SPORTS JOURNAL
According to the experts, you can’t obtain greater local sports coverage than what your favorite online journal publisher offers for free.
The judges of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s annual Writing Contest are experts from out-of-state sports media. At the LSWA Awards Brunch in Natchitoches on Sunday, the results of this summer’s competition—which featured work created in the year 2024—were revealed.
Stats don’t lie, as coaches say. The figures demonstrate the enormous value that Journal readers receive from both engaging state and national themes and excellent material about their local teams.
No single-market news media source in Louisiana generated as many award-winning submissions as the Shreveport-Bossier Journalsports team, which included writers John James Marshall, Ron Higgins, Teddy Allen, and Tony Taglavore, as well as editor/writer Doug Ireland.
18 LSWA recognitions, including some of the contest’s highest honors, were given to the SBJ team. No other media organization with a single market had more than ten.
In addition to the accolades received by columnist Bob Tompkins of the Rapides Parish Journal and staff members Malcolm Butler, Kyle Roberts, and Reggie McLeroy of the Lincoln Parish Journal, the Online Journals LSWA contest haul totaled 24 awards. That was comparable to the total of the nearest competitor, which consisted of four shops with a total of 24 awards.
Some of the contest’s highest prizes went to journal writers, with Ireland winning the LSWA Sports Writer of the Year title after being recognized in eight separate categories. Prior to transitioning into the field of athletic media relations and not coming back to sports writing until 2021, he had previously won the award for the Alexandria Town Talk in 1987.
Marshall’s coverage of high school athletics in the SBJ earned him the title of LSWA Prep Writer of the Year.
Tompkins and Butler were the winners and runners-up, respectively, of the state Columnist of the Year award for Journal writers in Class II (circulation less than 10,000 per day). For the second consecutive year, Butler was also awarded runner-up for the Class II Prep Writer of the Year award.
