(34 entries)

Judge: Brian L. Steffens, New Directions for News
Steffens is associate director of New Directions for News, a national think tank affiliated with the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. His recent projects include content and design turnarounds of Editor & Publisher, AAA's Texas/New Mexico Journey and the Society of Professional Journalists' Quill Magazines.

First place
GARY SMITH
The Tribune
"Front page"
"Clean, organized, easy to move through. Lots of signposts that don't get in the way of each other. Headline typography leads/directs the eye very well. No-confusion hierarchy for the page. Decent mix of news and newsfeature. White space used to good effect without being overbearing (partially helped by the headline typography). Great color reproduction."

Second place
BOB SATNAN
The Tribune
"Front page"
"Organized well, if not flamboyantly. Lead headline sets the tone, map helps visualize the event, quick bio of victim and refers all serve to get a lot of story elements out front for a quick read. It was a big news day and second story of assault gets lost; specifically the small headline. Non-lead headlines are too similar in size, weight and column width."

Third place
(Tie) STAFF
The Payson Roundup
"Front page"

and

KERI HENSLEY
The Arizona Republic
"East Valley section front"
Roundup: "Clean, organized, heirarchical presentation of the news. Stats and map help round out the presentation. Nothing overly fancy, but well executed."
Republic: "Colorful page with great photo reproduction. The photo play moves the eye around and down the page very well. Could do more with non-photo elements: perhaps a stat box on the bronze artist, or a map showing where the artwork is found, or a stats piece on size/weight/amount of materials/time to cast for the artwork? Or a list of the topics to be found on the kiosks?"

Honorable Mention
STAFF
The Payson Roundup
"Y2K"
"Clean, bold, attractive. Not so busy that you can't follow it (the problem with a lot of full page graphics). A fine package.Worthy of a Œplace,' except that I didn't deem it a deadline page. The very nature of the content, the graphic and the text blurbs indicate it's a Œfeature' content (if not section) page that could be (and very probably was) produced in advance, over several days."