While I’m here in Virginia Beach slaving away over a hot stove blog, my ACES colleagues are in New Orleans this week, attempting to create an acute beer shortage meeting and discussing the finer points of journalism.
Naturally, I wish I could join them. Perhaps next year.
In the meantime, though, ACES today announced the winners of its annual headline writing contest. I have to say: As often as my own pun-laden headlines have been criticized and shot down over the years, there are a lot of puns and much wit among this year’s winners.
Don’t get me wrong: These are much better than anything I’ve ever dreamed of writing. And they’re all worthy of note.
This is not a complete listing of winners. These are just a few of the headlines that caught my eye. Keep in mind that each winning entry consisted of several headlines.
First place winner for staff in the 240,000-circulation-and-over category was the Dallas Morning News. It’s easy to see why, with genius work like this…
…and this.
In second place in staff for the largest papers: The Los Angeles Times.
In addition, the Times‘ David Bowman — as a science fiction geek, I gotta love that name — won first place in the individual category for the largest papers. Two examples of David’s work:
David’s LAT colleague, Laura Dominick, earned second place.
The desk of the New York Times earned third place in the largest newspaper category. Winning third place in the individual competition was Andy Webster of the Times who came up with this gem:
First place for staff at the 160,000-to-240,000-circulation category went to the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
Second place in the 80,000-160,000-circulation staff category went to the Omaha World-Herald.
The World-Herald‘s Nick Piastowski won second place in the individual competition for his paper’s circulation size.
The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle won first place in the under-80K newspaper staff category.
There were a number of non-newspaper categories as well. First place for staff of an online publication went to the Today show/MSNBC.
As much as I loved all those, however, I think my favorite batch in the entire show was submitted by Peter Donahue of the Providence (R.I.) Journal, who earned first place for individuals from papers with circulation 80K-160K.
Peter’s samples ranged from the sly…
…to the obvious…
…to the punny…
…to the fall-down-laughing-at-the-sheer-genius-of-it.
Wonderful work by all, of course.
Check out the official ACES announcement of all the winners — including judges’ comments — here. At the bottom of that post, you’ll find a link to a PDF file containing clips of all the winners. Download that and study it well.
Go here to keep up with with all the news about this year’s ACES conference in New Orleans.
