First Place Judge's Comments: Nice layout, headlines that draw you in. Good variety. Writing is easy to read and understand. Nice short sentence structure.
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Second Place
Topsail Voice
Hampstead
Judge's Comments: Good use of white space. Good variety. Pictures look nice. Good writing.
Third Place
Tideland News
Swansboro
Second Place
The State Port Pilot
Southport
Judge's Comments: As with its NCPA competition, The Wake Weekly, you can put the Pilot up against any weekly in the nation. I hope the Pilot won general excellence last year. I suspect it's in the running annually. This is great journalism.
Third Place
Cherokee Scout Murphy
Judge's Comments: The Scout is obviously working to serve it's community and doing an admirable job of it. News stories have snap, and a lot of effort goes into the editorial page. Good work.
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Wow. This is a mighty fine weekly newspaper. Not only lots of news, but it's well written and - I am sure - well received in the communities the paper covers. Outside the realm of hard news, the sports in general and, in particular, the coverage of the state runner-up Cougars is commendable. You can put this weekly up against any in the nation. 
First Place Judge's Comments: What's
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not to like and appreciate about The Pilot? This is an excellent paper, from general news coverage and community impact and imput as measured by reader involvement in letters to the editor, to visual appeal throughout. Great work all around.Second Place
The Brunswick Beacon
Shallotte
Judge's Comments: A VERY close contender for first place. The weekly Beacon's commitment to open government is beyond question. This paper is far more concerned about citizens' right-to-know than making friends at city hall. News coverage is widespread.
Third Place
Mooresville Tribune
Mooresville
Judge's Comments: Mooresville Tribune is a pretty good model of what a community newspaper should be, given that the bar was set so high by the first- and second-place entries. For the division, 10 of 18 entries made the initial cut as possible contenders.
First Place Judge's Comments: Visual appeal reels in readers, keeps them there with local news, photos, graphics.
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Second Place
Statesville Record
& Landmark
Statesville
Judge's Comments: Appealing design and good focus on local news.
Third Place
The Dispatch Lexington
Judge's Comments: Layout and design plus community news make this paper a success story.
First Place Judge's Comments: The
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mechanical excellence and appearance of the paper leave something to be desired, but the staff more than makes up for it with very strong news coverage and literacy excellence in particular. Other areas of strength include community interests and editorial vigor. Content wise, clearly the class of the competition. Second Place
The Gaston Gazette
Gastonia
Judge's Comments: The best in appearance and mechanical excellence. Very sharp, clear reproduction and, at least for the two days we saw, the best designed paper. The paper also ranked at the top in promoting community interests and offered very solid news coverage, particularly its big city treatment of the inauguration.
Third Place
Hickory Daily Record
Hickory
Judge's Comments: We liked this paper's literacy excellence and promotion of community interests. Its stories also were the best-written that we saw. A very "newsy" paper that overcomes some mechanical problems.
First Place Judge's Comments: The |
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Observer was the obvious winner in this category. Although there were many fine entries, none could come close to Charlotte’s in-depth and readable account of the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson and the almost miraculous survival of all aboard — many of whom were from Charlotte. To create a two-day enterprise piece as well reported, well written and well illustrated as this one would be something any newspaper could be proud of — to create it on the fly from a live-news event is remarkable. The Observer’s coverage, and the rest of the content in the two newspapers that accompanied the in-depth package on the flight makes even those not associated with it proud to be in newspapers. Second Place
The Fayetteville Observer
Fayetteville
Judge's Comments: Good reporting and coverage, sharp and well-crafted photos and illustrations, and simply doing many, many things well helped Fayetteville win second place. The two editions both had strong centerpiece news stories — one on the problems at an area emergency room and another on how John McCain might be losing the fight to hold on to North Carolina, once considered a safe win for the GOP. The art for the ER story perfectly illustrated it, and the illustration for the Obama-McCain fight took what could have been dry art and made it an eye-catcher. Almost as impressive were that similar levels of craft that went into writing stories for the state and local, features and sports sections, in particular the Vander Pig Cook-off story.
Third Place
News & Record
Greensboro
Judge's Comments: To pull out the dreaded sports metaphor, The News Record is like one of those teams that lacks a spectacular offense, but is still a winner because it does everything else so well. Both issues featured solid, but unspectacular, news centerpieces, but almost all the stories in these two editions were interesting and well-written and the art and layouts were gorgeous. The latter almost stole the show. There were beautifully photographed stories ranging from paintball competitions to roof raisings and from nicely written and designed projects on bond endorsements and "Faith in Bad Times."
First Place Judge's Comments: Great graphics and photos. Copy is clean, coverage is varied and interesting.
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Second Place
Triangle Business Journal
Raleigh
