Blogging on the Contest

Icon guide available

2011-09-29T15:05:00.001-04:00

We have prepared a guide for those of you who have been wanting more information on what the icons in the contest booklet mean. You can get one by clicking here or going to our website and clicking on the contest button.

Story from Community Coverage entry

2011-09-29T14:58:00.000-04:00

Two questions from a contest rookie popped up today:

A few questions from a contest newbie!

Let's say I want to enter two issues from May in the Best Community Coverage category, but there's a story in one of the issues that's part of a series I wanted to enter for the Investigative Reporting category. Can I enter the entire issue and use the story for a different category, too, or do I have to choose one over the other? Is it the same for all of the categories requiring entire issues?

Secondly, when creating cropped clips for submitting individual stories, do I have to remove photos that accompanied the story so that the clips are text only?

Thanks for the help.

Welcome to the contest, newbie! On the first question, you may enter the story in the Investigative Reporting category even it is included in the issue of the paper you want to submit in Best Community Coverage. The Community Coverage category is concerned with entire editions involving all aspects of local coverage, not with specific stories. What you can't do is enter a story into two writing categories (such as investigative reporting and general news reporting).

It is not necessary to crop out the photos, headlines or graphics when we require cropped clips.

Good luck!

File size restriction

2011-09-28T15:46:00.000-04:00

We have been informed by the folks at the Better Newspaper Contest website that they have established a new maximum file size for uploads.

Files may not exceed 5 MB each.

We got this message from BNC:

As you may know BetterBNC experienced a system slowdown, and eventual stoppage, on Monday, September 26. We determined the cause to be a high number of very large files being uploaded across several contests with imminent entry deadlines.
Files of extreme size already uploaded as entry attachments have been accepted, however future entry attachments may not exceed 5mb per individual file uploaded.

Remember that your entries will be viewed on a computer screen that's generally set to 72 dpi. Consequently having files with higher resolution isn't going to make it appear on screen any better than 72 dpi. By submitting files with the lower resolution you can save a ton of space.

Multimedia upload issue

2011-09-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

We got this question from Anonymous:

I am having some trouble with the multmedia entries. There is no option to upload our .pdf and the print package is part of our entry. Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It turns out the category was missing a couple of options on the contest system. That has since been corrected and you should be good to go.

2011 CONTEST UNDER WAY!!!

2011-08-19T10:13:00.000-04:00

Yes, the blog is officially back in business. Rules and instructions were sent out to newspapers via email this week. If you did not receive them, use the links to the right or go to our main website, www.ncpress.com.

If you have questions or comments please use the commenting feature to send them to the blog. Comments are moderated, so they will not appear immediately. We'll get an answer to your comment as soon as possible.

Be sure to check in frequently to see what questions are popping up about this year's News, Editorial & Photojournalism Contest.

And good luck to everyone!

Label, label, label

2010-10-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

Remember that old commercial for Libby's? "When it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's on the label, label, label." OK, well that is an old one.

Anyway, we received this question...

When entering entries into the Better Newspaper Contest site, the label page says "This Page is Your Official Entry Form. Print and Submit this label with payment."

Do we print out one of those for every entry including online? Or do we just submit the Manage Entries list for online entries?

I understand how the labels work for mailed-in entries, but that label form is so bossy and insistent that I'm afraid I need to send one for every online entry too.

The only labels you need to print for the contest is for mailed-in entries. You certainly could print out the others for your own records, but it's not necessary.

The Manage Entries list is what is required to be sent with your payment. Don't be intimidated by the "bossy and insistent" form. It's only a computer, after all.

Slow to upload

2010-10-01T16:20:00.001-04:00

Q: We're having trouble uploading. We go through the steps, it starts uploading and then stops midway. Any tips?

A: Here's a few we might offer that are good for anything you might want to upload to any site:

1. Check your file size. The smaller the size the faster and more reliable the transfer. Get the file size of your PDFs down. The quickest way to do that is printing it to Adobe Distiller.

2. Find out the peak load time for your newspaper's computer network. If everyone in your building is bogging down the network at a particular time of day, avoid uploading files during that time. You might be amazed at how many other departments in your newspaper are using the Internet and moving large files. It's not just the newsroom. One time period to be aware of is when the business office is printing up bills or sending financial files out. You might be surprised how much bandwidth and computing power they consume.

3. Check with your IT or computer people. They might have an idea for you about a good time during the day to send files.

4. Avoid heavy use times for the Internet, particularly around the 9-ish hour when people get to work, around lunch time and shortly before 5 p.m. Those seem to be prime time for workers to get on the Internet to check e-mail, watch videos...

Hope these tips help.

Multimedia and its elements

2010-09-30T13:09:00.002-04:00

Earlier we had a question about whether an element that is a part of a multimedia category entry could be entered separately in another category. We said no at that time, but rethinking the situation brings us to a different conclusion. The no repeats rule prevents someone from submitting one story or photo twice, such as entering a story in the Feature Writing category and then also entering it in the Sports Feature Writing category. That makes sense.

However, in the case of multimedia, the entry is composed of many elements but judges grade the entry as a whole, not the individual parts. It’s the combined, total effort that is being recognized.

This is similar to the full-section categories. We can’t disqualify a story submitted in one of the writing categories because it happens to be in the section entered for the Sports Coverage competition.

Sorry about the earlier mix up and hope this clears up the issue.

Make sure to Enable

2010-09-24T10:26:00.000-04:00

Just a quick reminder to everyone to go through your list of entries on the Better Newspaper Contest site. Make sure all of the entries you want submitted for judging are Enabled rather than Disabled.

Questions, questions

2010-09-24T10:23:00.001-04:00

A variety of questions have been pouring into Contest Central. Here are a few of them:

Q: In a full-section category such as Sports Coverage, if one of the selected day’s paper had related stories on 1A, can the 1A material be included?

A: No. Full-section categories judge only the sections involved, not material outside of the section.

Q: We have a quick press run, so by the time we discover a typo or something that needs corrected, it’s too late for the printed product. However, we are able to correct what we put online. Can we submit the stories as posted online instead of what was printed in the paper?

A: No. Entries must be as they appeared in print.

Q: Can two papers enter a story as a joint entry?

A: No. Only one paper may submit and receive the credit for the story.

Too many pages?

2010-09-01T14:13:00.001-04:00

As some of you may have noticed already, there is a limit on the number of documents you can upload to the Better Newspaper Contest website. Jen writes to us…

I am trying to upload a story in the News Feature category that was written as a two-day series. There are a total of 6 pages that will need to be uploaded. I have two questions:
1) The site says that I've reached my upload limit at 3 pages, but the series has 6 pages.
2) Since this is a two-day series with a separate headline for each day, how do I submit it as a single entry?

Jen, good questions. For entries that have multiple pages, such as a series, you’ll want to combine the PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat. Someone at your newspaper is undoubtedly an expert using the software, so do take advantage of that resource. The steps are also included in the contest book.

As for the headline issue, with this being a series you could put one descriptive headline that covers the entire series (a preferable option) or type in several headlines separated by semi-colons (not preferred unless it’s for a column, editorial or criticism entry).

Hope this helps and thanks for the question.

News enterprise vs. investigative

2010-08-26T20:30:00.000-04:00

I always have trouble telling whether a story (or short series) involving a lot of legwork and records requests belongs in the investigative category or the enterprise category. Is there any clear cut way to tell the difference?

Remember the Supreme Court justice that famously said of pornography that he knew it when he saw it? Unfortunately the answer to your question may be closer to that than any clear cut definition.

While reasonable people may disagree on this topic, we'll give the question a shot. Both News Enterprise Reporting and Investigative Reporting involve beyond the normal level of journalism you'd do for a daily story.

We'd regard Investigative Reporting as being about uncovering a problem, illegal activity, pattern of abuse or something in that realm.

News Enterprise Reporting might involve the same level of work, but more in the way of trying to break down or explain some issue or trend. You're not trying to right a wrong, you're attempting to thoroughly illuminate an issue for your readers.

One big difference between the two involves the submission of a letter for Investigative Reporting showing what impact the stories had on the community or how the reporting lead to a resolution of the problem. The description for Investigative Reporting states, "evidence of probable impact will weigh heavily in the judging."

Such a letter is not required or even encouraged for News Enterprise. Impact is not judged in News Enterprise. That's an important distinction.

And the password is...

2010-08-26T10:54:00.001-04:00

Remember that old TV game show hosted by Allen Ludden, Password. Celebrities were teamed with contestants that had to guess the password after the announcer in an extremely hushed voice said "The password is..."?

That's a long way around to reminding everyone that your newspaper's initial password on the Better Newspaper Contest site is "bnc." Once you sign on you will be prompted to change your password. We won't know what your new password is, so be sure to write it down and keep it in a safe place.

All at once?

2010-08-24T15:27:00.002-04:00

Should all entries from a contestant be entered at one time or does it matter? -- Paulette

One of the great things about this system is that up until the deadline you have full control of your entries. Upload a couple today and some more in a week or so. Decide against one of the entries you've already uploaded? Simply "disable" that entry. So the short answer to your question is that entries do not have to be all uploaded at the same time.

They just have to be uploaded or disabled before the deadline.

Different passwords?

2010-08-24T15:24:00.001-04:00

Will the password we select for the Better Newspaper Contest site be the "one" used by all contestants in our newspaper? -- Paulette

Each newspaper has one password, so everyone at that newspaper will need to use that. If you are worried about too many people having a password, perhaps you could have one staff member to serve as the "gatekeeper" for your newspaper. All of the entries would then go through that one person. It's not necessary to do it that way, but whatever works for your group.

And thanks for all these great questions!

Stories from sections

2009-09-18T18:00:00.005-04:00

Some person by the name of Anonymous left us this inquiry:

I have another question regarding special sections; are stories published in special sections eligible for submission in the feature writing category?

Well, Anon, yes. Here's why -- the special section category judges the entirety of a section, not the individual elements of the section. Consequently, stories, headlines, photos, etc. that run in the section may be entered separately.

One caveat though: In order to be eligible, the section must have been inserted as part of the newspaper. Material from stand-alone niche publications cannot be entered.

Thanks for the question and next time don't feel so anonymous.

Special section question

2009-09-16T10:32:00.002-04:00

We received this inquiry from Ken at the Havelock News:

We put together a special magazine on our city's 50th anniversary. We were in charge of content. However, our Shopper was in charge of selling it. The cover of the magazine states that it is a product of the Havelock News and Shopper. Would this preclude it from being allowed to be entered into the special section category? Again, the news content is ours. The advertising is theirs.

It sounds like fair game for the Special Section category to us, as long as it was inserted in your newspaper and not just in the shopper.

What counts as a headline?

2009-09-16T10:21:00.001-04:00

We received this question from Cathy concerning the headline category: Can overlines/photo kickers be entered as headlines?

Overlines, for the most part, should be considered one part of a total headline. So, while you wouldn’t enter an overline by itself, you could enter it with the primary headline. (This presumes we're both defining overlines as a small headline that appears above the main headline. Unfortunately newspaper terms many times are unique to particular newspapers and the same word can mean different things at different papers.)

Photo kickers (as in the headlines above a cutline) might be a bit more tricky to categorize. In a sense they are headlines, but not for what we consider a traditional story. In the end, this would really come down to what the specific person judging your category thinks about it. If it was me judging, I might not reject a photo kicker as a headline, but I’d probably not give it as much weight as a story headline. In the absence of a rule prohibiting it, you should be able to enter a photo kicker, but would you really want to take a chance? A simple piece of advice: I wouldn't.

Consecutive days vs. Consecutive issues

2008-10-02T09:17:00.003-04:00

Here it is folks, the million dollar question!
Anonymous asks:
Hi! I have a question about the feature section design category. If the feature section is weekly, it's obviously not printed on consecutive dates. We have other feature sections that print in between. So would I submit two consecutive, albeit different, sections or the two feature sections that printed a week apart?

Dear Anonymous,
The simple answer is that any two sections that are entered must be on consecutive publication days, not consecutive specific sections.
This has been a hot button issue between the committee that administers the contest and the board of directors for some time now. I understand why some folks think that the consecutive sections that should be submitted would be two of the same section-for example, if you have a food section every Wednesday you might want to enter two food sections in a row. However, the spirit of this category and the reason behind asking for two consecutive dates, is to show your your papers' excellence in all of the feature sections that you publish, not just one.

I hope this answers your question. Let us know if you have any others!