Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Alexandria - The Echo Press Entry Title: General excellence Entry Credit: Echo Press Judge Comment: The layout was very clean throughout with a good variety of stories and topics found in a good community newspaper. The Opinion page had local columns and letters, and its own editorial helped to set it apart. The photos weren't overdone, and they clearly complimented the stories and were packaged well on the page. The classifieds were easy to navigate and the larger ads for the Boy Scouts, as an example, look great.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Detroit Lakes Tribune Entry Title: Detroit Lakes Tribune Entry Credit: Detroit Lakes Newspapers Staff Judge Comment: The Tribune is a very, very close second place. The layout was very clean, save for some doglegs where stories were not "squared off" with ads. One of the three editions did not have an editorial, which made a slight difference between first and second place, too. And, some photos could be cropped tighter to see faces closer up. Realistically, that is all nitpicking. If I were living in Detroit Lakes and saw the Tribune in the box each week, the front page makes me say, "Wow!" The classifieds were easy to navigate, and the sig pages with ads supporting different things such as the Lake Region Builders Association.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Aitkin Independent Age Entry Title: General Excellence, Aitkin Independent Age Entry Credit: Jennifer Eisenbart, Brielle Bredsten, Kathy Robb, Jeanne Schram, RoxAnne Bouley Judge Comment: The layout of the Aitkin Independent Age is very clean like others cited here. However, some of the play of the photos could punch up a bit bigger to show faces better. Or, in some cases, there wasn't a dominant photo or hierarchy of photos on a page to help guide the reader around the page. The Opinion pages offer much in terms of views and having two pages of opinion indicates, in a way, that many people are reading and discussing what's there. Overall, this is a very solid community newspaper covering all sorts of different stories like a good community newspaper should, and with some potential small tweaks, could pass those ahead of it.
Competition Comment: Of the 13 entries submitted, nearly half of them were striking and it took our newspaper's editorial team a bit of discussion as to what newspaper we thought deserved the top honor, the second place and third place. The Lakes Area Review, the Anoka County Union Herald and The Globe in Worthington all made us take third and fourth looks within the category. Each was a good reflection of what a community newspaper is, can be and should be.
