Jay Cook

About

A native to the Middletown, NJ area, I’m an award-winning storyteller and multimedia journalist at Jersey Sports Zone, a high school sports media outlet that covers Garden State athletics. While our bread and butter is capturing lasting moments on and off the field, I long for finding the stories that transcend sports and take our viewers on a journey. For nearly two years I was a full-time staff reporter with The Two River Times, a weekly newspaper based out of Red Bank, NJ. My work was featured primarily in the news and sports sections, ranging from municipal and county meeting coverage, to hard news, to feature writing.I was awarded the 2017 New Jersey Press Association's first place Responsible Journalism -- First Amendment award for my coverage about changing OPRA laws in New Jersey and how local residents do their part to keep their municipal governments transparent. In 2016, I also won the first place Robert P. Kelly Award for my stories about a proposed power line project in Monmouth County and a notable anniversary for a local surfing association in Long Branch that yielded NJ Surfing Hall of Famers. In total, I was awarded five different awards in my time as a local newspaper reporter.