The Society of Professional Journalists announced on Tuesday that Patrick Arden’s story on New York City’s decision to use synthetic turf in parks won the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative journalism by a regional or local magazine. Arden’s story, which raised questions about the durability and testing of the city’s artificial grass, has previously been honored by the New York Community Media Alliance and American Society of Journalists and Authors. Photographer Adi Talwar and designer Anthony Smyrski share in the SPJ honor.

On Friday, the Chicago Headline Club announced that City Limits Deputy Editor Kelly Virella won a
Peter Lisagor Award for work she did at The Chicago Reporter on Taser abuse at the Jerome Combs Detention Center, an hour south of Chicago. Virella was honored for her multimedia collaboration with Chicago Reporter editor Kimbriell Kelly and WBEZ-FM’s Natalie Moore. Virella found that more than 100 inmates—a quarter of whom were restrained at the time—were shocked by Tasers over a 28-month period.