Sun Journal, Pioneer Times, Ellsworth American named Maine's best newspapers
The Lewiston Sun Journal won awards on Oct. 11 for daily and weekend Newspaper of the Year in the Maine Press Association’s 2008 Better Newspaper Contest.
The Ellsworth American and the Houlton Pioneer Times were named the state’s best weekly papers.
The winners were announced at the end of the MPA’s two-day Fall Conference at The Atlantic Oakes Resort in Bar Harbor. The Saturday night awards banquet was preceded by the 11th annual Hall of Fame induction dinner on that Friday night, a full Saturday morning of seminars and the annual MPA Memorial Scholarship benefit auction.
The Sun Journal’s Sunday paper was named Newspaper of the Year for the fourth year in a row and the fifth time in six years.
Second place in the General Excellence competition for weekend papers went to the Morning Sentinel of Waterville and third place went to the Kennebec Journal of Augusta.
In the daily division, the Sun Journal was followed by the Bangor Daily News in second place and the Journal Tribune of Biddeford in third.
In the weekly division for papers with less than 5,000 circulation, the Houlton Pioneer Times was the winner, ahead of The York Weekly in second place and the Mount Desert Islander of Bar Harbor in third.
In the competition for weeklies with circulation of 5,000 or more, The Ellsworth American was named Newspaper of the Year for the fourth time in the last seven years.
Second place went to The Star-Herald of Presque Isle. There was no third-place winner.
Thirty newspapers entered the contest, submitting more than 1,250 entries in all.
Judges from New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania chose the winners after reviewing newspapers’ work published in the year beginning April 1, 2007, and ending March 31, 2008.
The MPA also gave Freedom of Information Awards to the Sun Journal and the St. John Valley Times of Madawaska, “for work that shows leadership and courage in news coverage and editorials that provide access to public information.”
The Lewiston paper won for its work investigating a boat crash that killed two people on Long Lake in Harrison in August 2007. The St. John Valley Times was honored for its coverage of the arrest of a University of Maine System trustee.
Nearly 170 people attended the two-day conference, which included five professional development sessions on that Saturday morning.
Jonathan Piper, a leading attorney with Preti Flaherty, the MPA’s law firm, gave a one-hour session focusing on libel law. At the same time, Earl Brechlin, editor of the Mount Desert Islander, led a session on basic photography for journalists and ad reps.
Later in the morning, Melinda Rice, the Islander’s news editor, gave a presentation on editing, using much of what she had learned in April at the national conference of the American Copy Editors Society.
Also during that time, Troy Bennett, staff photographer for the Brunswick Times Record, showed MPA members how to use Soundslides, an easy computer program for creating slideshows for newspaper Web sites.
The morning’s general session was led by Ben Marrison, editor of The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio and a leader of the Ohio News Organization, a group of eight dailies that formed earlier this year to share news coverage from around that state.
Marrison told about 40 MPA members how tight budgets and dissatisfaction with The Associated Press had led the newspapers – including some traditional rivals – to work together. He gave the group a progress report on OHNO’s efforts and showed how the Web-based sharing system works.
The MPA is exploring a news sharing system for Maine papers, both daily and weekly, so Marrison’s session was designed to help members envision how news sharing might work for them. Five Maine dailies, in Bangor, Portland, Lewiston, Augusta and Waterville, have already begun their own news sharing cooperative.
The MPA will seek feeback from its members as it decides whether, and how, to proceed with news sharing as a member service.
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