How does UCG so consistently win journalism awards? How can you?"It's very important to us. Editorial is the heart of our company," said UCG UCG United Church of God UCG Underground Coal Gasification UCG University College Galway UCG Unified Communications Group (Microsoft) UCG Universal Command Guide for Operating Systems (Guy Lotgering book) partner Dan Brown about his pride in the company's unprecedented feat in winning nine awards this year in the Foundation's "excellence in newsletter journalism" competition. The 2003 awards continued UCG's streak of being in the winners circle for the 24th consecutive year, a record matched by no other publisher. Over the years, UCG has earned about 70 total awards in the competition. Obviously, UCG's reporters and editors produce high quality newsletter journalism and their staff includes a number of veterans who have been recognized numerous times in the competition. Awards part of UCG's corporate culture But there's more to UCG's success in the competition. They like winning the awards--it's important to the company and the partners, Ed Peskowitz and Bruce Levenson in addition to Brown. As an example, they feature their awards in their recruiting efforts. On the company website the record of awards is featured as Point One in a section called "7 Reasons to Work for UCG." Award certificates are displayed all over the offices. Beyond creating a corporate culture in which these awards are important, UCG takes a number of steps in an annual process to facilitate success. They operate their own annual in-house editorial awards competition. Reporters and editors are encouraged to submit their best work in categories that mirror NEPA's. Cash also strong motivator They offer cash prizes to the winners (and did so before NEPA did that to their First Place awards), recognizing that there are other motivations for working reporters beyond gaining another certificate for the company ego wall. They use outside judges to evaluate their awards--newsletter and newspaper journalists and academics who may well make the same sort of judgments as the NEPA judging panels. The UCG in-house winners are recognized with fanfare--this year at a banquet held at a local country club, where the company celebrated their reporters' and editors' achievements. In-house competition prelude prelude (prā`l  d), musical composition of no universal style, usually for the keyboard. It was originally used to precede a ceremony and later a second, often larger piece. to NEPA competition The articles which are selected as the winners in the in-house competition are the ones entered in the NEPA competition. The UCG package of entries is annually one of the larger ones in the competition. As they say in the ads for lottery drawings, "You can't win if you're not in." Crafting of entry package A key additional point. They work very hard on the housekeeping A set of instructions that are executed at the beginning of a program. It sets all counters and flags to their starting values and generally readies the program for execution. details that accompany each entry First, with the in-house competition, they ensure entries are in the right categories (more often than you may think, award judges hear themselves saying, "Why do we have this? It ought to be in Category B" and lay it aside). The nominating letters that accompany each entry explain in well-written detail why the story or series in question was important, how hard the reporter worked to get the details, if it was an exclusive, and any results from the publication that they are aware of. The nominating cover letter is important. Probably the most famous story ever recognized by NEPA was the year Beverage Digest won the Best Single Story award for its scoop announcing the "New Coke New Coke was the unofficial name of the sweeter formulation introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola or Coke. " while the company was still keeping it secret. It was obvious to the judges why this was a big story--as were this year's winners who broke the Georgia crematory cre·ma·to·ry n. pl. cre·ma·to·ries A crematorium. adj. Of or relating to cremation. crematorium, crematory a place where cremations are done. and Worldcom scandals. However, in the specialized spe·cial·ize v. spe·cial·ized, spe·cial·iz·ing, spe·cial·iz·es v.intr. 1. To pursue a special activity, occupation, or field of study. 2. world of newsletter journalism, it is more often than not much less "obvious": an outside judge has to be told why the story he or her has in hand is an important one to the newsletter's readers. The nomination letter here carries the ball. Explicitly tell the judges the impact of the entry. Awards add to editors' morale In the 35 years since I wrote my first newsletter article--I covered the Poor People's Park People's Park may refer to:
Capitol, seat of the U.S. government at Washington, D.C. It is the city's dominating monument, built on an elevated site that was chosen by George Washington in consultation with Major Pierre L'Enfant. Publications' Economic Opportunity Report--I have noticed that editors, especially at large companies, tend to feel management sees them as "interchangeable parts interchangeable parts Identical components that can substitute one for another, particularly important in manufacturing. Mass production, which transformed the organization of work, came about by the development of the machine-tool industry by a series of 19th-century ," while the glamour boys and girls boys and girls mercurialisannua. in marketing drive the company and get the glory. Firms making efforts like UCG go a long way to derail de·rail intr. & tr.v. de·railed, de·rail·ing, de·rails 1. To run or cause to run off the rails. 2. that type of thinking and help the editorial department believe it's really a key part of the team. |
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