Awards and honors
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ByJoeCapozzi.com placed second in the national 2024 Society for Features Journalism competition for the story "The Bicyclist and the Bridgetender: The happy life, tragic death and lasting legacy of Carol Wright."
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From the judges:
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"The top entries in this category were all superb. The decision on first/second/third was sort of agonizing...
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"Within a few paragraphs, the reader comes to understand the end of this story. It's a tribute to the writer that he sustains and nurtures our interest for 10,000 words and makes us yearn for a very different outcome. You can't read "The Bicyclist and the Bridgetender" and not wish you'd lived next door to Carol Wright."
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Thanks to Joel Engelhardt for editing this story.
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ByJoeCapozzi.com won four first-place awards in the Florida Press Club's 2022 Excellence in Journalism Competition, announced Jan. 14, 2023.
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Serious Feature Writing
Saluting Deputy Douglas: Slain lawmen gets full honors 100 years later
‘We are not on vacation here’: Ukrainian refugees in Palm Beach can’t escape
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Live from Lake Worth Beach, it’s Saturday Night Live’s first costume designer!
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Light Feature Writing
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Harry’s in tears after dive bar’s beloved stray cat struts across rainbow
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Body Heat turns 40: Extras recall how Lake Worth sizzled during making of
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Extreme makeover masterpiece: Artists feel right at home in newest Lake
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Sports Feature Writing
The ‘freaking miracle’ of the iconic World Series photo that nearly wasn’t
Pillow fight Club! MMA pugilists pound with pillows, not fists
Gil Hodges finally joining baseball’s elite 50 years after tragic death in West
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Travel and Tourism Writing
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Messin’ with Sasquatch: Skunk Ape ‘godfather’ howling mad over Florida
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‘Fakahatchee Hilton’ a wilderness getaway worth checking out, even if you
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Tourism leaders have tunnel vision for downtown West Palm Beach
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Special thanks to Joel Engelhardt for editing these stories.
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And now, please allow us a brief moment to toot our horns.
Proud to announce that this local independent news website, launched in early 2021, was among the Florida media outlets to receive honors at the Society For Professional Journalism’s annual Sunshine State Awards competition.
ByJoeCapozzi.com took third place in the community news category for a series of three exclusive stories about news events in central Palm Beach County.
The honored entries: The area’s last mom-and-pop hardware store closing its doors after 82 years; more than a dozen people testing positive for COVID-19 after attending a Tony Robbins event where organizers ignored county mask regulations; and a secret move by neighboring town’s mayor to advance controversial plans for boat ramp in a Lake Worth Beach public park.
Special thanks to Joel Engelhardt for his deft editing of these stories.
Congratulations to Community News category first-place winner Katie Kustura of the Daytona Beach News-Journal and second-place winner Jesse Mendoza of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The results were announced Aug. 27, 2022.
We’re happy to receive the recognition considering we started our website from scratch with no financial backing, fueled by a passion for storytelling about events in our community.
Please check our website. And if you enjoy the stories, please consider making a contribution to ByJoeCapozzi.com by clicking the link in the upper-right corner of the banner on our home page.
ABOUT JOE
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning newspaper reporter based in Lake Worth Beach, Florida.
For more than 30 years at The Palm Beach Post, Joe covered the opioid scourge, hurricanes, the birth of the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and more. Maybe you saw the video he shot in 2016 of a Burmese python wrestling an alligator in Big Cypress National Preserve. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020.
Today Joe is an independent journalist and storyteller, delivering local stories you want to read about interesting people, cool places to visit and happenings around town. No Hype. No Clickbait. Just good stories.
When he's not writing, he's either exploring the Everglades or downloading photos on Instagram, like the one you see behind this sentence, taken at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.
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News tips and story ideas are welcomed. Give him a shout!
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