CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Jeannine Guttman, editor and vice president of The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, was named Thursday as this year’s winner of the Judith W. Brown Spirit of Journalism Award.

The award, presented Thursday during the annual convention of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors at the Radisson Hotel in Cambridge, is given annually to an outstanding woman in journalism. It is named for Judy Brown, longtime publisher and editor of the New Britain (Conn.) Herald and NESNE’s first female president.

Guttman, 49, heads a news staff of 110 at the Press Herald and Sunday Telegram, a Blethen Maine Newspaper that is family owned and part of The Seattle Times Co.

The paper is the largest in Maine, with a daily circulation of about 75,000 and a Sunday circulation of about 124,000. The Telegram is Maine’s only statewide newspaper.

She came to Portland as managing editor in 1994 from Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C., where she was a national editor. She was named editor of the Press Herald and Sunday Telegram in September 1997.

Guttman spent much of her career as a political reporter and editor, working in California, Indiana, Idaho and Washington, D.C.

As editor, she has been committed to increasing connections between the newspaper, the community and readers.

She teaches, coaches and practices “public journalism” – listening to citizens and bringing their voices into the news coverage, connecting the news to the people who are affected by it.

She is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists. In 1999 and 2000 she served as a Pulitzer Prize jury member.

Guttman graduated with honors from Kent State University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in political science. She lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Previous winners of the Judy Brown award include Carol Young, deputy executive editor of The Providence Journal, and Selma Williams, the retired editor-in-chief of North Shore Weeklies, now part of Community Newspaper Co.

Brown blazed trails for women in a difficult world, was passionate in her commitment to presenting local news and was a positive force both in her community and her profession, said Leah Lamson, managing editor of The Telegram and Gazette in Worcester and president of NESNE.

The New England Society of Newspaper Editors celebrated its 50th anniversary during this week’s convention. The organization is made up of editors at daily and weekly newspapers throughout the region.