Best of Baltimore
Best of Baltimore 2024: News & Media
Our annual celebration of the best that Charm City has to offer.
Edited by Ron Cassie
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICAH E. WOOD
Columnist
LESLIE GRAY STREETER
A City College graduate who returned to Baltimore when The Baltimore Banner launched, Leslie Gray Streeter brings her personal perspective (she’s a widowed, single mother) and a smart, lively voice to topics ranging from race, politics, and city life to pop culture, gender, and parenting. She started her career in journalism as a reporter, covered entertainment at The Palm Beach Post, and wrote a well-received memoir several years ago, Black Widow. It’s a broad background that informs a column we didn’t know we needed until it got here.
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ARTS AND CULTURE PUB
BMOREART
Our second-favorite magazine, BmoreArt continues to inspire and evolve and remains both a must-see (the glossy quarterly publication is always full of visual surprises) and a must-read. Founded by artist and curator Cara Ober and now approaching its 10th anniversary, BmoreArt plays an indispensable role in the community with its original arts and culture reporting and writing. No other publication so comprehensively captures Baltimore’s amazing artists and vibrant creative life in all its manifestations, from art to theater, fashion, music, dance, and literature. Its weekly online “BmoreArt’s Picks” column is similarly required reading.
CULTURAL REPORT
D. WATKINS
In D. Watkins’ Salon essay, “Navigating the new sober boom, where a person’s sobriety is as unique as their fingerprint,” he reports on the budding sobriety movement while chronicling his own efforts to rein in his alcohol consumption for health reasons. A James Beard Foundation Journalism Award-winner, Watkins, one of the city’s most insightful cultural observers, drank regularly for 30 years and documents the peer pressure around alcohol in social and professional settings, but also the support from friends, family—and bartenders. The encouraging news is that more younger people are abstaining, too.
MY MOST SPECIAL PLACE IN BALTIMORE:
“Having my daughter at Sinai Hospital will forever top my list. The staff was so kind. We found angels among the NICU nurses. We will never forget them.”
—LACEE GRIFFITH , 11 NEWS ANCHOR
INVESTIGATIVE STORY
ALISSA ZHU, NICK THIEME, AND JESSICA GALLAGHER
Baltimore Banner reporters Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher and New York Times’ local investigations fellow Alissa Zhu spent a year examining the city’s overdose crisis. The Banner sued Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to get complete autopsy records that identified who died and how. What they uncovered is the heartbreaking scale of the city’s fentanyl epidemic, which has taken the lives of a staggering 6,000 Baltimoreans over the past six years, a rate that surpasses any other large U.S. city.
REVEAL
TIM PRUDENTE, STOKELY BAKSH
The Baltimore Banner enterprise reporter Tim Prudente and audience engagement editor Stokely Baksh delivered a perfectly crafted feature story this spring that felt like a period romantic movie, scandalous legal podcast, and morality play rolled into one. “Secret in the walls: Hidden letters reveal love, lust, scandal in 1920s Baltimore society” began the discovery of a century-old cache of letters tucked inside the wall of a Roland Park home. They revealed a secret romance between a married journalist and unmarried philosopher, but also a glimpse into a simpler time that might not have been as simple as we believe.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE MORGAN
City Hall Reporter
EMILY OPILO
There is no more critical beat than City Hall, where the political battles are often as personal as they are consequential and where two recent mayors have been convicted of crimes. Emily Opilo came to The Baltimore Sun four and half years ago as a diligent and experienced City Hall reporter from Allentown, PA, and hit the ground running after former City Hall reporter Luke Broadwater moved to the state beat (before leaving for The New York Times). Her clear, tightly written, balanced, and always timely work is a must-read for anyone who follows local politics.
FILM TIME
FILM SHORTS AND CIVIC
DOCS THAT WE LOVE
CHARACTER STUDY
El Camino del Pan a Baltimore
Simply and beautifully shot, director Andy Dahl’s short tells the story of Highlandtown baker and Mexican immigrant José Vargas’ humble beginnings and entrepreneurial spirit.
COMPASSIONATE PORTRAIT
Squeegee Kids: Understanding the Misunderstood
In this short, one of several documentaries about squeegee kids that came out this year, independent filmmaker Matthew Cooper presents a compassionate portrait of a 13-year-old who cleans car windows to help his mother and his three younger siblings.
CIVIC MOVIEMAKING
Squeegee
Directors Clarke Lyons and Gabe Dinsmoor spent years layering an unrushed, lyrical portrait of the city’s youth, who, with meager options, take to squeegee work.
HOMAGE
Faidley’s
A colorful short film by directors Charles Cohen and Gaybrielle Paredes that chronicles 142-year-old Faidley’s Seafood as it says goodbye to its original Lexington Market location.
SHORT
Family Dinner
Director Ethan Romaine set this family drama in his hometown of Cumberland. Stepsister Vicky is forced to take her younger brother out to dinner, but eventually realizes he has a troubling problem no one is aware of.
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PHOTOGRAPHER
JERRY JACKSON
We’ve always admired the work of Baltimore Sun photojournalist Jerry Jackson, who has been on staff at the city daily since 1996. Some of his images, in fact, have graced the pages of this magazine. We also love his nature photography, which is the focus of his Instagram account. But it is his compelling work for The Sun, in particular his drone photography and front-page compositions of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge and recovery efforts, that have stopped us in our tracks at newsstands.
RELIGION REPORTING
ALEX MANN, JONATHAN PITTS
Pitts, a religion and enterprise reporter at The Baltimore Sun, and Mann, the paper’s courts reporter, have been reporting, diligently and empathetically, the still-evolving clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Baltimore—as well as the institution’s controversial declaration of bankruptcy. As new claims developed, they also covered the archdiocese’s plan to close and consolidate the majority of its churches, which is causing a different pain in Catholic communities around the region.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE MORGAN
Documentary
THE BODY POLITIC
In a prescient documentary, Baltimore director Gabriel Goodenough garnered behind-the-scenes access to then-new Mayor Brandon Scott as he set out to tackle the city’s skyrocketing gun violence with a holistic approach that focused on more than arrests and incarceration. Using the high stakes of the 2020 Democratic primary as a starting point, Goodenough chronicles the planning behind the young mayor’s commitment to violence interruption programs and his Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which directs resources to those most at risk of involvement in gun violence. It also captures the struggles and pain inherent in Scott’s job—and finally, the encouraging early results.
YOUTH VOTER GUIDE
BALTIMORE BEAT
There’s much to appreciate about the Baltimore Beat, including its diverse coverage of the city’s arts scene. But we especially love the Beat’s focus on the city’s youth—and its first-ever (and possibly the city’s first-ever) Youth Voter Guide this spring, which surveyed young voices before the primaries and asked candidates about the issues most pressing to the younger generation. Not every candidate responded (they should have), but the ones who did, did so thoughtfully. We hope it becomes an annual part of election coverage.
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Explore The Winners
Best of Baltimore 2024
Home & Service
Edited by Janelle Erlichman Diamond and Christianna Mccausland
Best of Baltimore 2024
Lifestyle & Wellness
Edited by Janelle Erlichman Diamond and Christianna McCausland
