The Baptist Standard and CommonCall received 10 awards from the Associated Church Press, including a special achievement award for former Editor Marv Knox and a best in class award for Marketing Manager Julie Sorrels.
Distinguished service
At the recent Best of the Church Press awards event in Chicago, Associated Church Press named Knox recipient of its highest honor, the William B. Lipphard Award for distinguished service to religious journalism.
Knox, who stepped down as editor last year to become coordinator of Fellowship Southwest, is the seventh person in the last 44 years to receive the special recognition.
The award recognizes individuals who have made distinguished contributions to religious journalism over a significant period; have performed with unusual distinction, courage or integrity in the religious press; have contributed influence that has advances the ideals of Associated Church Press; and possess exemplary personal qualities and talents.
Social media presence enhanced
Sorrels earned Best in Class honors for overall excellence in the social media presence division. In 2017, Baptist Standard registered a 33.5 percent increase in social media engagement.
Sorrels won an award of excellence in social media marketing campaign and brand awareness for the www.baptiststandard.com relaunch.
The Baptist Standard and the RBMM brand design studio also received honorable mention in visual communications for the website redesign.
Opinion articles capture judges’ attention
Knox received an award of excellence for his editorial, “Could Jesus get elected dog-catcher here?” He also received an honorable mention in the “magazine/journal” division for his “Edgewise” column in CommonCall.
Three Texas Baptist Voices columnists collectively won an award of excellence in the “department: online publications” category—Meredith Stone for “A moment of reckoning, and not just for sexual harassers”, Craig Nash for “Why aren’t women pastoring Baptist churches?” and Jake Raabe for “Put not your trust in guns.”
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Stone also received honorable mention for her article, “Pence, propriety and devaluing half the American population.”
News reporting recognized
Managing Editor Ken Camp won a reporting and writing award of merit in the “in-depth coverage: news service/website/blog” category for his coverage of Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath.
Read the articles here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Camp also won an honorable mention in feature writing for “Mineral Wells couple felt God’s calling to foster parenthood.”
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