PITTSBURGH, Sept. 3, 2020 – The Press Club of Western Pennsylvania announced the winners of the 56th Golden Quill Awards during a virtual awards presentation that aired this evening on Pittsburgh public access station PCTV and www.pctv21.org.

For details, go to the Golden Quill Awards page.

To donate to the scholarships, use the PayPal button below.

The Press Club of Western Pennsylvania thanks The Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,  Trib Total Media and Point Park University School of Communication for their financial support of the virtual Golden Quill Awards.

The Press Club of Western Pennsylvania stands with the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation and the Women's Press Club of Pittsburgh in opposition to the removal of Alexis Johnson, a black reporter, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's coverage of the ongoing protests in the city, and the subsequent removal of Michael Santiago, a black photographer, from the newspaper's coverage team because of his support of her.

It is a newspaper's responsibility to record history. These are unprecedented times for our city, our state and our nation, and it is important that minority journalists be part of recording that history. This is true at all times, but never more so than right now when we all need to hear the black voices that have been stifled for so long.

Journalists as humans have personal opinions. That does not mean they abandon their professional responsibilities to produce work free from opinion.

Ginny Frizzi, a tireless advocate for journalism and journalists in Western Pennsylvania and beyond and a dedicated Press Club of Western Pennsylvania board member since 1994, died Monday, June 1, at UPMC Shadyside Hospital. The 66-year-old freelance journalist who lived in the Morningside section of Pittsburgh had been battling a number of health issues and an injury since earlier this year. She worked tirelessly on the Press Club’s Golden Quills committee for years, growing and developing the contest that recognizes the work of journalists and communicators to the major event it has become. Journalists and media outlets submitted 900 entries for this year’s contest, and the winners and finalists will receive their awards at a rescheduled dinner on Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Rivers Casino. The event had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 crisis and quarantine.

“I have known Ginny since we were college students, and I have long admired her dedication to all the Pittsburgh journalism professional organizations and journalists. She believed in their work and ensured that those efforts garnered the recognition they deserved,” Helen Fallon, Press Club president and a professor of journalism at Point Park University, said. “As the leader of the board, I promise we will continue her legacy. We will rededicate ourselves to continuing her work and finding more ways to ensure journalists, the media and our professional organizations thrive and be given the respect they so richly deserve.”

“Every communications or journalism organization I was recruited to join would have Ginny serving on its board or helping in some other capacity,” said Karen Carlin, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette copy editor who co-chaired the Golden Quills committee with Frizzi. “I quickly learned from our first introduction more than 30 years ago how dedicated and devoted she was to journalists and their craft.”

Board member Rosemary Martinelli, who serves on the Golden Quills committee, recalled that like PBS's Jim Lehrer, Ginny would sign off her emails with “Onward.” Martinelli, a communications and marketing professor at Penn State Greater Allegheny, explained, “Like Lehrer, it was Ginny's call to whomever she was writing or to whatever she was facing that day, to continue forward, to continue to do well and, as with respect to Lehrer, to do your best in this world with courage and conviction.”

In addition to her longtime Press Club service, Ginny was president of the Pittsburgh Professional SPJ chapter. She had been active in SPJ since joining as a charter student Sigma Delta Chi member at then Point Park College in the 1970s. Her journalism career began with the Coraopolis Record before she started a public relations career with Point Park University and the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. As Region 4 director she served two terms on the SPJ national board of directors and was twice honored as Regional Director of the Year. Ginny had been a faculty member of SPJ’s Ted Scripps Leadership Workshop and led SPJ writing workshops.

She was a board member and past president of the Women’s Press Club of Pittsburgh and past president of the former Pittsburgh Chapter of Women in Communications Inc. She was a member of the New York Financial Writers Association.

Her work has been recognized with a Matrix Award from Pittsburgh WICI and awards from the National Federation of Press Women. Frizzi received the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania’s Service to Journalism Award in 2015.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Winters Funeral Home in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family requests in lieu of flowers that memorial contributions be made to the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania (337 Fourth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222 or the PayPal button below); the Women's Press Club/Gertrude Gordon Memorial Fund (c/o The Pittsburgh Foundation, First PPG Place, Suite 250, Pittsburgh, PA 15222) or the SPJ Foundation Memorial Gift Program.