Inland Press Association has named the St. Louis American the 3rd best non-daily newspaper in the nation. The announcement came on February 7, after final selections were made in Inland’s annual Non-Daily Newspaper contest. The contest drew hundreds of entries from throughout the U.S., coast to coast, and was open to all non-daily newspapers in the country.
According to Inland Press Executive Director Ray Carlsen, “The judging decisions were based on the newspaper’s presentation to attract readership, its readability, its community coverage, and the presentation of quality writing and execution.”
The judging panel was comprised of industry experts, editors, publishers, and journalism professors, including the co-chair of the newspaper department in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
The first place award went to The Western Star in Lebanon, Ohio, while second place went to The Herald in Puyallup, Washington.
The following are some of the judges’ comments regarding the St. Louis American: “Targeted coverage works well in this weekly ethnic newspaper. Lots of important local stories n nicely written and displayed n along with multiple columnists, provide issues and information for St. Louis African Americans. Good, consistent quality throughout each section.”
“To be selected and singled out by a national panel of your industry’s experts has to be one of the highest compliments any organization can receive,” American publisher Donald M. Suggs said.
“This recognition helps confirm that we’re on the right track. We’re a community newspaper providing important information, and many times exclusive coverage, while making it accessible for our readers.”
With the sale of Pulitzer Inc. to Lee Enterprises, the American is now also the largest newspaper headquartered in St. Louis.
The Inland Press Association first convened on May 7, 1885, in Chicago. The 19 publishers that first met at Chicago’s Tremont House represented papers from Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa. Since then, the association has grown to include more than 870 newspapers from all 50 states, Canada and Bermuda.
Inland has a long history of catering to the needs of newspapers of all sizes, and has a strong constituency of independent and family-owned newspapers. Inland is a leader in newspaper-related job training, educating nearly 15,000 newspaper employees through its seminars and workshops.
American launches redesigned website
This week the St. Louis American also launched its redesigned website to incorporate changes suggested by loyal readers and online subscribers.
The site, which will remain at the www.stlamerican.com location, has a new look and feel, courtesy of the International Newspaper Network. More than 600 newspapers publish online editions through I.N.N./TownNews.com.
“With our increase in circulation to 70,000 issues every Thursday and increasing interest in our online edition, we felt that the timing was perfect for a site redesign,” said Melia Hawthorne, website/database manager for the paper.
“We have worked very hard to make the site faster and easier to use with a series of changes throughout the site.”
Changes include a new front page with a brighter color scheme that is echoed throughout the site and an easy-to-read layout that is much more user-friendly.
Due to reader demand, contact information is now located at the top and bottom of each page. More frequent news updates and polls will also be generated to keep readers as informed as possible.
Other highlights of the new site include:
*enlarged news photos and a gallery for photos not available in the print edition
*online editions of “Salute to Excellence” tabloids, “Health Matters” and other special sections
*classified and display ad highlights that may be linked to employer websites
*link to the week’s full front page in PDF format.
“Our new internet presence is only one step in what we have scheduled for the future of stlamerican.com,” said Hawthorne.
“Within the next year, we will expand into game offerings, national news feeds, online ad creation, personal web pages for advertisers and much more.”
She also noted that readers with the old website bookmarked need to manually type the website’s location, www.stlamerican.com, into their internet browser and bookmark it again to ensure that they access the redesigned site when visiting it from a link in their bookmarks.
The site, originally launched in 2002, has been recognized by the National Newspaper Association as second-place winner of the Best Website award and was given an honorable mention as the Best On-Line Newspaper by the Missouri Press Association.