NENPA changes awards
format of its predecessors

Continued from Home Page

Another new twist: the Newspaper of the Year competition will become a stand-alone competition with a separate entry fee.

Materials for entering the NENPA awards contest will be available as of the first week of July. Additional information can be obtained by calling NENPA at (781) 320-8050 or by e-mailing info@nenpa.com.

Brenda Reed, executive director of NENPA, said the awards contests of both NENA and NEPA were reviewed by a committee before the merger of the two organizations into NENPA became official July 1.

Reed said that with the new contests, NENPA is hoping to open up opportunities for all member papers.

“It was about creating an opportunity for broader inclusion in both contests,” Reed said.

The genesis for opening up the contest to individuals came after hearing feedback from members for the past few years, Reed said. Newspapers with a finite budget for contest entries were limited in the number of submissions they could submit for any particular contest, especially so in the past year because of the poor economy.

With NENPA’s new contest format, an individual can pay the $15 entry fee for his or her own submission, as long as the member paper he or she works for is entering other pieces.

Newspapers will pay a $25 entry fee for the contest and then each entry will cost $15 — whether the submission fee is paid for by the paper or an individual employee. Newspapers entering the General Excellence category can pay an additional $25 fee if they would like to receive the judges' comments on their newspapers.

For Reed and the NENPA board members, the new contest format is a “common-sense solution to something that was really bothering people.”

The Newspaper of the Year contest will be a separate contest to open the contest up to all interested entrants.

Previously, NEPA’s Newspaper of the Year contest was decided on a weighted points system among the top five newspapers with the highest points in each circulation category for all divisions -- daily, weekly, biweekly/monthly.

NENPA’s Newspaper of the Year contest will allow all member newspapers to enter that contest. Entry fees for the contest have yet to be determined.

The Newspaper of the Year awards will be presented in fall 2010. All other awards will be announced at the first NENPA convention Feb. 6, 2010.

POSTED 7/2/09