Record takes home hardware from 2025 news competitions

Record North Shore staff hit the road in September and didn’t return empty handed.

The Record was the recipient of two first-place honors in separate national competitions: the Nonprofit News Awards (or the INNYs) and the LION Publishers’ Sustainability Awards.

Editor in Chief Joe Coughlin and Director of Development Ryan Osborn accepted the top prize for the newsroom’s financial stewardship (Sustainability Awards) on Oct. 3 in St. Louis, and Coughlin represented The Record on Sept. 10 in New Orleans, where The Record topped other finalists to nab the INNovator Award for its monthly print edition, express.

“These awards were given to The Record, but they are community awards,” Coughlin said. “Our readers have made the choice to support local news for their community, and we are honored to do the work day in and out.

“We are working with a lot of momentum that we promise to put to good use for and with all of our supporters.”

In the Nonprofit News Awards, a program from the Institute for Nonprofit News that garnered 600 entries in 11 categories, The Record was given the INNovator Award in the Micro Division for, The Record North Shore express, a collaboration with Central Station Coffee and Tea in Wilmette that features truncated versions of The Record’s Wilmette reporting in a four-page “coffee-shop edition.”

One judge called the strategy behind The express “unusually mature” for a small newsroom such as The Record‘s, which was founded in 2020.

“In an era where most digital publishers are retreating from print, The Record has built a profitable, advertiser-supported print product through a thoughtful partnership with a local café,” the judge said. “This initiative deepens community ties, expands reach to commuters and coffee shop patrons, and reinforces their digital membership funnel. It’s a strategic blend of mission, revenue, and relationship-building that feels unusually mature for a newsroom of this size.”

The Sustainability Awards, from LION (Local Independent Online News), delivered 21 awards in 10 categories, and The Record was the winner of the Financial Health Award in the Small Tier.

Since 2023, The Record has more than doubled its annual revenue and tripled its staff (with more to come). The community newsroom has a robust reserve fund that currently exceeds board-approved goals, has shown growth in five distinct revenue streams and maintains a reliable data-informed budget.

One judge wrote, “The Record’s entry shows all the hallmarks of smart, prudent financial leadership and management. This shows in its high-level focus on revenue diversity and in maintaining reserves — but also in management’s focus on granular, actionable tools for managing each of its five (!) major revenue categories. (And to the people — including some journalists — who say “journalists can’t understand numbers,” you’re wrong. The Record proves it.)”

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