Our publications and staff are members of the Catholic Press Association for the United States and Canada. As such, we are eligible to be measured against all the other Catholic publications and media sources in North America in their annual awards competition. 

 

So, each year around this time we assemble all The Observers and El Observadors (our Spanish publication) printed in the previous year and take inventory. It is part of the process for preparing entries for the newspaper awards competition.

 

The competition is not just newspapers. It is also for ads, websites, social media, communication projects, videos, personal achievements in media and all kinds of things that help the Catholic Church spread the Good News of Christ and the people who follow Him. 

 

It measures the best of the best and the competition is fierce because there is a lot of really great Catholic content out there, thanks be to God.

 

One of the first things I do is to make a list of all the stories, series, relevant artwork and photographs we published. In doing so, I go back through all 47 issues of The Observer and all 10 issues of El Observardor. 

 

As I finished this part of the process and began to review the list to see what was worthy of entry, I was happily discouraged. It takes some honest discernment to decide if an article should be entered or not. I also get many, many Catholic newspapers and magazines in our Catholic press exchange. Reading and looking at all that content gives me a pretty good idea of what the competition might be for our stuff. My list was incredible.

 

The stories and pictures have to be attractive and on point to the story being told. The articles have to be held not only to a journalism standard of good reporting, good writing and interesting subject matter but they also must meet our Catholic standards of compelling news and stories in a Catholic context. 

 

Do the stories uphold and further the Catholic faith? Do they serve to inform and inspire? Be aware that we ask ourselves these questions before we work on our stories. Then, in preparing for the contest, the questions must be asked again and honestly answered in deciding if a particular story or photo missed or hit the mark. In the review sometimes mistakes are discovered. Sometimes I wonder if we could be better, be more clear or be more creative.

 

There was so much content written by Amanda Hudson, Sharon Boehlefeld, Margarita Mendoza, Patricia Szpekowski, Louise Brass, and Lynne Conner. There were also the regular local columns by Bishop David Malloy, Amanda, Patrick Winn and Father Kenneth Wasilewski. And of course there was stuff written by me too. The list usually fills several legal size pages.

 

At a recent regular weekly meeting I shared with the staff what a chore preparing these entries was this year. I also let them know that the difficulties were entirely of their creation. The responsibility to create a quality publication each week is also shared by those who sell the ads, make the ads, process the pages and photographs and do the proofreading. Together, the full-time and freelance staff are all responsible for what I can see was a pretty excellent year of compelling content produced not for awards, but for you. 

 

That’s right. We do what we do not for awards and accolades but rather to pack every issue with stories, photos and columns which inform, inspire and uplift you in the Catholic world of faith. Our goal is to look at what we did last year and make it better. 

 

We seek to give you always more high quality local Catholic content — content you can’t get from any other source. That’s the way we earn our place in your mailbox. If that content wins an award, that’s great. But you are the first recipient. Our readers get and deserve all the award-winning efforts we can give.

 

 We hope you enjoy our work and join us for another year of Catholic content. We look forward to being invited into your mailbox, inbox and into your home and being part of your Catholic faith life.