Barb Arland-Fye won Third Place, Best Personality Profile — Weekly with her story “Davenport’s new bishop leaves a lasting impression in Ohio.”
By Barb Arland-Fye
The Catholic Messenger
For the second time this year, The Catholic Messenger has earned honors for journalism, receiving a second-place and a third-place award in the Catholic Media Association (CMA) Awards competition. Results were announced June 27 during the Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix.
The awards The Catholic Messenger received:
Second Place, Best Editorial on a Local Issue — Weekly for “Ensuring That All Households Thrive,” by Barb Arland-Fye. A judge commented, “The author provides sufficient background detail to outline the topic and backs up the opinion by clearly articulating a path to remedy the issue. The author further engages readers by providing information for readers to take action.”
Third Place, Best Personality Profile — Weekly for “Davenport’s New Bishop Leaves a Lasting Impression in Ohio,” by Barb Arland-Fye. A judge commented, “This story is so cool, well written and interesting. What a cool guy! I’d like to meet him, what an impact he’s had and the impression he’s left wasn’t just told about, but it was shown in this story.”
The CMA, “an organization of publishers and media professionals united to serve the Church,” received 3,125 submissions for this year’s competition. The “depth and breadth of the content … are signs of the faith and dedication of Catholic communicators today who are willing to put in the work, even when it’s not easy,” Kerry Weber, incoming CMA president, wrote in The Catholic Journalist. She also is the Awards Committee Chair and editor of America Magazine.
“Looking at all these winners, it is safe to say that Catholic media in the United States and Canada is not running away from challenges, Gretchen Crowe, outgoing president of the CMA wrote in The Catholic Journalist. “Nor are we settling for mediocrity,” added Crowe, editor-in-chief of OSV News.
The Catholic Messenger is among 87 diocesan and non-diocesan newspapers that are CMA members. The awards program also manages entries for digital publications, web-based publishers, book authors, university student publications, alumni magazines, radio, television and film broadcast work. “We contribute to the Church’s mission of communicating the Good News and evangelizing the modern world by engaging and supporting Catholic media,” states the CMA, founded in 1911 to serve the growing community of Catholic print publications at that time.
Earlier this year, The Catholic Messenger earned a second-place award and a third-place award in the 2025 Iowa Better Newspaper Contests, announced during the 2025 Convention and Awards Ceremony Feb. 6 in Des Moines. The Iowa Newspaper Association (INA), which oversees the award competition, is an association that includes more than 240 newspaper members from throughout Iowa.
