Each year, in its Better Newspaper Contest, the National Newspaper Association recognizes standout stories and innovative ways to present vital information … and the Ink’s reporting team is proud of what the judges recognized in our approach for our 2021 submissions.

We received five total awards in the Editorial Contest (all winning publications are published here). First place went to Juliana Demarest, culture editor, in the Best Editorial category for Ask a Stupid Question … Please! while Alex Hoeft, reporter and hack-of-all-hats from layout design to new motherhood, received a third-place win for How I Combine Church and State. Our news reporting also gained recognition: Hoeft, along with publisher and editor-in-chief Mayumi Elegado, won another third in the Best Investigative or In-Depth Story or Series for Dementia Discharge and contributor Liz Bowling received an Honorable Mention in the Best Sports Feature Story or Series for Women of Winter.

Lastly, Moonshine’s whole content production team received a third-place win in the story/series category of Communication in a Crisis for our multimedia in-depth pandemic coverage. This win is shared with community and media partners, like KTKE, our radio collaborator on Moonshine Minutes, which was a quickly-executed daily radio show bringing listeners our latest Covid coverage, resources, and local information.

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This category took into account our wide range of multimedia coverage as the virus took hold and the Tahoe/Truckee region adapted all throughout the last year and a half, including our Tahoe Talks community conversations which were born out of the difficult times, our live and rolling Covid updates, and our in-depth reporting and analysis.

“Good job of informing your readers about the pandemic,” wrote the NNA judges. They said they “enjoyed reading about the 1918 pandemic and how it affected Tahoe/Truckee” and particularly appreciated how our content did a “good job of getting different voices and viewpoints in the stories.”

We love constructive criticism, too: While judges praised Bowling’s research, they advised against our choice to use a direct question-and-answer format, saying that “a good feature writer works on description and storytelling. Anyone can do Q&A. The best can take subjects and make them come alive.”

Ultimately, the feedback we received is both helpful and flattering, especially in the sense that we were recognized for aspects of our coverage on which we were intentionally focusing. For example, while we stretched ourselves paper-thin to cover all aspects of the pandemic, we never wanted to lose our watchdog role in other parts of society, holding powerful institutions to account, and keeping the focus on telling in-depth stories.

Dementia Discharge was an extensive investigative endeavor, with the dream team of Hoeft and Elegado at the helm. The end result had the NNA judges complimentary of the article’s writing, and how it highlights “a sad, frustrating situation that affects so many families,” they wrote, adding that the transparency of sources in the article made the piece stronger: It’s “good to show how many people connected to the nursing home wouldn’t comment.” 

The NNA judges also noticed the effort and skill behind the interviews, noting: “Good work by the paper to get a family member to allow so much access to this situation. [This is a] very informative piece about several aspects to nursing home care and financing.”

It’s also nice to get some individual recognition, and the Ink squad is grateful for the unique perspectives that make up our editorial board, and form the ideas that create Moonshine’s content. We use our editor’s note platform to share insights and ideas from the minds behind Moonshine.

In her winning editorial, Hoeft took a serious look at how her Reno community and the greater society perceives a disconnect between her religious identity and her progressive viewpoints, yet she feels the morals of her Christianity and her political ideology are both historically and logically aligned.

“This editorial makes you think again about faith beliefs and how they correlate with political philosophies,” wrote the NNA judges. “The writer gives us a genuine look at her own personal beliefs and issues a challenge for us to look at ours.”

Meanwhile, judges were blown away by Demarest’s prose in Ask a Stupid Question … Please! They recognized the “creative and thought-provoking” writing style the Ink team knows and loves, and wrote simply: “This writer has a gift!”

Read up on our six 2019-20 wins here and our eight 2018-19 wins here (yeah, it’s true … we don’t take a year off from winning … 😉 ). The full table of this year’s awards follows.

Moonshine Ink’s 2020-21 NNA Better Newspaper Contest Awards