In its first year as a member of the North Carolina Press Association, The Rant earned six NC Press awards handed out at the annual NCPA conference and awards banquet held Aug. 25 in Raleigh. The Rant took home four first place awards, a second and a third for coverage in 2021 and early 2022.
NCPA’s advertising and editorial contest is one of the largest in the nation with over 4,000 entries submitted by more than 125 newspapers and news organizations.
Most notable of The Rant’s awards was a first place in “Community Coverage,” which took into account a month’s worth of news and features and judged based on a news organization’s overall scope and how it benefits the community it serves.
“Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘community’ as ‘a unified body of individuals’ or ‘an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location,'” Anderson said. “And Webster’s defines ‘coverage’ as ‘inclusion within the scope of discussion or reporting.’ Interestingly enough, ‘award’ is defined as ‘something that is conferred or bestowed especially on the basis of merit or need.’ I recently bought a dictionary.”
Anderson and co-founder Billy Liggett won first place for sports feature writing for its feature on the return of the Sanford Spinners baseball team and the history of the team dating back to WWII. Liggett won first place for sports enterprise writing for his feature on adult soccer in Sanford, and he won first place for headline writing. He won second for column writing and third for arts and entertainment reporting (“The Show Must Go On“).
Anderson and Liggett were joined by co-founder Jonathan Owens, Richard Sullins, Brandon Allred, Charles Petty and Ben Brown in the community coverage award.
“A lot of people say they don’t do it for the awards, but we’re not those people,” Liggett said. “Without awards, why do we even have jobs? Money? Fulfillment? No, it’s plaques and framed sheets of good-quality paper. Without those, we’re no better than primates.”
Congrats!
Congratulations, well deserved! And still……..no subscription required.
Great news coverage! Especially the email updates. Wish I could receive the Rant Monthly paper addition in the mail.
Would gladly pay the price. Congratulations and keep up the good work!
Love that hollywood, the press and government give themselves “awards’….lol
Thank’s,, Walter!
Congratulations on your awards!!
I was born and raised in Sanford and lived there most of my life until 2000! I have family and friends there who introduced me to the Rant! Good luck and please continue your efforts bringing all the news to the great folks in Sanford. Elaine Coggin
“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit
Of colored ribbon.”
Let’s see, awards are given to people who perform their jobs. During the past two years, why most people were sitting comfortably and safely in their homes, others were out there daily performing their jobs and putting their lives as risk (as we were led to believe.) Our award, was the same paycheck we got without any form of thanks, or “atta-boys” or anything. Some of us were told that if we died during this “pandemic” that we would immediately be fired and replaced….not kidding and no joke whatsoever on that one.
Oh and we were told that if we wanted to continue to work, we HAD to take a vaccine that did absolutely nothing, and Webster’s even changed the very definition of what a vaccine is and what it’s supposed to do. The only people who were “awarded” for work were the “hero’s (drs and nurses) who only performed their duties that they signed up for…..nothing more special than that, and I don’t think they are heros. So please forgive me (or don’t, I don’t care because I’m not a bleeding heart leftist Democratic liberal.) who doesn’t see the big deal of getting an award for doing nothing more than your job.
First off, no capitals in your name. An easily missed mistake, but one that we have to knock points for. Secondly, you used why in your second sentence when I believe you meant to use while. “Why most people…” doesn’t really work with what you’re trying to say. You also forgot to put a second comma after your “atta-boys” comment, which you would of course use when making a list of three or more items of any kind. I am also confused about your claim of dying and being fired? If you were to tragically die, then how can you also be fired?
You also forgot another comma in the opening to your second paragraph. Your claim about the vaccine doing “absolutely nothing” is demonstrably false, and your claiming otherwise is really sapping your credibility here. And your claim about the definition of vaccine being changed is somewhat true, but you’re leaving out vital context about why it was changed. So you’re still going to be docked points for intentional misleading.
You also interestingly used the wrong plural of hero not once, but twice, and you spelt it wrong both times. To make hero plural, you add an -es to the end of it, getting the word heroes. Hero’s is the possessive singular of the word hero. For example: That is the Hero’s car. And the use of “heros” is wrong because of the aforementioned correction. You also used the professional abbreviation for doctor, but used it without capitalizing the D, which you should always do. You also used it in conjunction with nurses, but in this case it would be more professional to spell out doctors since you also spelt out nurses.
Your final sentence is also grammatically all over the place. Remember when you use of parenthesis, that you are simply providing context that, if left out, would keep the sentence grammatically accurate. Your sentence currently reads as, “So please forgive me who doesn’t see the big deal of getting an award for doing nothing more than your job.” This is a very awkward sentence. Not only do you have both a run-on, and a comma splice in the same sentence, you also have a double negative by using both “doesn’t see” and “nothing more” While the best course of action would be to just delete this section, I understand you want to get your buzzwords in, so here is the best way to fix it would be as follows,
“So please forgive me; or don’t, I don’t care because I’m not a bleeding heart leftist Democratic liberal who sees a big deal of getting an award for doing anything more than your job.”
Let’s go over how we fixed your sentence. By using the semi-solon and comma, we can link your two sentences together to show that they are related. You can also see we got rid of the double negative. You’ve already established your not a bleeding heart leftist Democratic liberal, so you don’t have to reestablish the negative.
I truly hope this helped you so that next time you decide to leave a comment with buzzwords and, to borrow a phrase from your camp, “fake news”, you can more clearly present your thoughts. Have a lovely day.
Proofreading,
So I have to reply to your post on the above comment. At no time, did you express any original thought, gave a rebuttal to something that was stated, which are all facts in case you were wondering. Or offer YOUR opinion. You basically just went on the Internet and looked up rules of grammar and cut and pasted them to make yourself seem intelligent. Well, you completely failed. You look like a complete idiot with your reply.
YOU are the one who used the term “fake news” not the OP. And, as someone who used to be Democrat, but realized it was an incorrect line of thinking, I agree with the OP position. I too, was informed that I would be terminated if I contracted Covid and died, and also that a replacement was waiting in the wings. So it was common for companies to say that when people were being forced to work as thing progressed, but you were probably one of the ones who was sitting at home collecting a paycheck during that time. So you may want to
think and do a little bit of research before you offer your opinion on things you clearly have no clue what they hell you are talking about. You probably also think that “cancelling” student debt is the right thing to do, and you can deny it all you want but just from your reply, everyone knows where you stand.
Oh and since you want to be the grammar police, you stated “Let’s go over how we fixed your sentence.” You used the plural pronoun we, which states more than one, a group of people fixed this statement. And someone with your intellect, would surely know that the correct pronoun to use would be I. See I means that you alone did this. You all by yourself completed the task. You put the word we in there so I guess we will have to dock you a few points as well. Maybe we just take all your points away and give them to someone else. Because you clearly support Socialism and are scared of free thinking independent thought.
And I’m sure that you are going to take the time and dissect my grammar as well. Go ahead. Just remember it’s folks like us who kept the economy going and made sure people like you didn’t run out of supplies. So sit in your castle and judge away. Your opinion means nothing to me, and probably less to others who had to endure the crap during the pandemic. Now, YOU have a nice day!
Why do you read The Rant?
I’m sorry you didn’t get an award, absolute truth.
Congratulations! Well deserved!
Congratulations guys. keep up the good work!
Congratulations!!
Charles, we know you like colored ribbons. It’s why you and Gordon drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Pabst won a blue ribbon one time and the fact that it’s 50 cents a can is just an added benefit.
Congratulations, and well deserved! I’ve enjoyed the local coverage and witty humor that The Rant has been delivering since them olden days of the radio show and blog. The Rant has been an excellent resource to keep abreast of local news and events. Keep it coming!
Congratulations to the Rant! I enjoy the product you produce. Since some people are a little hurt about not getting awards for what they do, and don’t like the idea of specific industries giving awards to their colleagues, I hereby award you with the inaugural James Brookefield award for “Excellence in Journalism”.
To the cry-babies, I award the “Whiner of the Year”, and thank them for not dying. Now get back to work!
Wow! Just Wow James. Obviously, you COMPLETELY missed the point of the posts that were made by those two individuals. Tell you what. Allow the real adults to keep things in check and the economy moving forward, and we will continue to carry the weak-minded such as yourself along for the ride. We have had to do it for centuries, so why would we stop now?