General Excellence ( Circulation 1500 to 3999,Circulation 4000 to 6499)
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Place Name:
First Place
Contestant Name:
The Mountaineer (Rocky Mountain House, AB)
Entry Title:
The Mountaineer (Rocky Mountain House)
Entry Credit:
Glen Mazza
Judge Comment:
A fantastic job by The Mountaineer team! Lots of variety with coverage. Great use of plain language with the bulleted points. This is one of the best paginated community newspapers in the country! Congratulations to the team!
Place Name:
Second Place
Contestant Name:
The Independent of Petrolia and Central Lambton,ON
Entry Title:
The Independent of Petrolia and Central Lambton
Judge Comment:
Excellent photography! Clean front page. Nice large image and design elements. Three cheers to Heather Wright and Blake Ellis for putting together incredible editions for their community! This publication checks all the boxes for news, arts, business, events and sports coverage—and provides an excellent photo essay on the Country Fair. Well done!
Place Name:
Third Place
Contestant Name:
Gulf Islands Driftwood (Salt Spring Island, BC)
Entry Title:
Gulf Islands Driftwood
Judge Comment:
Five stars! This is a wonderful publication that reflects the island life of the Salt Spring Island residents and business owners. Congratulations team! This publication checks (nearly) all the boxes for excellent design of a community newspaper. Strong editorials and columns, letters to the editor, a solid masthead, great recognition of the in-house staff, a poll and a cartoon—all packaged so nicely for the readers! Great stories by Robb Magley—and so diverse! Good use of spot colour. Lots of faces. And quite entertaining!
Competition Comment:
Congratulations to the winners!
A few common threads:
For reporters and editors
• use plain language
• use CP style and its Caps and Spelling book
• be mindful of grammar and punctuation
• do not publish press releases word-for-word (and tell the reader it's a press release!); also, don't retype a press release and add a local top
• write stories; don't provide a transcript
• write for the community and be sensitive; choose conscious language
• get out of the newsroom and interview/photograph your sources; a fresh story is so much better!
For paginators
• use flush left for headlines
• use hierarchy
• be consistent with design elements
• ensure there is enough white space around the design elements so the page doesn't appear crammed
• consider ragged right for columns to avoid rivers and lakes, and for better readability
• have a photo credit for every image
• don't over-paginate; keep the layout simple and easy for the reader to navigate
