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The editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial earned second place for commentary in a contest organized by America's Newspapers for his coverage of the failings of a city tax initiative that promised civic and economic restoration. Bryon Tate's 2024 editorials on the city's yearslong Go Forward Pine Bluff campaign were recognized among newspapers with circulation less than 35,000 in the Carmage Walls Commentary Award, named after the late newspaper owner Benjamin Carmage Walls, America's Newspapers announced Tuesday. The group was formed by the merger of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and Inland Press Association in 2019. The city sold residents on promises of civic revitalization, from much-needed repairs to crumbling downtown businesses to showpieces like a Ferris wheel at Lake Pine Bluff, Tate said, and people were initially warm to the idea because "at least somebody's doing something." But over the past seven years, the city repeatedly came up short, leading to finger-pointing and unfinished projects, as Tate outlined in his editorials last year. Building facades were repaired, but the empty shells were going to cost business owners hundreds of thousands per story to install utilities and get the doors open to customers, he said. The Ferris wheel never materialized either. The paper's reporters would cover the developments over the years, Tate said, while his editorials expressed the frustration Pine Bluff residents felt with the whole project. "Is it any wonder (that) the jaded public has an attitude of throw the bums out?" Tate asked in a June editorial. "Is it any wonder that Mayor Shirley Washington and Go Forward have been kicked to the curb? Elected and anointed leaders have to look no further than the mirror to understand why people's trust has eroded." Washington and other public figures were repeatedly the target of Tate's ire in the editorials. "We didn't make many friends," Tate said of the coverage. His award came with a glass plaque detailing the honor and a $1,000 cash prize. This is the second year Tate has won second place in the commentary awards contest, he said.
