Announcing the Winners of the 2024-2025 Headline Contest
By Matthew Crowley
VCON25 had the headlines and the heads behind them. Check these out.
“Gag me with a memoir”
“Seeking a license? Expect a traffic jam”
“It’s sass, a bit crass, but appeal is mass.”
“Illuminate Education faces lawsuit alleging failure to keep user data in the dark”
These were among the 2024-25 Headline Contest’s winning entries. Three individual category winners, David Bowman, Rhiannon L. Root, and Tom Widlowski, were on hand to discuss their methods.
The ACES Headline Contest rewards the year’s best headline writing and is open to journalistic, student, and marketing publications from large and small markets in print and digital formats. Three winners attended the September 19 presentation to discuss their process.
Meet the winners
This year’s individual category winners were Bowman (Los Angeles Times), Root (The Washington Times), Widlowski (Texas Electric Cooperatives), and Natalie Canalis (Daily Bruin, UCLA).
The staff category winners were the Los Angeles Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Kansas State University Foundation, and Savannah College of Art and Design (District).
ACES committee members named the winners September 19, 2025, at VCON25, ACES’ fourth annual virtual conference. Winners receive plaques and a cash prize; honorable mentions receive certificates. Headline Contest entry materials must have been published from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025.
Bowman, who won his third ACES headline title, said he felt blessed to work and play off great Los Angeles Times colleagues, including two-time Headline Contest winner Steven Eames and Henry Fuhrmann, the longtime copy desk leader for whom the ACES-AAJA-LA mentor award is named.
“This feels like a late-career Oscar or MVP,” said Bowman, who joined the Times staff in 2004. “(Other editors) always wonder how I so quickly come up with not just one idea, but maybe several and again, it’s just something I pluck out of the ether and I’m grateful for it … a gift I’ve cultivated for 40-plus years.”
Root said she’ll test ideas with fellow editors, page designers and the office manager. She did this with one of her winning headlines, “A rye kind of hero,” which paired with a story about a TV show with a sad bread loaf as its protagonist.
Root said she thought, “‘This is too much, this is too weird.’ And I ran it past two of my friends … and they said, ‘No, that’s great.’ So I listened to them and I’m glad I did.”
Widlowski, who is his magazine’s sole headline writer, said his boss, the magazine’s editor, leaves him room to create.
“I saw the word ‘wordplay’ a lot, it’s been mentioned, it’s been written, and that’s sort of the essence I think, of what we do.”
It also helps to be a smart aleck, he said.
“That allows you to cut loose and have fun,” he said.
More about the Headline Contest
ACES has hosted its Headline Contest for more than 25 years — it appears to be the only such national competition — and the winners justifiably earn bragging rights for their accomplishments. Entries are evaluated not just on the headlines’ cleverness, but also on their sophistication, uniqueness, appropriateness, and stickiness — their ability to capture readers’ attention.
A 19-volunteer judging cohort broke into teams to evaluate the 47 entries, which were 17% more than were submitted a year earlier. There were 29 in the individual category and 18 in the staff.
ACES thanks its judging teams and their captains for their diligent and thoughtful work and invites members to start saving their headlines now for next year’s contest.
Headline Contest entry materials must have been published from April 1 to March 31. The submission window is open from the next day, April 1, through May 31. Winners are announced at the virtual conference in the fall.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HEADLINE CONTEST
The WINNERS OF THE 2024-2025 ACES HEADLINE CONTEST
The contest’s categories are distinguished by the content’s intended audience. Each category includes an individual division, for work by a single editor, and a staff division, for work by more than one editor working on a single coordinated staff.
Individual Categories
Individual Category A (national media organizations)
Winner: Dave Bowman, Los Angeles Times
View entry: Dave Bowman portfolio
Comments from the judges
His entire package of headlines compelled the reader to want to read the story, not just the headline. The headline matched the text and picture perfectly and enhanced the story.
Honorable mention not awarded in 2025.
Individual Category B (regional/local media organizations)
Winner: Rhiannon L. Root, The Washington Times
View entry: Rhiannon L. Root portfolio
Comments from the judges
Rhiannon Root clearly enjoys playing with words. She does so in subtle ways, always matching her headline with the tone and content of the story.
She made the most effective use of wordplay without distracting from the facts. Her headlines would draw in readers curious to learn more about the topics at hand.
Root superbly balances wit and wordplay with laser-aimed insight into the meat of the story.
Honorable mention: Zack Aldrich, Portland Press-Herald
View entry: Zack Aldrich portfolio
Individual Category C (industry/marketing/PR/other)
Winner: Tom Widlowski, Texas Electric Cooperatives
View entry: Tom Widlowski portfolio
Comments from the judges
“Calling An Audible,” which accompanies a story about the Texas School for the Deaf fighting preconceptions, resonated with the judges. “Friends in High Places” who saved windmills instead of attacking them (call him a reverse Don Quixote) gets props for inventiveness.
Honorable mention not awarded in 2025.
Individual Category S (student media organizations)
Winner: Natalie Canalis, Daily Bruin, UCLA
View entry: Natalie Canalis portfolio
Comments from the judges
Canalis’ portfolio consisted of headlines that were solid and straightforward, but she also used ample finesse. One cleverly played off the name of a mental health program named Octaves (“Westward therapy team helps students take post-election stress down a few octaves”) and another deftly juxtaposed “Illuminate” and “in the dark” (“Illuminate Education faces lawsuit alleging failure to keep user data in the dark”).
Honorable mention: Paco Bacalski, Daily Bruin, UCLA
View entry: Paco Bacalski portfolio
Comments from the judges
Bacalski proves adept at crafting headlines with a sharp focus on relaying the story. His instinct was spot-on in pulling a quote in “‘Everything is just gone’: Bruins grapple with homes lost in LA wildfires,” and he employed subtlety with his nod to the unnamed Buckeyes mascot (“UCLA women’s basketball proves tough nut to crack in ranked win over Ohio State”).
Winning portfolios in the Individual category are available for viewing in the following Dropbox links:
Staff Categories
Staff Category A (national media organizations)
Winner: Los Angeles Times
View entry: Los Angeles Times portfolio
Comments from the judges
“Gag me with a memoir” for a story about Moon Unit Zappa’s reflections on her famous musician father, Frank, has perfect pitch. ”After a string of messes, L.A. barred this goo on Halloween,” for a story about silly string, is appropriately sticky. And the onomatopoeia of “KICK. CRASH. BOOM.” for a story calling for a stunts Academy Award, has the stunt people practically jumping out of the page.”
Honorable mention not awarded in 2025.
Staff Category B (regional/local media organizations)
Winner: The Minnesota Star Tribune
View entry: The Minnesota Star Tribune portfolio
Comments from the judges
These headlines are notable for their ease in tone. When wordplay is used, as with “Target lands in Bullseye’s doghouse,” it doesn’t feel forced. The headline “Seeking a license? Expect a traffic jam” takes what could have been a boring headline about problems with the licensing system and instead makes readers stop to look at the story. Another notable headline is “A pivotal leap of faith,” which earns a perfect 10 for playing off the photo.
Honorable mention: The Dallas Morning News
View entry: The Dallas Morning News portfolio
Comments from the judges
These heads lean heavily on wordplay, but never with a heavy hand. “Musk’s move ensures all his Xs live in Texas, with Tesla” does double duty with its tip of the hat to a famous Texas musician.
Staff Category C (industry/marketing/PR/other)
Winner: Kansas State University Foundation
View entry: Kansas State University Foundation portfolio
Comments from the judges
KSU Foundation’s headlines use fun wordplay to catch the reader’s eye; each headline also plays well with the corresponding deck to provide full context for the article.
Honorable mention: Physics Today
View entry: Physics Today portfolio
Staff Category S (student media organizations)
Winner: District, Savannah College of Art and Design
View entry: District, Savannah College of Art and Design portfolio
Comments from the judges
The entire portfolio showed creativity, along with a complete package feel.
Winning portfolios in the Staff category are available for viewing in the following Dropbox links:
The Dallas Morning News portfolio
The Minnesota Star Tribune portfolio
Kansas State University Foundation portfolio
District, Savannah College of Art and Design portfolio
Matthew Crowley has been an ACES member since 2001 and is an honoree of the 2025 Henry Fuhrmann Mentor Award, presented by ACES and the Asian American Journalists Association’s Los Angeles chapter. He was most recently copy chief for PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website and a copy editor on the forthcoming 2026 Almanac for American Politics.
ACES: The Society for Editing
ACES: The Society for Editing is the nation’s leading organization of editing professionals, educators, and students. Founded in 1997 by copy editors, ACES is dedicated to improving the quality of the written word and the working lives of editors. It sets standards of excellence and gives a voice to editors in journalism, government, business, publishing, and beyond through top-notch training, networking, and career opportunities. ACES hosts an annual in-person conference and, since 2022, an annual virtual conference. ACES Academy hosts monthly webinars. ACES also offers certificates in editing, which it co-hosts with The Poynter Institute, a global leader in journalism.
