The Western Producer competes in three main journalism contests every year.
We do this mainly to measure ourselves against our peers in the industry.
The American Agricultural Editors’ Association awards is the largest of these competitions, and until last week I was on the board (full disclosure). There were record entries from 2014-15: more than 1,000 pieces were submitted by the best in the business.
Michelle Houlden, the Producer’s art director, placed well in the AAEA annual competition.
A third place for single page editorial design was followed up with a second for design of two pages or more. These were for special reports by our staff about significant issues in agriculture.
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That would have been great, but she went on to take first place in that category as well.
The look and feel of the special issue that the Producer publishes at the end of the year, and which last year dealt with manure, placed second for overall design, another win for Michelle and the paper.
This was followed up with a third place for special publication design for our Ag College Guidebook magazine, which Michelle planned out and designed.
AAEA judges also chose Michelle’s work to be first, second and third in the graphics category, among dozens of entries.
Social media is the place where the internet meets the individual user. Smartphones, tablets and desktop computers are used to communicate with the rest of a community.
Our community is agriculture.
In Western Canada, the Producer interacts with thousands of you every day outside of our traditional ink-on-paper products and producer.com with digital tools such as Facebook and Twitter.
Last year, our digital team produced a project to capture your photographs of harvest, and we provided prizes for some of the best images.
Staff journalist Robin Booker led the #Harvest14 project at the WP and for his efforts received second place in the social media category.
We are very proud of all of our folks that create The Western Producer, and we hope you are as well.
