2003 Better Newspaper Contest — Sports Coverage
Division 2, Dailies
Division 3, Dailies
Division 4, Semiweeklies
Division 5, Semiweeklies
Division 6, Weeklies
Division 7, Weeklies
Division 8, Weeklies
Division 9, Weeklies
Division 10, Weeklies
Sports Coverage
Division 2 Dailies 7,000 to 99,999
1st. The Beaumont Enterprise — Excellent coverage, design of pages, coverage of all sports. Great space! Exciting track and field coverage. Easily No.1.
2nd. The Galveston County Daily News — Liked everything except B2 of Nov. 16 paper. Liked the text wrap photo play at bottom of May 2 issue. Coverage of all sports good! Headlines could be improved!
3rd. Midland Reporter-Telegram — The Legends of the Fall section was great, but hardly a day-by-day production. Nov. 14 edition more indicative of daily production. Need to freshen headline type to be more contemporary and layout needs to improve.
4th. Odessa American — Wow! Great space! Good coverage of several sports. Layout of inside pages need help – too gray. Also would like to see more quotes.
Division 3 Dailies Less Than 7,000
1st. Texas City Sun — Design is distinctive. Good pre-season section. Good consistent style. Sharp photos for most part. Good information.
2nd. Alice Echo News Journal — Like “well said” feature. It’s “how they fared” — this is why second and not first. Good to have column. Page design is distinctive.
3rd. Seguin Gazette Enterprise — Good section cover. Good outdoors. Good consistent style. Good use of photos.
4th. Waxahachie Daily Light — Good headline play, good rail, informative. Box scores could look better — bold and centering and indenting. Good to have softball standings. Good to have community sports.
Division 4 Semiweeklies 4,001 or More
1st. Williamson County Sun — Very good photos and usage. Good detail in powerlift story. Headline font variation would help. Good coach information and column. (Galen) Wellnicki’s writing makes this the easy winner.
2nd. Round Rock Leader — Strong photos. Good tournament graphics. Good overall section.
3rd. Hood County News — Great cover. Good photos, roster info. Sharp color.
4th. Wise County Messenger — Good features. Good white space. Photos distinguish this entry.
Division 5 Semiweeklies 4,000 or Less
1st. Mansfield News Mirror — Heads above the competition in all regards! Great job, especially with March 7 edition!
2nd. Andrews County News — Folks in Andrews County should be pleased with this coverage! You don’t need to border every photo, however. And you could bring more color into your stories, like sidebars, quote boxes, etc.
3rd. Lamesa Press-Reporter — Doing a lot of things right. Sports flag takes up a lot of space and folio and date lines could be inside the box, saving space. Good job.
4th. Gatesville Messenger — Parents must love you for all the photos. Photos must have identification, however. Coverage good! You don’t need two folios at the top of the lead sports page!
1st. The Mountain Sun (Kerrville) — Good feature photos. Good all-district page. Organization, display and features makes this best.
2nd. The Cameron Herald — Design is distinctive, ahead of the rest.
3rd. River Cities Tribune (Marble Falls) — Good solid sections. Most complete coverage.
4th. Duncanville Today — Good exes file, put this entry ahead of the rest for fourth place.
Division 7 Medium Large Weeklies
1st. Westlake Picayune (Austin) — Good coverage throughout. Layout modular, good color.
2nd. Colorado County Citizen — Nice lead football photo. Good space to work with.
3rd. Mount Vernon Optic-Herald — More space dedicated to Sports than other papers of this size. Good dominant photo on the front of 11/7 edition.
4th. Alpine Avalanche — Nice coverage of volleyball at state competition.
1st. The Free Press (Diboll) — Very well written. I’m very impressed. Also had some outstanding photos. It’s obvious you cover a lot and you cover it well. Only thing I found even close to wrong was some headlines being too big. Overall, very well done.
2nd. Pilot Point Post-Signal — Overall, a very good job. Stories are very well written. Most of the photos are good, too. Layout is certainly acceptable, but might use a tweak or two. Column was well done and I like to see those.
3rd. Hill Country News Weekender (Cedar Park) — There’s some great writing here, but after that there’s too much lacking, especially with photos.
4th. Clay County Leader — Obviously the state football title was a major event and well handled. That’s what saved you. Otherwise there isn’t much that’s special.
Division 9 Small Medium Weeklies
1st. The Citizen (Clear Lake) — Good photos. Good to have column. Good tennis tips. Most comprehensive coverage. Good packaging.
2nd. Hico News Review — Good photo sequence. Good play of the win. Use of color and sequences make this unique.
3rd. The Portland News — Good shot put photo. Well designed, comprehensive coverage.
4th. Flour Bluff Sun — Good to have outdoors, distinguished this entry ahead of the pack.
1st. The Brackett News — Don’t parrot lead for headline (11/14 “bitter sweet”) “Cubs” picture could be cropped 1 inch at top! Good coverage of several sports.
2nd. Gladewater Mirror — Don’t “parrot” the lead in the headline “Bears take care of business.” Don’t break your headlines on a preposition. Good coverage.
3rd. Citizens Gazette (Burnet) — Liked the Briefs column. Good coverage.
4th. Thorndale Champion — Good coverage and good presentation.
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