Diary shines at awards

by Cherie Moselen
26th November 2014

WARRANDYTE Diary was a proud finalist in six out of nine independently judged categories at the annual Community Newspaper Association of Victoria awards recently.

Living up to its motto of “for the community, by the community”, the Diary received a notable thumbs-up, winning the award for Best Community Content among others.

Seven newspapers were short-listed for this award, with three finalists selected against strict criteria: ownership; whether there was an invitation for community people to write; writers being named; variety of writers; type of content about community; whether the writing style seemed community or corporate based.

The Diary was also recognised for: Best Layout & Design (winner); Best Photo (finalist); Best Sports Coverage (finalist); Best News Feature (finalist), and the jewel in the crown – Best Newspaper (winner).

In choosing Warrandyte Diary as the winner in this category, the judge said:

“I was won over by this newspaper’s excellent understanding of its local community. It has a superb lay out with headings and sub-heads that perfectly fill the space, lots of good quality photographs and there is an abundance of life and colour in this 40-page paper.

“There’s a good mix of hard and soft news plus stacks of wonderful feature stories – everything from Australia’s most remarkable school through to a Warrandyte doctor talking about a birth drug breakthrough on the world stage and a well written and photographed feature by Bill McAuley about a local living treasure, Hugh McSpedden.

“It’s also great to see a newspaper that is not afraid to have some fun with a humorous ‘Over The Hills’ column on page 2 and the use of cartoons on several other pages. Throw in plenty of excellent opinion pieces, five pages of sport and an eight-page lift-out on the Great Warrandyte Cook Up (with the cutest mini-chefs you ever did see!) and it all makes Warrandyte Diary a worthy winner of this year’s Best Newspaper Award.”

Diary editor Scott Podmore described the win in last month’s edition as “a fantastic result, not only for our great little team, but all our contributors and the Warrandyte community that we serve”.

“It’s a really lovely way to cap my first year as editor of this newspaper, the communication hub of Warrandyte,” he said. “But I was obviously given an enormous head start and advantage on all the others, and that’s called the Cliff Green factor – the best part of 40 or so years of Cliff building the foundations and growing the best community newspaper in the world, let alone Victoria, and I’m merely steering the ship.”

Warrandyte Diary is one of more than 200 community newspapers regularly published in Victoria.

CNAV, the peak body that represents them, actively works with its members to enhance the capacity and standing of community newspapers in Victoria, and also seeks to raise their profile with all levels of government.

To advance its aim of fostering communication between the papers, the organisation hosts an annual conference, which administers the CNAV awards.

Financed solely through advertising, Warrandyte Diary at 44 years old is the longest continuously running community newspaper in Victoria.

Long may it serve…

(page 7, Warrandyte Diary, November 2014)