When it comes to local sports coverage, the experts say you can’t do better than what you get for free in your favorite Online Journal publication.
The experts are out-of-state sports media who judged entries in the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s annual Writing Contest. Results from this summer’s contest, which included content produced in the calendar 2024 year, were announced Sunday during the LSWA’s Awards Brunch in Natchitoches.
As coaches say, statistics don’t lie. The numbers point out the tremendous value Journal readers get with top-caliber content on their local teams as well as compelling state and national topics.
The Shreveport-Bossier Journal sports team – editor/writer Doug Ireland, and writers John James Marshall, Ron Higgins, Teddy Allen and Tony Taglavore – produced more award-winning entries than any other single-market news media outlet In Louisiana, and it wasn’t close.
The SBJ team was rewarded with 18 LSWA recognitions, including some of the top honors in the contest. No other single-market media entity had more than 10.
Adding in awards won by the staff (Malcolm Butler, Kyle Roberts and Reggie McLeroy) at the Lincoln Parish Journal and columnist Bob Tompkins in the Rapides Parish Journal, the Online Journals’ LSWA contest haul was 24 honors. That was on pace with the collective total of the closest competition, which had four outlets that received a combined 24 recognitions.
Journal writers received some of the contest’s top honors, headed by Ireland earning the LSWA’s Sports Writer of the Year award after he earned recognition in eight different categories. He previously won the honor in 1987 for the Alexandria Town Talk before shifting into the athletic media relations profession and not returning to sports writing until 2021.
Marshall was named the LSWA’s Prep Writer of the Year for his high school sports coverage in the SBJ.
Journal writers took home first and second in the state Columnist of the Year in Class II (circulation below 10,000 daily) with Tompkins winning the award while Butler was the runner-up in that category. Butler was also named runner-up for the Class II Prep Writer of the Year for the second straight year.