Globe religion reporter wins excellence awards

The Religion Newswriters Association honored Michael Paulson, the Globe's religion reporter, with two first-place awards Saturday.

Paulson won the Templeton Award for Religion Reporting for excellence in enterprise reporting and versatility in the field of religion for "Ma Siss's Place," a series about a Dorchester church. He also won the Supple Award for Religion Writing, which recognizes a reporter's writing skills, for the series.

Paulson's December 2007 series chronicled the creation, growth, and struggles of a church started by Idene "Ma Siss" Wilkerson inside a former auto-repair shop near Uphams Corner, and the lives of some of the church's members.

Judges called the "Ma Siss's Place" series a "memorable example of narrative journalism," and said it was "a powerful and honest package that avoided cheap sentiment," the association said in a statement.

Winners were chosen from 242 entries in eight categories.

"I'm humbled by the recognition and grateful to the Globe for investing in religion journalism," Paulson said yesterday.

"But mostly I'm grateful to Ma Siss and the people of the Quincy Street Church who welcomed me into their community in the hope that our readers might benefit from hearing their story."

The series also won the 2008 Mike Berger Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in April.

Paulson, a four-time recipient of the Wilbur Award, given by The Religion Communicators Council for outstanding coverage of religion in the secular media, was also a member of the team that won the Globe's 2003 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.

Paulson also blogs about religion at boston.com/religion.