Winner: Matthew Crowley, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Judges: Barbara Tarshes (chairwoman), Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise; Deborah Gump, Committee of Concerned Journalists; Nicholas Jungman, The Wichita Eagle; Jim Thomsen, Kitsap (Wash.) Sun

Judges’ comments:

• Crowley offers a strong package of headlines with each standing on its own merit.
• Crowley’s heads reflected an awareness of place (referencing the glut of Vegas glitz), cultural history (citing a Rat Pack flashback), his audience (harking back to 1960s kitsch TV) and a willingness (come on!) to take (go for it!) risks (see, that wasn’t so scary)
• In a time when newspapers need more than ever to shake off the stiff, stentorian conventions of the past and work harder to connect with readers, Crowley’s heads make the reader feel as if he or she is dropping into the middle of a coffee-shop conversation. And they make the reader want to dive into the stories and continue the conversation.
• His heads are full of humor, and yet that humor is never forced. It’s hard to overestimate the power of humor – good humor, not easy wordplay – to draw a reader into a story. Each of Crowley’s headlines does that deftly.

Award of Excellence: Panfilo Garcia, Austin American-Statesman

Judges’ comments:

• Garcia’s heads are notable for their relaxed good nature while not breaking a single headline ‘rule.’ Afraid of using too many punctuation marks? Check out ‘It’s not you, romantic comedy, it’s … well, no, actually, it is you.’ His ‘Weren’t born to run? Give us 8 weeks’ took the rarely trodden personal approach, using a personal pronoun to establish a personal link with the reader. ‘Personal’ should not be a dirty word in newsrooms, even if it’s used three times in the same sentence.
• Garcia has a strong gift for conveying much with little, and doing so in an effortlessly conversational style. The paradigm is changing, and Garcia is showing how we’re having to change with it.
• There is wordplay here, in spades, but it’s wordplay that goes the extra mile. There are three- and four-word headlines here that we dare say no one has ever seen before. (A real compliment when it comes to three- and four-word heads.)