AWARDS

MIKE BERGER AWARD

“Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2003 awarded City Limits associate editor Matt Pacenza its annual Mike Berger Award for outstanding reporting on the lives of ordinary New Yorkers.

Recognizing Pacenza for the feature and news stories he wrote in 2002, Columbia’s journalism faculty noted, “Pacenza’s work stands out for its range and ambition. In the tradition of Meyer Berger, his stories bring to life seldom-heard and seldom-seen people. They also tackle large and complex ideas in ways that are refreshing, illuminating and challenging.”

The Berger Award was created in 1960 to honor Meyer “Mike” Berger, the legendary New York Times reporter whose stories often focused on the lives of ordinary New York City citizens. Previous winners included reporters from the New York Times, the Village Voice, Newsday and the Daily News.

Columbia is honoring Pacenza, 31, for his stories on housing and poverty issues, including features on the dream of a young boxer at a Bed-Stuy housing complex, the struggles of women on public assistance to make ends meet on their meager welfare checks, and the failures of the city agency that’s supposed to care for the elderly disabled and mentally ill.

THE ENLIGHTENED 50

The Community Foundation of Utah each year recognizes fifty individuals who are making a measurable – but often unsung - difference in the lives of Utahns. HEAL Utah Executive Director Matt Pacenza was a repeat winner in 2014 and 2015.

The 2015 ‘E-50’ includes individuals from all parts of Utah (from Logan to Moab) and all walks of life, who share one thing: a commitment to the common good.

This year’s winners from across Utah include public servants and elected officials, nonprofit and business leaders, scientists and artists, educators and entrepreneurs. The criteria for this recognition are:

An innovator – pioneering original and sustainable approaches to the critical issues facing our state and its people
A builder – committed to community engagement and the common good
A visionary – most likely to make a profound mark on Utah’s quality of life

NATIONAL REAL ESTATE JOURNALISM AWARDS

Congratulations to Associate Editor Matt Pacenza, who was honored for a series he wrote last fall examining the city’s $1 billion initiative to collecting default property tax debt. The National Association for Real Estate Editors not only awarded Matt the prize of “Best Magazine Report” and “Best Young Journalist” but also gave him their “Overall Individual Winner” award, for which he beat out competition from national publications like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and NBC Dateline. His tax lien sales stories, “The Lien Machine,” November 2001 and “This Sold House,” are on our website.