The Orlando Sentinel\u2019s Scott Maxwell has won the general column writing award from the Society of Professional Journalists for 2025, recognizing his stature as one of the nation\u2019s top local columnists.<\/p>\n
Judges for the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi award noted Maxwell\u2019s \u201cgreat voice and range,\u201d calling him \u201can essential asset for the paper, serving readers and the community at large.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maxwell, who has been a columnist for Sentinel since 2002, mixes humor, outrage, and empathy in the three columns he writes most weeks, while regularly offering deep affection for his Central Florida home.<\/p>\n
The Sentinel\u2019s entry on Maxwell\u2019s behalf included columns on Florida\u2019s clandestine paintover<\/a> of the rainbow crosswalk near the Pulse memorial (GOP leaders, he said, \u201care so hellbent on trying to stick it to LGBTQ people, they\u2019re willing to endanger pedestrians\u201d), his 150th birthday wishes<\/a> for Orlando (\u201cThe word has Italian roots,\u201d Maxwell wrote of the city\u2019s name. \u201cIt means, \u2018Good lord, it\u2019s humid here\u2019.\u201d), and an examination of the area\u2019s low-wage economy.<\/a><\/p>\n In the latter column, Maxwell determined that Orlando\u2019s wage rate had risen from 50th out of the country\u2019s 50 largest metro areas, where it had sat for many years \u2014 to 49th. \u201cNo matter how you try to spit shine it, if you build an economy around low-paying jobs, you\u2019re going to have a community full of people who struggle,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n SPJ chose 73 winners in various categories from more than 1,000 entries. The organization handed out two general columnist awards, with Maxwell winning the category for smaller circulation news organizations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to have people outside Central Florida realize what a treasure we have in Scott Maxwell,\u201d Executive Editor Roger Simmons. \u201cHe\u2019s someone who deeply cares about our area and his columns show that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Sentinel\u2019s Scott Maxwell has won the general column writing award from the Society of Professional Journalists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,482,12151,1335,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-347104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}