Back-to-back! Inquirer wins second-consecutive TPA Sweepstakes award

For the second-consecutive year, the Gonzales Inquirer was crowned the Sweepstakes winner for Division 7 at the 2023 Texas Press Association Better Newspaper Contest this past weekend in College Station — a victory that is equivalent to winning a state championship.

Despite not winning a single first-place plaque, the Inquirer parlayed four second-place finishes, three third-place finishes and a fourth place into 400 points, tying for most in the division with the Pilot Point Post-Signal. A tiebreaker for having the most second-place finishes gave the Sweepstakes plaque to the Inquirer.

“I couldn’t believe it when they read our name off as the winner,” Publisher Lew K. Cohn said. “I didn’t think we were even going to finish in the top 5 because we didn’t win first in a single category, but my friend, UT professor Kathleen McElroy, pointed out to me the competition is similar to a barbecue cookoff. Instead of excelling in just one area, like ribs or brisket or chicken, our staff at the Inquirer are very good in a lot of categories and those points added up in the long run.

“We may only have three full-time employees on staff, but we work so well together as a team. Our focus is always on covering our Gonzales County community and we could not do this without our loyal advertisers, subscribers and readers. This win belongs as much to them as it does to us!”

The Inquirer won second place in Column Writing, News Photography, Page Design and Community Service (which doesn’t count towards Sweepstakes). The newspaper took third in Advertising, News Writing and Sports Coverage and fourth in Editorial Writing.

The Post-Signal won second place in Feature Photography and Sports Coverage and third place in Editorial, News Photography, Sports Photography and Special Section (also not a Sweepstakes category). They won fourth place in Column Writing, Feature Writing, Headline Writing and Page Design.

The 2023 Texas Better Newspaper Contest featured 18 categories. Participating newspapers were invited to submit entries from work published during the calendar year 2023. This year, 100 newspapers submitted 956 entries in the contest.

Division 1 was reserved for the five metro dailies with the highest circulation in Texas, which complete only in the General Excellence category. Division 2 is designated for dailies; Divisions 3 and 4 for semiweeklies (newspapers publishing two or three times per week) and Divisions 5 through 10 for weeklies.

This year, 11 dailies competed in Division 2; 24 semiweekly newspapers competed in Divisions 3, 4 and 5; and 65 weekly newspapers competed in divisions 6 through 10.

Competitions were divided into divisions in which newspapers competed against publications of similar circulation.

TPA member newspapers competing in each division had the opportunity to submit entries in 12 sweepstakes contest categories and six non-sweepstakes contest categories.
In the sweepstakes contest categories, awards were presented in all nine circulation divisions.
In the non-sweepstakes categories, divisions were determined by the number of entries from dailies, semiweeklies and weeklies. This year there were three divisions in the Community Service, Best Website, Online Coverage and Public Notice competition categories; four divisions in Best Magazine and five divisions in the Special Section category.

Entries were judged this year by members of the Georgia Press Association while Texas Press Association member volunteers judged entries in the GPA contest.

First place winners and sweepstakes winners receive plaques and certificates are awarded in first through fourth places.

Sweepstakes points are earned for each division (except Division 1) based on point accumulation in the 12 sweepstakes categories: 100 points for each first-place award, 75 points for each second-place award, 50 points for each third-place award and 25 points for each fourth-place award.

Awards were presented on June 22 at the 2024 TPA Convention & Trade Show at the Hilton College Station and Conference Center.