2000 Better Newspaper Contest — Sports Coverage

Division 2, Dailies 7,000 to 99,999
1.     New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung — I liked the         variety of sports covered and the handling of little     stuff.
2.     McKinney Courier-Gazette — This is a solid job of sports coverage. Everything seems to work together pretty well.
3.     The Beaumont Enterprise — Good job on sports coverage. The special basketball section was excellent. Color problems hurt photo quality.
4.     Kerrville Daily Times — This is a solid job of coverage and presentation.

Division 3, Dailies Less Than 7,000
1.     Ennis Daily News — Great use of photos in collage of Ennis in color. Good follow in special section about team. Covered less notable stories well while keeping focus on champs. Good overall readability and use of photo on front-page section.
2.     Texas City Sun — Excellent photos. Cover of extra from Nov. 13 and picture on front page of Dec. Gilliam’s column gets the reader hooked early by relating to others and makes transition into main topic smoothly. Layout used color pictures and line separates well. Rock-solid entries!
3.     Hereford Brand — Proofers need to watch for dropped punctuation and grammar. “Stung at State” had several misses from proofreaders. Photos carried strong. Color might of helped. Good use of computer graphics in “rising to the occasion.”
4.     The Huntsville Item — Good coverage variety. More than just one or two sports covered in articles. Use of color enhances page. Writing is done precise and to the point. Columnists do a good job bringing info into light. Cutlines are right length, enough to describe.

Division 4, Semiweeklies 4,001 or More
1.     The Irving News — By far best overall. Color photos are crisp, clear. Digital? Writing catches reader early. Cutlines good. Color border around story nice. It’s different.
2.     The Light & Champion, Center — Good photos. Stories are well written and outdoors articles are nice. Use of photos “to break up” copy does a good job. Overall good and solid.
3.     Wise County Messenger — Very good writing in “the moves are here.” Good use of subtitles to break up reading. Very touching at later half. Photos and cutlines good, but in Sept. 12 issue bottom half of left page needs something other than three-column heads. Would look better with two-column and three mixed. Good use of color also! Kudos Mr. Word!
4.     Hood County News — Peterson writes good, concise. Good use of quotes. Photos overall good VERY nice effect in article “Britt snags top honor” by using action photos rather than “standard” bust shots!!

Division 5, Semiweeklies 4,000 or Less
1.     Rockwall Texas Success — Best of class. Really good photos and layout. Must be printed in excellent plant.
2.     Lampasas Dispatch-Record — Photos grainy, layout could improve. Like coaches shot on Feb. 22 front.
3.     Atlanta Citizens-Journal — Picture quality needs improvement. Good coach shot.
4.     The Bowie News — Minor teams look to be neglected. Writing above average.

Division 6, Weeklies 3,001 or More
1.     Park Cities People, Dallas — Nov. 4 Good writing. Nice layout. Felt good to read. Aug. 19 Great pictures. Nice variety in one sport.
2.     The Wylie News — Nov. 17 I like the tone of the two columns. Fun to read. Photos too dark though. Feb. 10 I’d use a different font for the box scores. Good solid writing and photography.
3.     Duncanville Today — Feb. 4 Good clear pictures. Solid writing. Enjoyed the two features. March 4 Nice use of decks. Good overall coverage. Nice variety with pictures. May want different looks when on same page. (two soccer header shots p. 11 March 4)
4.     Rockdale Reporter — Nov. 18, Oct. 28 Solid stories and good pictures. Would like to see other sports besides football.

Division 7, Weeklies 2,001 to 3,000
1.     Cedar Hill Today — Nice to see sports on front page of the paper occasionally. Good lead grafs. I think I might have taken out one photo from front since the BB player/story is the lead feature. Front photo is great (as is baseball) but others need to be closer.
2.     Aransas Pass Progress — Good front page layout! Good lead ins although I’m not crazy about the squashed headlines. Perhaps a little too many clip art pieces inside.
3.     Colleyville News & Times — Nice mix of local and regional coverage. Good action photos. Interesting use of sponsors to get more pix in each week (kids in sports). A little tight on layout. Lose some of the divider lines.
4.     Pilot Point Post-Signal — Good lead grafs. Sports page tag (title) needs to be flush left. Heads could use some variety (size/weight). Photos aren’t bad, but get the photogs to crop off extraneous, unneeded areas.

Division 8, Weeklies 1,201 to 2,000
1.     Palacios Beacon — I really liked the way the information boxes were included with stories. Very good writing. The leads really pulled me into the story. Headline variety and graphics really added to quality of the product.
2.     Corrigan Times — Every bit of information was provided to the reader by the layout with the use of box scores and summaries. The writing was long but I liked all the quotations from the stories.
3.     The Alvin Sun — Nice variety on the layout. I really like the use of graphics and photos. Good writing that really drew the reader into the story. Good creativity in the headlines, they made me want to read the story.
4.     The Albany News — Good action shots. I found myself examining each photo as to not miss anything within the photo. Fair writing but there is lots of unneeded information. Good layout. I liked the inserts within the lead stories. More creativity needed in the headlines.

Division 9, Weeklies 1,200 or Less
1.     De Leon’s Monitor — Best quality pictures of division.
2.     Burnet County Citizens-Gazette — Picture quality needs improvement.
3.     Greenwood Ranger — Need stats with games.
4.     Martin County Messenger — Good advertising support.