For the second year in a row, the Religion News Association’s annual awards were presented in virtual fashion because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kudos once again to Jeff Diamant, RNA’s contest guru, for a fun and informative presentation of winners Thursday night. You can watch it all here.

For regular Weekend Plug-in readers, many of the first-place recipients’ names will be familiar, including the New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Peter Smith, The Atlantic’s Emma Green, The Tennessean’s Holly Meyer and the Chattanooga Times Free Press’ Wyatt Massey. (By the way, Smith and Meyer now work for The Associated Press.)

But there were surprises, too, in some of the major categories.

Britta Lokting and Sam Adler-Bell of Jewish Currents won the Story of the Year prize for “Welcome to Lammville: How the Hasidic housing crisis led to the largest case of federal voter fraud in modern American history.”

Dan Stockman of the Global Sisters Report earned top honors for reporting at online-only outlets for a series on Catholic women. And Peter Clowney, John DeLore, Abigail Keel, Ash Sanders, Sarah Ventre and Amy Westervelt received the Gerald A. Renner Award for Excellence in Enterprise Religion Reporting for their podcast "Unfinished: Short Creek."

Congrats to ReligionUnplugged.com’s own honorees: Alexandra Radu took first place for a photo from Malaysia, and the “God and Guns” project by Paul Glader and Michael Ray Smith (with videos by Micah Danney) received third place both for Story of the Year and online-only reporting.

Check out the full list of winners here.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Southern Baptist Convention committee grants access to privileged files amid sex abuse inquiry: Last week’s Plug-in highlighted the extremely busy first week of The Tennessean’s new religion writer, Liam Adams (succeeding the award-winning Holly Meyer, mentioned above).

Guess what? The second week didn’t slow down any. By my count, Adams is already up to 10 Tennessean bylines, exactly half of them about the Southern Baptist controversy.

Speaking of which, read other strong coverage of this week’s decision via The Associated Press’ Peter Smith, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana, Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt and the Houston Chronicle’s Robert Downen.

2. Pat Robertson retires from The 700 Club at 91: Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt had a banner week in ledes. (Make sure you clicked her SBC link above.)

Here is how she described Robertson’s retirement:

After decades of offering Christian viewers his commentary on natural disasters, 9/11, AIDS, pot, divorce, diplomacy, plastic surgery, homosexuality, Islam, secular colleges, the end of the world, critical race theory, and a range of other moral issues, Pat Robertson has signed off as host of The 700 Club.

That about covers it.

3. Harding University students travel to Greece to learn the culture and worship where Christianity first took root: The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Frank Lockwood reports from Athens, Greece.

This story, full of revealing details and biblical insights, is just one example why it’s wonderful to have Lockwood back on the religion beat after several years as his newspaper’s Washington correspondent.

CONTINUE READING: “Big Winners (And Surprises) In Religion News Association's Annual Awards,” by Bobby Ross, Jr.