PNA Foundation announces newspaper website recognition contest

The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Foundation announces the creation of the Newspaper Excellence in Cyberspace, a national competition with awards presented at New Media World in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Each paper that enters will be eligible to win an award in one or more of nine categories: ease of navigation, consistency, aesthetics, Internet interplay, timeliness, internal search, interact-ability, personalization and e-commerce. Each entrant will also receive back a brief assessment of how well the website measures up. 

In addition, when warranted, the Foundation will award the John Fisher Internet Vision Recognition award, which recognizes the use of the medium by a website in a way that demonstrates leadership to the newspaper industry. This category recognizes the contribution of John Fisher, the late director of online advertising sales for Calkins Media, to the advancement of online presence for newspapers.

Newspaper Excellence in Cyberspace will be judged by the SpaceMaster Team, which often judges website competitions. SpaceMaster, Inc. is the developer and marketer of SpaceMaster, the advertising sales management software product used by newspapers, magazines and other media companies around the country and the world. The team is led by Raphael Badagliacca, President, and author of numerous articles on web presence and print presence, and what makes a successful Internet operation. You can find some of these articles at www.spacemaster.com. 

The awards will be handed out at the 2005 New Media World conference on Tuesday, April 5, 2005. This is a prestigious one-day conference focused solely on online newspaper issues and technology that is held in conjunction with America East Newspaper Operation and Technology Conference, the nation’s premier regional newspaper trade show. 

The complete rules and entry form for the Newspaper in Excellence Cyberspace award are posted on the Foundation’s website at www.pa-newspaper.org.  

Seek the recognition your paper’s website deserves! Enter the Newspaper Excellence in Cyberspace contest. Entries are due no later than January 15, 2005. 

For more information contact Denise Ott at deniseo@pa-news.org or (717) 703-3067.