Times named one of best papers in nation

Coming on the heels of earning the top award for being the best newspaper in Minnesota earlier this year, the Steele County Times has now been named one of the best papers in the U.S.

On Saturday, the Times captured the coveted General Excellence award at the National Newspaper Association’s annual convention in San Francisco. The national contest honors the best in community journalism.

In naming the Times as one of the best, the judges commented: “First, 40 pages of stunning community news, features and a merry Christmas appeal through ‘personal journalism!’ Huge sports coverage/section staff written. Good photos throughout. Second, more of the same: quality local stories engaging community! And third (there are three editions for this entry), even more personal, more engaging! Excellent ad variety from commercial to service to institutional. The senator’s column on newspaper preservation was a fine tribute. However, if our community newspapers followed or mirrored this entry, our newspapers would be well preserved.”

“We are thrilled beyond belief to receive such a high honor from our peers in the newspaper industry,” said Publisher Rick Bussler. “Something like this doesn’t come easy without the hard work and dedication to quality journalism by a talented news and general staff like we’re fortunate to have.”

In January, the Times was awarded first place in the General Excellence category from the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

The Times also achieved four other awards in the national contest, including a second place, third place and a pair of honorable mentions.

The second place award was given for Best Use of a Double Truck for the Times’ coverage of the Highway 14 opening in November 2021. A double truck is a newspaper term used to describe two side-by-side pages of news coverage. Judges said: “Very informative and wonderfully put together.”

The third place honor was for Best Special News Section for the holiday good news edition produced in December 2021. Judges said: “Impressive body of work. Calling it a Holiday Good News Extra undersells the depth of the coverage contained in this special section.”

Rounding out the awards were honorable mentions for Best Front Page Design and Feature Story writing. For the front page award, judges remarked, “very creative and eye catching. Cute photo on top. Nice layout.”

Bussler earned the honorable mention for a story he wrote last Thanksgiving about a boy named Ivan who was adopted by a Medford family. The judges offered a single word comment: “Heartwrenching.”

For most of the categories, the Times competed in the non-daily division, circulation 3,000 and under. However, for the Best Use of Double Truck category, the Times competed with both daily and non-daily newspapers of all circulations.

The Times has earned 31 national awards on top of 79 state awards over the past 11 years.