by without him. Actually, I know weaker stories are going to get posted without him. He's an incredible story editor and story teller. His own story on the Pittsburgh Muslim community celebrating Ramadan during coronavirus is still one of my personal favorites from the last few months. He's funny as hell, too. God, writing this fucking sucks, man.

As our senior arts writer, Amanda hasn't been able to write about the arts and culture scene nearly as much as she would have liked to over the past few months, but just this week, she was able to preview an exhibit at the Heinz History Center. She's also done such an amazing job switching gears to covering news stories like writing about a local nail salon accused of racist remarks, and she just wrote a heartwarming tribute in memory of her friend, Jeffrey "Boosie" Bolden, a literary figure highly loved in Pittsburgh who passed away earlier this week.


I'm writing all this out to ask you, readers, to help me make sure Alex, Amanda, and the rest of our furloughed staff come back ASAP. I'm pretty much begging you to keep reading. Keep supporting us. I'm asking you to please forgive us a little over the next month for our inevitable spelling errors that slip through, and to let us know if you notice a problem so we can fix it as quickly as we can.

All of these furloughs were based only on financial reasons, and not for any of these folks' performances. These are talented employees who we want to bring back as soon as we can, and our remaining staff is going to work as hard as we possibly can to make sure we don't skip a beat in our coverage to make sure that we're still bringing you great issues and online stories because now we're fighting even harder for them too.

And if you know anyone with big foundation money or deep pockets ready to buy some ads, CALL US CALL US CALL US CALL US.
Other changes:
• We also had to make the really difficult decision to layoff our Digital Media Manager, Josh Oswald who in addition to his web maintenance and social media duties, also wrote the hilarious column Just Jaggin.

• Lisa Cunningham, editor in chief (that's me); Jasmine Hughes, Director of Advertising; and Kevin Shepherd, Director of Operations, will all be taking an unpaid week's vacation in July, and each will be taking a pay cut.

• While we remain committed to continuing to bring readers a weekly print product, our page counts will begin to shrink to 16 pages starting with our July 1 issue unless we can sell more advertising. (If you are a business who needs advertising, we're getting more positive feedback than ever from readers, I swear. But we need your ad dollars to keep going. We are not pay to play, so no — I will not write about your business if you place an ad, but our ad director Jasmine Hughes is amazing, and she will take care of you. Email her! [email protected])

• We are asking anyone who is able to continue to support us in the following ways:

- Consider becoming a member: Pittsburgh City Paper's Membership Campaign (It includes perks like a free T-shirt and a photo print from our photographer, but some members have asked us if requesting no perks would save us money and it actually does. So if you become a member and would like to request no perks, please email [email protected] because to be perfectly honest, any little bit helps us right now.)

- Purchase Pittsburgh Kitchens J'eet Jet? Cookbook (half of proceeds go to 412 Food Rescue)

- Purchase Pittsburgh City Paper's Over-the-Top Completely Ridiculous Yinzerffic Coloring Book (half of proceeds get split evenly between the 35 local artists who illustrated the artwork inside the coloring book)

- Purchase a Woke Commie Rag T-shirt (proceeds benefit both City Paper and local print shop CommonWealth Press)

- Purchase a 1-Year Subscription to Pittsburgh City Paper for $250

- Purchase a 6-Month Subscription to Pittsburgh City Paper for $150

- Purchase a 6-Week Subscription to Pittsburgh City Paper for $32

Thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts for your continued support, but I cannot stress this enough. In addition to people supporting our editorial product by reading us, we also need financial support and our door (email, phones, pockets) are open for ideas.

It's Best of Pittsburgh time, baby!

If you're rolling your eyes a bit, hear me out. You think these things are rigged, right? You think advertising controls the winners? You're tired of the same people winning every year? Or, you've just seen too many of these, and you're bored with them?

I've been working at Pittsburgh City Paper since 1997. This is my 23RD STRAIGHT YEAR OF THESE THINGS, people! So believe me when I say we've done everything we possibly can to bring new life to our poll this year to bring some energy, and I gotta be honest. I'm kinda psyched.

This is your issue, the one issue of the year we get to give control of the content to our readers, and we've tried really hard to make this year's poll more inclusive than ever to help ensure that more people and communities feel welcomed and represented in our poll.


Here are some of the changes we've made this year:

New elimination policy:

Never one to miss a good social media trend, we jumped on the bandwagon last month and created our own "Pick Your Pittsburgh Quarantine House" meme that gave us some good laughs:

You can only pick one. Choose wisely. pic.twitter.com/rJRbYwdqYk

— Pittsburgh City Paper (@PGHCityPaper) April 13, 2020

But now a month has passed, and we're still haunted by readers telling us their favorites weren't included in our original list. Since we're still in the yellow phase and a lot of us are still stuck at home, we thought we might as well continue the fun. It's time to pick your own quarantine house! It's this week's #CPQuestionOfTheWeek.

Yes, most of Western Pennsylvania is now in the yellow phase, and Beaver County is about to join us, but that doesn't mean life has returned to normal. We're still social distancing. We're still wearing masks. And we still can't return to life as we once knew it. So what does everyone miss the most about life before COVID-19? We reached out to our readers on social media and asked for our #CPQuestionOfTheWeek:

With most of the department working from home these days, our editorial Slack channel has been filled with our staff sharing all sorts of odd quirks we've picked up during quarantine.

Amanda Waltz has developed an obsession for looking at luggage online, even though she's not going anywhere. Hannah Lynn has found herself browsing apartment listings, even though she's not moving. And me? As the solo editorial person still coming into the office during the pandemic, I've taken to raiding everyone else's desks for snacks left behind, even though I'm not hungry. (Thanks for the leftover Girl Scout cookies, friends!)

We reached out to our readers on social media to see if they too have picked up any new quirks for our new weekly series, #CPQuestionOfTheWeek:


"I researched 'cat language' and am trying to communicate with my furbaby on a new level."
— Becky Klink on Facebook

It's a hotly contested question, being debated by folks all over the country: When is too soon to ease COVID-19 restrictions? Last week, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that Allegheny County was not one of the 24 counties in Pennsylvania allowed to reopen this week, despite the expectation from many that Pittsburgh's Stay at Home Order phase would be eased to the Aggressive Mitigation phase. Some took to social media to express their relief, fearing for public health safety if restrictions were lifted, while others, many fearing lost income from businesses still unable to open, expressed their frustrations.

We reached out to our readers on social media for the second installment of our new weekly series, #CPQuestionOfTheWeek:

Do you think Pittsburgh is ready to reopen?

— Amy Brunner on Facebook

"Absolutely! If folks dont feel safe they can stay home but business needs to carry on!"
— Instagram.com/rachelleparksbonato

"If I felt people would look after not only their own health, safety and interests but also the health, safety and interests of others, yes. But too many don't. If we put others before ourselves, we could. Too many are fueled by anger and fear, not love."
— Sam On Yavin IV on Twitter

"Yes based on the data based on available hospitals beds and ventilator available. We did our job we flatten the surge. Now they need to do their job and reopen us."
— Laurie Christy on Facebook

Our favorite answer of the week:

Thank goodness for takeout.

Last week, Pittsburgh City Paper brought you 20 Reasons to Keep Smiling, our list of Pittsburgh people, events, and businesses that are bringing us joy despite the pandemic. This week, we wanted to continue to lift readers' spirits by giving them a chance to spread some happiness.

We reached out to our readers on social media for the first installment of our new weekly series, #CPQuestionOfTheWeek:

What is something that has recently brought you joy?

Here are our favorite answers:

 "Being able to practice outside on my aerial rig. 💖🎪🌞"
— Iron City Circus Art performer Abby Richert

"I ordered some perfume that reminded me of a specific time in my life and it took me right back. I've been wearing it when I walk on the bike trail, pretending I'm somewhere else. Maybe not the healthiest coping mechanism but it's still something that brings me joy."
— instagram.com/nightmareasachild

"Watching the garbage truck pick up and dump my bin with its robotic arm."
— Pittsburgh artist Nathan Mazur

"Getting stuff in the mail."
— instagram.com/mem2243

"My friends and I have been playing excellent hidden role/social deduction game over Zoom similar to Werewolf/Mafia. It's gotten a bit heated occasionally, but overall it's been a lot of fun."
— Matthew Frankwitt

"Looking at the stained glass and oriel windows on the cool old houses in Friendship."
—The Law Offices of Hall & Copetas

"Keeping in touch with my family and friends. 🙏❤️"
— instagram.com/mrsmax62688

"Running and gardening."
— instagram.com/runallthestreets

And the best answer of the week?

"The thrill and excitement of trying a different setting on my electric toothbrush. The best two minutes of my week."
— Eve Alden