Erin Sheridan

Recipient of the STAR REPORTER OF THE YEAR award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2019)

Erin Sheridan
The Brownsville Herald

Judge’s Comments:

The entries in the Star Reporter of the Year Award category demonstrate that local journalism is alive and kicking it in Texas.  These outstanding reporting portfolios also made choosing one winner even more difficult. That said, Erin Sheridan of The Brownville Herald reminds us of how necessary and incredibly valuable general assignment reporters are as they handle anything thrown at them from long form investigation to light features.  Sheridan handles them all with strong leads, meaningful detail, elegant writing, national context and more.  In these days of diminished newsrooms, the talents Sheridan shows are all the more vital to local coverage.

Sheridan's main piece on the difficulty of getting an ovarian cancer patient from the border into a US hospital is both telling and heartbreaking. Her detailed examples of how the protocols for treating sick asylum seekers is comprehensive and powerful. While this was Sheridan's signature piece, I was equally impressed with her other articles. On deadline, she wrote of the local impact of the Supreme Court ruling striking down the Trump administration attempt to cancel DREAMERS.  She tells us there are an estimated 28,000 DREAMERS in the local area of the nearly 100,000 in the entire state. She gives us compelling testimony on the terror and relief that accompanied the decision.

The paper was part of the effort to open the tent asylum court and Sheridan was among the first reports to witness the proceeding. She brought us into the courtroom with this description: "Seventeen asylum seekers occupied two rows of chairs set behind a folding table and a television screen...in Courtroom B in a mobile trailer unit parked underneath the white tarps." She let us know that there were no attorneys for the asylum seekers, which wasn't surprising given that only 2% of the applicants are represented.

Perhaps most impressive to me was the light feature of a local photographer, Daniel Sanchez. It was compelling and an easy read. What was most impressive was how she avoided easy cliches after mentioning that Sanchez is a 2-year cancer survivor. The next paragraph dealt with how he wakes each day "at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise on South Padre Island."   Her portfolio ends with the economic devastation for Rio Grande Valley farmers and farmworkers from the stay in place order stemming from Covid 19.  Sheridan shows in each story why her talents are critical to every newsroom of any size. It was a delight to read her work.

C. David Kotok
Omaha World-Herald and Lincoln Journal Star reporter, retired

Judge’s Bio:
C. David Kotok retired in late 2012 after more than 35 years as one of Nebraska’s leading journalists. He is best known as a political reporter for The World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal. He interviewed every president from Gerald Ford to Obama and covered 10 national conventions. He was named one of the top political reporters “beyond the Washington Beltway.” Kotok concluded his career as an urban affairs reporter in Omaha, a war reporter in Iraq and, and finally as managing editor, running the day to day news operation of The World-Herald. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Iowa. He has been married for  51 years. David and his wife, Shane, have three grown children and four grandchildren.

To see writing from award-winning journalist Erin Sheridan, click on these story links below:

LINK to PDF
LINK to PDF 2
LINK to PDF 3
LINK to PDF 4
LINK to PDF 5
LINK to PDF 6
LINK to PDF 7
LINK to PDF 8