Why Oh Why Don't They Call it "The Lee EnterPrizes"?

Lee Enterprises, the company that owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, awarded its own today in Davenport, Iowa.

About the Post, a press release states:

EXCELLENCE IN NEWS:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Mo. – For an investigative report, “Free to Flee.” The Post-Dispatch found that hundreds of thousands of warrants on felony charges were not being entered into national databases used by law enforcement to check out the people they stop. The missing warrants included murder, rape and kidnapping. Even when warrants are in the national database, fugitives are often released because the jurisdiction that issued the warrant will not travel out of state to retrieve them. Online coverage included an interactive map featuring 30 cases in which fugitives were able to commit new crimes as a result. The award is shared by Robert Cohen, Cara DeMichele and Joe Mahr. This is the second time in three years that Joe Mahr has shared a Lee President’s Award. Online: stltoday.com/fugitives

INNOVATION:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch – For creating Work2Goal, an online tool that enables sales representatives and managers to track real-time revenue and goal achievement. The tool is credited with helping the Post-Dispatch take more than 510 advertising accounts from competitors in the last year. The award is shared by Charles Arms and John Hurst.

To put it politely, the company is facing tough economic times, with layoffs coming by the dozens over the last few years at the Post. Recently, layoffs to the tune of seventeen newsroom employees came down from Lee, based in Davenport, Iowa. Morale in the P-D newsroom has bee compared to morgue.

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"There’s nobody in the newsroom. It’s like a morgue. Nobody wants to be here," said one reporter late last month.