Excellence in News Writing

2010 Circle of Excellence Awards Program
Judges Report

Excellence in News Writing: General News Writing

The strongest entrants in the General News Writing Category effectively linked news releases and web site content and consistently matched topics to institutional goals and messages. They showed good news writing and news sense. We especially liked the way that state-funded institutions, such as the University of Missouri, Columbia and Florida State University, were highly cognizant of their responsibility to taxpayers in their selection and treatment of news stories. Silver award winner the University of California, Berkeley showed a keen sense of timing and public concern as well as careful matching of news to appropriate media against the backdrop of the California financial crisis. The George School, an independent school, and Colorado Mountain College, a community college, illustrated a clear understanding of the needs of their specialized target audiences and the media in story selection and repurposing of releases for the web, alumni publications, and the like.

Poor and unfocused writing, lack of specificity, and overly-long and delayed leads were problem areas for some entries. We were also surprised by entries that made no effort to contact media but simply posted stories on the web in the hope, we surmised, that someone might find them.

Gold Awards:

1. The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. The university gave an exceptionally clear and cogent statement of objectives and then marked out a straightforward path for achieving them. The releases were concise and tightly written - none exceeded a page in length - with content targeted to UK and international media. All releases were sent as emails, with source and headline in the Subject field and a two-line summary introducing the release.
2. York University, Toronto, Ontario. York also targeted its releases to a regional and international market, and sought to advance York's mission to produce innovative and impactful research. While the topics were research-based, the audience was a general one. Leads were especially strong and engaging, and copy was intriguing, informative, and easy to read. We especially liked the "Songbirds" and "Space Elevator" releases, with sharp leads that made us want to read more.

Silver Award:

University of California, Berkeley. As noted above, UC Berkeley chose stories that would engage the general public and communicate the university's service to the state and nation. The releases were well-written and the topics - such as research on the pressures facing teenage girls today "(Pressure to Be a SuperGirl") and student work in the area of global poverty and practice - were relevant to the university's objectives and media/public interest. The releases were frequently combined with audio slideshows, videos and other add-ons to create appealing on line packages for media and other audiences.

Excellence in News Writing: Research, Medicine, and Science News Writing

Similar strengths and weaknesses to those in the General News Writing category appeared in this area as well. The best entries had well-thought-out and clearly presented statements of objectives, exhibited a strong understanding of the target audience, and utilized the power of good writing and news sense to engage the attention of research media.

Gold Award:

University of California, Berkeley. Just as in its General News Writing entry, UC Berkeley combined a well defined mission, engaging topic choice, and strong, thorough writing to show the value of university research, despite -- and perhaps especially in -- difficult economic times. In particular, research releases were designed to communicate to the public that UC Berkeley remains the nation's top-ranked public research university and "does vital work for the state, nation, and world and for the greater good."

Silver Awards:

1. Imperial College, London, UK. Imperial is the only UK university to focus entirely on science, technology, engineering, medicine, and business and seeks to communicate "the significance of science in general" and well as its research contributions to national and international audiences. Releases are engaging and well-written and effectively accompanied by images and video to create a compelling package.
2. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. As a public research university, the University of Washington sought to match its messages to its own market research with state audiences. That research indicated their expectation that the university lead the way in work on sustainability, technology, and healthy lives. These priorities drove the university's research communication goals. Clear objectives and engaging and well-executed stories were also adapted for enewsletters and incorporated into speeches by university officials to achieve the desired results.