REPORTER WINS STPA SWEEPSTAKES (AGAIN)
For the 18th time, The Rockdale Reporter has won the Sweepstakes Award, the highest bestowed by the South Texas Press Association, the nation’s largest regional press association.
Awards for 2020 were announced online Friday, Aug. 7. Mike Brown, Reporter Editor, was named Journalist of the Year for the third time. He will retire in October after a 46-year career with the newspaper, the last 22 as editor.
SWEEPSTAKES—Sweepstakes winners are determined by cumulative points from placings in individual categories.
The Reporter placed in 13 of the 15 categories.
The Reporter won first-place plaques in page design, editorials, serious column writing and feature writing.
It earned second-place honors in general excellence, lifestyle pages, humorous column writing, news writing, sports coverage and headline writing.
The Reporter placed third in news photos and display advertising and honorable mention in special sections.
This is The Reporter’s 16th STPA Sweepstakes Award since 1991. The newspaper competes in the Association’s large weekly division.
Judges were members of the Moody College of Communication School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.
JOURNALIST—Brown was also named Journalist of the Year by the STPA in 2012 and 2015.
Journalist of the Year competition includes all STPA papers, regardless of division or size.
Judge’s comments on the award to Brown:
“Versatility and skill earned him the top spot. An outstanding reporter, columnist and editorial writer—whether news or a feature. Every piece is clearly written, well composed, deceptively easy to read.”
It’s the last newspaper association contest for the veteran journalist, who will retire on Oct. 16.
In January he won two more first-place individual awards from the Texas Press Association, which covers the entire state. That brought his statewide individual firsts to eight, including wins in all four individual writing categories—news writing, editorials, features and columns.
COMMENTS—Excerpts from judge comments on other Reporter entries:
Page design—“Exceptionally well designed newspaper. It has a clean design throughout with good headline hierarchy and clear system for navigation.”
Editorials—“Amazing local editorials, timely, direct and persuasive without being maudlin of polemic or even polarizing.”
Serious column writing—“Mike Brown, an excellent writer, strikes again in this category. His columns weren’t necessarily serious, per se, but they weren’t humorous and were, indeed, heartfelt.”
Feature writing—“Mike Brown’s story ‘I kicked my way out’ was the clear winner in this category. He provided great detail about the dramatic story of Jessica Diehl and her quest to return to the field where she was abandoned as a infant.”
General excellence—“Shone throughout, excellent reporting and writing, especially on Bitmain, appealing design and layout throughout issue; lots of community photos.”
Lifestyle pages—“Nicely laid out with so many community images.”
Humorous column writing—“A funny writer and a nice poem at end of Texas heat column”
News writing— “Dramatic writing of a tornado (in San Gabriel) that caused serious property damage...(Bitmain story) did a service by quelling widespread rumors.”
Sports coverage—“Some of the best layouts in any division...photography is action-packed or personable and all sized correctly for page...clever use of art and graphics to mark coach’s 100th victory....the game stories are solid with food reporting and detail and quotations.”
Headlines—“The ‘holy smoke’ headline with the barbecue restaurant definitely grabs attention and the caption ‘please don’t drool on the newspaper’ is perfect.”
Display advertising—“Good consistency. Nice and clean.”
News photos—“The closed road and post-water rescue captures the severity of the flood.”
Special section—“A concise informative section..It takes time and research to get this right.” (FYI)