SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.—Epoch Times Orange County reporter, Yvonne Marcotte, won two awards at the 2015 Better Newspaper Contest for the New York Press Association (NYPA) April 8-9 in Saratoga Springs.
She got second place in Coverage of the Arts with her story “Artist Turns Ordeal Into Inspiration” highlighted by the NYPA, and third place in Coverage of Agriculture with “Creamery Shows OC Dairy Farms a Sustainable Future” also being recognized.
The NYPA, founded in 1893, holds the annual competition to recognize the best work in the industry across the state of New York. Overall, 177 publications submitted 2,836 entries to this year’s contest.
This is the first year Orange County Epoch Times, which launched in May of 2015, participated.
“Yvonne Marcotte’s second place award for reporting on the arts and third place for reporting on agriculture shows how our new Orange County Epoch Times is already doing an excellent job in serving its community,” said Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gregory.
Manhattan-based Epoch Times made it into the winner’s circle—honoring the top five newspapers in New York—in two of the three overall categories: total contest points, and total advertising contest points, taking fourth place in each.
The nine awards that contributed to the paper’s high overall placement include firsts for overall design excellence, photographic excellence, best feature story, and best advertising campaign; second place finishes in best advertising campaign, best front page, and coverage of the arts; a third prize in coverage of agriculture, and an honorable mention for best news or feature series.
Design and Advertising
For the third year running, Epoch Times Creative Department won the most prestigious honor in the design category—the Richard L. Stein Award for Overall Design Excellence.
The judges’ comments were lengthy and effusive, praising the paper for its “unapologetic use of white space, … great use of graphic elements, reverse type, typography, … amazing and exceptional photography resources.”
“You made your broadsheet into a specialty magazine, love the look,” the judges wrote.
Creative Director Rob Counts said it’s humbling to win the honor again.
“For us design is all about storytelling. It’s never about simply placing a photo on an article and going to press. We put heart into every article that goes into our paper,” Counts said.
Counts himself won first place for Best Advertising Campaign for his work on Uncle Ted’s Modern Chinese Cuisine; and Senior Designer Luba Pishchik took second in the same category for her campaign for Duet restaurant.
The Creative Department also took home a second place prize for Best Front Page.
Photography
Epoch Times also repeated its first-place finish from 2013 for Photographic Excellence.
