City Limits Earns Silurians Press Club Honors

City Limits received Merit Awards in environmental journalism and feature photography, and also collaborated on one of the projects that earned the top investigative reporting prize.

City Limits’ earned three honors Wednesday from the Silurians Press Club, a prestigious and now century-old organization that represents New York-area journalists. The nonprofit newsroom was recognized for its work in environmental reporting, investigative reporting and feature photography at the Silurians’ Annual Excellence in Journalism Awards.

Climate reporter Mariana Simões received the Merit Award in environmental reporting for her investigation into how fossil fuel groups are spending millions of dollars and strategically launching lawsuits to fight gas ban policies across the nation, using similar tactics, funding and legal sources. This includes an effort to kill a ban on gas hookups in new construction in New York, which the state passed in 2023 to combat climate change and reduce the use of polluting fossil fuels in homes.

In the feature photography category, photojournalist Adi Talwar was given the Merit Award for his striking images of New York City’s first mass tent shelter for immigrant families with children. The photos accompanied reporting by Daniel Parra on conditions at the facility, which the city opened late last year on national parkland along Jamaica Bay at Floyd Bennett Field. Talwar’s images capture the eerie isolation of the site, where shelter residents face long commutes to school and jobs. “It’s not the place, but where it’s located. It’s far away from everything,” one woman staying at the site told City Limits. “Literally, we are away from everything. And this cold is unbearable.”

City Limits was also recognized for its collaboration with THE CITY, Columbia Journalism Investigations and Type Investigations, which documented the New York City Department of Education’s response to the thousands of children in its schools who lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. Former City Limits reporter Liz Donovan and late journalist Fazil Khan chronicled how decades of underfunded mental health care left schools unprepared to handle the spike in needs during the pandemic. The piece was one of three projects—alongside two other investigations by THE CITY—to earn the top prize for investigative reporting.

This is the sixth time City Limits has been recognized by the Silurians, having received awards previously for reporting on conditions in supporting housing, tenants suffering from heat and hot water outages in winter, the disproportionate health issues faced by homeless New Yorkers, disparate death rates across New York City neighborhoods, and for investigations into the state’s Green Jobs program and the payday loans industry.

City Limits is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers. The newsroom’s climate reporting is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, and its homelessness coverage by Trinity Church Wall Street.

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