From left, AL.com reporters Ivana Hrynkiw, Hannah Denham, Creg Stephenson and Alaina BookmanFile photos
In early 2025, several AL.com journalists have earned national recognition for their reporting.
The reporters were recognized for work in 2024, covering a wide range of topics, including sport reporting, business reporting and coverage of Alabama’s prison system.
“This is a special place to practice journalism,” said Challen Stephens, acting vice president of news at AL.com. “Alabama readers take pride in their state, and we take care to cover Alabama in a way that is fair and firm, but also makes sense to the people who live here. That’s why the work at AL.com so often makes a difference."
Ivana Hrynkiw, an investigative reporter who covers the justice system, was recognized this month as one of Tomorrow’s News Trailblazers by Editor & Publisher Magazine for her reporting on Alabama prisons.
She also was named a finalist for a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for her series Denied: Alabama’s broken parole system.
The reporting found that the Alabama parole board used to release most prisoners who were eligible. But under new leadership, paroles fell to 8% by 2023. That’s despite the board’s own guidelines suggesting more than 80% of prisoners should qualify for a second chance.
The series has led to significant impact. The parole rate rose to 20% the month after the first article, and finished 2024 at 20%, according to state data. That comes out to roughly 250 more people getting out of prison last year than in 2023.
“Ivana’s dogged reporting took readers inside numerous cases and let readers decide for themselves who they think should have been paroled. The stories of denials, including of people serving years for marijuana and shoplifting, prompted an immediate change in voting patterns on the parole board,” Stephens said.
Lawmakers also held hearings and demanded answers, as prisoners featured on AL.com found lawyers or got new hearings that resulted in their release.
“This sort of accountability has changed things,” said state Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, last summer.
AL.com reporters Hannah Denham and Ramsey Archibald were also named for their contributions of data visualization, and Tamika Moore was named for her photography for the series.
Denham separately won an award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing for reporting on Walk of Champions, the failed nonprofit collective that formed to pay University of Alabama athletes but dissolved less than two years later.
Judges said, “this is the type of story that should be honored, but also taken as a template.”
In February, Creg Stephenson, an AL.com sports writer, won the Associated Press Sports Editors award for his project on the complicated legacy of Birmingham’s white baseball legends. The four-part series ran as part of AL.com’s coverage of Major League Baseball’s game at Rickwood Field last summer.
In January, Alabama beat writer Nick Kelly was named Alabama’s Sports Writer of the Year for 2024 by the National Sports Media Association.
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban chats with AL.com writer, Nick Kelly during a segment of the Nick Saban radio show.Crimson Tide Sports Network
Alaina Bookman, a violence prevention reporter, received an honorable mention from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing for contributions to a multi-newsroom collaboration that examined how the child care crisis holds back moms without college degrees.
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