The Southeast Missourian and general excellence

Being a good journalist has never been easy.

Developing a great story requires so many elements. It takes time and dedication. Resourcefulness. Talent and skill. It takes innovation and instinct. It takes persistence. And knowledge. It takes personal sacrifice. Attention to detail. An artist's touch.

It takes visuals. It requires numbers. And context. Oh, the context.

A newspaper can never be all things to all people. Those who work in our newsroom read the daily critiques from our readers. Accusations of bias. Enforcement from the grammar police. A lot of advice from armchair reporters and editors. We get it. We're not perfect. But we try.

It is with these elements as a backdrop that we pause today to recognize our journalists for performing so well in the 2014 Better Newspaper Contest held by the Missouri Press Association. The Southeast Missourian was judged alongside other newspapers of similar circulation size in Missouri.

What the judges found is that, for its size, the Southeast Missourian is the best newspaper in the state.

Our reporters, photographers, editors, cartoonist and staff took home 28 awards, 11 of which were first places. The first places include:

* Best front page

* Best information graphic

* Best story about education

* Best sports photo

* Best news photo

* Best coverage of government

* Best breaking news story

* Best news story

* Best sports columnist

* Best news or feature series

* General excellence

The Southeast Missourian also won awards for agriculture coverage, editorial cartoons, sports pages, page design, business reporting, editorial, overall design, outdoors coverage, editorial pages, coverage of history, sports feature and sports photography.

We like to think we have great people in our building, but it's nice when it's confirmed by unbiased judges.

It isn't easy doing all of this stuff. Much of our winning entries took a lot of time to develop. Being a journalist requires much more than rushing out to a crime scene, as is so often portrayed in movies and television dramas.

As an example, our entry for best information graphic was developed over a week. It was a full-page spread on the evidence found in the Jacque Waller case. It required poring over court documents. It contained two-year's worth of information and photos, which we had because we'd been covering the story closely for the duration. It provided context. It took communication between a reporter, Emily Priddy, and our designer at the time, Collin Smith, who spent several hours on the project at home, as he learned how to use different types of software to get the job done. It required many revisions, scores of tweaks and experimenting with the design.

The Southeast Missourian was rewarded for its coverage of the 8th Congressional District appointment process and general election. The newsroom team made scores of phone calls to committee members to find out who were among the leading candidates. This took tremendous coordination and effort by the news staff. It required critical thinking about which counties held the most power. It meant traveling all over the 8th District to cover forums and events. It meant organizing and hosting a televised forum. It meant knowing and understanding the process, and explaining it to readers, who had just lost their representation in Washington D.C.

"Sophisticated work, thorough understanding of the topic," noted one judge. Another said the Southeast Missourian "helped make the process more transparent for readers via enterprise reporting."

We owe a great deal of thanks to Erin Ragan, now covering business, for her hard work on that important story.

Another major award was earned for our coverage of Perryville's ousted police chief. City leaders wanted the public to believe that the chief was only being investigated for his handling of a property damage case at his house. The official word by the city was that this forgery case was the reason for his initial suspension. But a Southeast Missourian investigation, aided by the help of Sunshine Law requests, revealed that the reason the elected chief was being investigated internally in the first place was the revelation of many serious internal accusations, including sexual harrassment.

"Strong stuff here," noted one judge. "Gritty watchdog journalism at its best."

To nail this story, our journalists had to do more than just report on a news release. They had to know about open records laws. They had to follow their instincts. They had to be persistent, even when lawyers and judges got involved.

There are so many other examples of stories you've read in the Southeast Missourian where the story wasn't sparked by sirens or scanner traffic, but by working our sources, and taking the time to examine and study. That's the type of dedication it takes to bring you some of the best journalism Missouri has to offer.