Five Newsleaders’ staff members won six awards in this year’s Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. The awards banquet took place Jan. 30 in Brooklyn Park.
There were nearly 4,000 entries in a multitude of categories in this year’s contest from newspapers across the state. Minnesota newspapers submitted their best work in writing, photography, advertising, internet content and many other categories and were judged by newspaper staffs throughout the State of Illinois.
Editor/Reporter/Columnist Dennis Dalman, who has been with the Newsleaders since 1999, won first place in the highly coveted Herman Roe Editorial Writing Award for a Feb. 16, 2024 editorial entitled “The loud warning signs are here so heed them before it’s too late.” The column was about ex-President Trump exploding into a temper tantrum after a federal appeals court had unanimously voted to reject his claims of “presidential immunity” regarding the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection attempt at the nation’s Capitol.
Judges noted the following: “It takes real courage to tell the truth these days, and this editorial does just that. There is nothing more important about an editorial than to inform the public about the truth, especially when the public wants to ignore the facts.”
Dalman also earned third place in the Best Columnist category and (along with Newsleaders columnist Janagan Ramanathan) also won third place for best Editorial Page as a Whole. Judges noted, “Columnist doesn’t focus on local issues (like others) but his musings on matters common to many people (like contending with too many passwords) do strike a chord” and “An attractively designed editorial page with editorials and opinion columns. Reporter Dennis Dalman’s insightful and locally focused columns anchor the page” respectively. Dalman won first place for columns last year and second place the year before. Last year, Ramanthan won third place for columns.
Long-time Newsleaders photographer Carolyn Bertsch won first and second awards in the Photography Feature Photo category, her fifth win in four years. She won first place for “Officer Kari Bonfield and K-9 Kimber say hello to Ethan Bardeaux” in the Nov. 3, 2023 edition. She won second place for “Kindergarten classmates bump into each other at the Country Lights Festival” in the Dec. 15, 2023 edition, respectively. Both were featured in the Sartell-St. Stephen Newsleader. Judges comments included the following: “The photo of the K-9 officer and the little boy was a clear winner. The photographer made a nice moment of the officer talking to the boy who was probably rattling off a ton of questions about the dog. Nice shallow depth of field helped keep the background out of focus. That sign in the background almost killed this photo” and “Nice night photo of two friends enjoying a light show. We were glad to see the vertical crop. The red and green colors add a nice touch to the white lights,” respectively.
And last but not least, 12-year-old Madison Evans of Sartell won first place in the Human Interest Personality/Profile category for “Sartell boy’s personality shines as he battles cancer” in the Nov. 17, 2023 Sartell-St. Stephen Newsleader. She is the youngest writer ever to win an MNA award. She won for a feature story about Jaymeson Miller, a 12-year-old Sartell boy fighting a courageous, spirited battle against a form of brain cancer. Judges had this to say, “Heart warming story about his journey to recovery and the family and friends supporting him.”
About 18 months ago, Evans, along with her mother, took an online beginners’ course from Bethel University to learn how to become a “citizen journalist.” She has been writing for the Newsleaders since late 2023. Last year she won an International Youth Journalism award for coverage of a golf tournament. Madison, a seventh-grader at Sartell Middle School, is the daughter of Jen and James Evans. She has a younger brother, Xander, and dog named Gizmo.
The Herman Roe award that Dalman won recognizes impactful, meaningful and excellent editorial writing by honoring the single best editorial among all state newspapers published during the previous year. Judges strongly consider the significance to the community of the editorial submission. This award (for first, second and third place) is given to editors from all Minnesota newspaper entries from the 300 registered state newspapers. The award was established in 1965 by the widow of Herman Roe, who was a publisher of the Northfield News, past president of the Minnesota News Association and one of the state’s outstanding editorial writers.
The Columnist award recognizes excellence of writing by an individual columnist employed on newspaper staffs. Entrants each submit three of their columns for the contest. The columns are then judged for their purpose (whether they interpret, evaluate, entertain, advocate and more). Judges then consider how well the columns fulfill those goals with literary style, ability or cleverness of the writer, depth of the material or research and local interest and relevance to the community. The column entries were as follows: “Busted? Don’t worry, just blame the wife” (June 7, 2024); “Passwords, passwords, down with passwords” May 17, 2024; and “Incitements to violence could destroy USA” (Jan. 5, 2024).
The Editorial Page as a Whole award recognizes excellence of the entire editorial page. Judges consider the significance of the work to the community, the quality and impact of the writing and the diversity of material. The three editorial page entries were as follows: Jan. 5, 2024; July 19, 2024; and Dec. 15, 2023.
The Photography Feature Photo award recognizes creativity and economy of expression, strong human interest, fresh views of the commonplace or depicting or illustrating feature news. Judges consider content, reader appeal, technical quality, composition and editing.
The Human Interest Personality Profile award recognizes excellence for a single personality feature story or profile. A personality feature story or profile is one in which the writer explores the characteristics of a person and presents his or her unique story. Entries are judged on the basis of subject, quality of writing, interest and impact.
The Minnesota Newspaper Association was founded in St. Paul in 1867. Its mission is to strengthen standards in the practice and the profession of journalism. The annual contest reinforces that mission by recognizing excellence in the various aspects of newspaper journalism in Minnesota.
Officer Kari Bonfield and K-9 Kimber say hello to Ethan Bardeaux, 3, of Sartell, at the Oct. 26 Oak Ridge Elementary Learning Center Family Event.
Kindergarten classmates bump into each other at the Country Lights Festival and peer out Lake Francis while in line for a train ride. They are (left to right) Wyatt Urke of Rockville and Allison Walters of Luxemburg, both age 5.
