The best alt-weekly biz story in the NW!Look, it’s not that we have anything against Portland. It’s not that we would ever take pleasure in pointing out that they’re not all that, despite the adulation they receive from right-minded progressives the world over. But we will admit taking pleasure in beating out our longtime friends at Willamette Week in several categories at this past weekend’s Society of Professional Journalists 2010 Awards. (OK, they also beat us a few times too.)The Alt-Weekly division of the SPJ Awards pits publications from five northwestern states–Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana–against each other. I’m proud to say we took home three first-place citations. Nina Shapiro won top prize in two categories: Business Reporting for her cover story last year on Intelius and its sketchy “post-transaction marketing;” and Health Reporting, for her story on Washington’s right-to-die law and the unreliable art of predicting how long a terminal patient has to live. Laura Onstot won first place in Investigative Reporting for her in-depth dissection of a serial scam artist named Robert Firebaugh.We also picked up seven second-place nods–including in the Online category for Best Parent Site, in which we were competing against all media organizations, not just alt-weeklies. (Seattlepi.com took the prize.)Kudos to our friends in Spokane at the Pacific Northwest Inlander, who ruled the alt-weekly roost with six first-place awards. Also a shout-out to former Seattle Weekly writer Eric Scigliano, now at Seattle Metropolitan, who landed three first-place stories in the Magazine category.