Times captures 7 journalism awards

Keeping up on a tradition spanning eight years, the Steele County Times has been awarded seven top awards for journalistic excellence in the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.
The Times received the awards Thursday night at the annual awards banquet of MNA in Bloomington. Publisher Rick Bussler accepted five second place awards and a pair of third place awards on behalf of the newspaper.
The newspaper picked up three second place awards for website, editorial page as a whole and typography and design. Bussler was honored individually with two second place awards for business story and portrait and personality photo.
In the typography and design category, judges said, “Excellent front pages and use of fonts. Would like to see more teasers. Very solid design.”
Judges commented about the Times’ editorial pages, “Clean, great use of space and visually appealing.”
For the website category, judges said, “Nice, clean design on home page as well as news pages.”
Bussler’s photo of a 4-H member with her cows at the Steele County Fair last August earned him a second place in the portrait and personality. Commenting about the winning photo, judges said, “Beautiful light and fun moment captured in this photograph. Wonderful composition and contrast.”
A story on Steve’s Meat Market in Ellendale offering a meat vending machine in September 2017 earned Bussler a second place award for business story. Judges said: “Rick’s writing style is engaging and fun. The headline had me chuckling throughout the story.” 
The headline on the story was “Meating the needs of customers 24/7… Steve’s adds first meat vending machine in Minnesota.”
The Times picked up a third place award for general reporting. Judges remarked, “The coverage with the Steele County Times is impressive and thorough. The staff covers a wide variety of topics and clearly works to go above and beyond.”
Bussler was awarded a third place for a news photo he took of a boy rescuing a baby turkey after a storm leveled the family’s farm near Geneva last summer. “What really sold this photo was the surrounding debris. The audience gets a sense of what this young man and the small turkey had been through,” the judge said.
The Times competed in the weeklies 1,501-2,500 circulation category. The Times went up against its sister paper, the Dodge County Independent, in the same category. The DCI earned six awards in the contest.
“The awards we earned are a true reflection of the work done by our entire staff,” said Bussler. “We are committed to journalistic excellence, and these awards are evidence of that commitment.”
Since 2011, the Times has won 42 state awards and 22 national awards, including many first place honors.