...or at least they win more awards.

A full page ad in today's The Hill newspaper states (bold lettering and capitalization repeated as it appears in the paper):

The Hill Newspaper won NINE awards at the 2008 Society of Professional Journalists awards dinner. That's three times as many as the other two congressional newspapers combined.

An internal WaPo staff announcement, from AME/financial Sandy Sugawara:

Congratulations to David Cho, who won the Best of Knight-Bagehot Business Journalism Award, which rewards the best work produced by an alumni of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship. David won for his fabulous coverage of the credit crisis.

The Society of Professional Journalists will honor Boston University Professor Caryl Rivers with the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement. Rivers is a nationally-known author, journalist, columnist and media critic.

The Society has also named the late Tim Russert a Fellow of the Society.

From Nieman Watchdog:

John Walcott, Washington bureau chief of the McClatchy Co, is the first recipient of the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. Walcott is being honored for leading his team of reporters in their probing, skeptical coverage of events during the run-up to the Iraq war at a time when most U.S. news organizations failed to question the motives and rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Earlier on FishbowlDC: "Allen Wins Hume Award" / "Another National Press Club Award Winner" / "More NPC Award Winners"

Winners include Alan Miller, Myron Levin, Brian Grow, Keith Epstein, Robert Berner, Rachel Smolkin, Lowell Bergman, David Folkenflik, Craig Silverman, Bill Walsh, Todd Bensman, David Brancaccio, Simon Marks, Kristin McHugh, Keith Porter, Jocelyn Ford, Michael Burnham, Ben Elgin, Lucette Lagnado, Michael Lewis, Bill Shein, Tim Darrah, Christopher Schnaars, Brad Woodard, William McGee and Toni Locy.

The National Press Foundation has named its 2008-9 Paul Miller Fellows. "The Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship is a free professional development opportunity for Washington-based reporters, especially those who work for out-of-town organizations."

They are:

Erika Bolstad; McClatchy
Emily Cadei; CQ Moneyline
Matt Canham; Salt Lake Tribune
Charlene Carter; Roll Call (now with CongressNow)
Keith Chu; WesCom News Service
Jessica Coomes; Newhouse News Service
Lindsey Ellerson; ABC News
Jason Embry; Austin American Statesman
Matthew Jaffe; ABC News
Ruth Mantell; MarketWatch
Joseph Marks; Grand Forks Herald
Dave Michaels; Dallas Morning News
David Nitkin; Baltimore Sun
Anindita Ramaswamy; Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Jim Randle; Voice of America
Josh Rogin; CQ
Sara Sciammacco; Public Radio
Wendy Sefsaf; New America Media
Herman Wang; Chattanooga Times Free Press
Isaac Wolf; Scripps Howard

Earlier on FishbowlDC: "More NPC Award Winners" and "Allen Wins Hume Award."

We've learned that Eartha Jane Melzer, a reporter for the online news site, the Michigan Messenger, has won an honorable mention for the Sandy Hume award. The Michigan Messenger is part of a national online news network sponsored by the Center for Independent Media here in Washington. Eartha was honored for her investigative reporting on Barret Moore, the founder of private security firm in northern Michigan who lied about his military service and hid his criminal record while seeking state assistance to establish his business.

Her reporting culminated in this scoop, which also ran locally in the Washington Independent.

Although an official announcement is not expected until next week, FishbowlDC recently reported that CQ's Jonathan Allen had won this year's Sandy Hume Memorial Award.

Now, FishbowlDC has learned a few more National Press Club award winners.

The Washington Correspondence award will go to McClatchy's Chris Adams for "VA Mental Health Crisis," a series on mental health care for veterans of the VA system. An honorable mention goes to McClatchy's Mike Doyle.

The Goldstein Regional Reporting Award will go to The Times-Picayune's Bill Walsh, for his profile of Rep. William Jefferson. An honorable mention goes to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Philip Dine.

Via Romenesko, we learn that former Washington City Paper staffer Dave Jamieson and the New York Times' Mark Mazzetti have picked up Livingtston Awards. The awards honor journalists under 35 for their local, national and international reporting.

The City Paper toasts Jamieson here.

We hear that CQ's Jonathan Allen (part-time actor and unsafe driver) has won this year's National Press Club Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. Allen won for a package of stories on congressional earmarking called "Manifest Disparity," which used public data to detail how political considerations trump merit and need in the awarding of earmarks. The stories appeared in the Oct. 1, 2007 edition of CQ Weekly magazine.

The award is for reporters who are 34 or younger and is named in memory of Sandy Hume, the reporter for The Hill newspaper who broke news about the aborted coup attempt against House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. It will be given along with other awards at a National Press Club dinner July 14.

Professional award winner Brody Mullins (WSJ) earned an honorable mention.