Label, label, label

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

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.

Questions, questions

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?

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

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.

All at once?

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.