In this week’s issue of City Paper, the weekly publication released their Choice ’09 award winners, recognizing some of Philadelphia’s unsung heroes in categories such as Music, Politics, Activism and Watchdogs, Food and Drink, Film and Screen, Visual Arts and Performing Arts.

Their choice in the category of Journalism and Media was last year’s Managing Editor, Shannon McDonald. Shannon received a great deal of attention after writing a story for her Media Urban Reporting Lab capstone class, which detailed a police officer’s racist comments she observed during a ride-along. Her story painted a vivid picture of the racial tension between the community and police and led to the eventual firing of the officer.

Photo courtesy citypaper.net

Also receiving honorable mention in the category were former TTN staff members Christopher Wink, Sean Blanda and Brian James Kirk, for their work on Technically Philly, their Web-based project that covers the Philly-area tech scene.