Headline Contest: Submissions will be accepted beginning Jan. 1

ACES’ annual headline contest rewards good headline writing in print and digital media. Entries are evaluated not just on the cleverness of the headlines, but on their sophistication, uniqueness, appropriateness, and likely success in capturing readers’ attention.

Headlines published from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2019, are eligible for the contest. Winners were announced at the ACES national conference in Salt Lake City, May 1.

Professional individual prizes

• 1st place: $300 and a plaque
• 2nd place: $125 and a certificate
• 3rd place: $75 and a certificate

Student individual prizes

• 1st place: $125 and a plaque
• 2nd place: $75 and a certificate
• 3rd place: $50 and a certificate

Staff entry prizes

• 1st place: Plaque for the office
• 1st-3rd places: Certificate for the office wall and one for each headline author

How to enter

Headlines published from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2019, are eligible. An individual entry (by a single editor) consists of a portfolio of five to seven headlines. A staff entry (by multiple editors in the same organization) consists of eight to 10 headlines. Individuals and staffs may enter as many portfolios as they like, paying the entry fee for each.

All headlines must be submitted through our online form as individual PDFs, generated from the original page file for printed content or, for digital content, by using a "print to PDF" function in a web browser. If you wish, you may crop the PDF to show only the headline and its accompanying story, but you can also submit the full-page PDF as long as you specify on the entry form which headline should be judged.

You need not include the complete text of a story (such as text jumped to another page), but there should be enough text to allow the judges to determine the appropriateness of your headline. Include any related pages in the same PDF file as the headline.

A main headline and all related headlines that accompany it — deck heads, story summaries, jump heads, subheads, etc. — that are part of a single package are considered one headline entry within the entry portfolio. Accompanying photos and captions may also be considered for the context in which they place the headline.

Judges will be selected from a volunteer database, and a judge is not allowed to judge the categories in which they or their co-workers are entering.

Fees per entered portfolio

• Individual entry, ACES members: 1 free, $25 per additional
• Individual entry, student ACES members: free
• Individual entry, nonmembers: $50
• Individual entry, student nonmembers: $20
• Staff entry: $50
• Student staff entry: $25

Categories

The categories make no distinction between print and digital content and instead are mostly 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.

NOTE: ACES reserves the right to re-categorize any entry at its sole discretion.

CATEGORY A (staff and individual divisions) (staff size of 100 or more editorial employees):
NATIONAL MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

• The intended audience is not limited to a single metropolitan area or region; a broad audience that transcends any single region is actively sought.
• The intended audience is consumer-oriented and not mostly limited to membership organizations or employees in a single trade.
• For entries in the individual division, an editor’s work may come from multiple publications if more than half of the headlines are for organizations that fit this category.
• Examples: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, CNN, Sports Illustrated, Buzzfeed, editing hubs covering a large part of the country.

CATEGORY B (staff and individual divisions) (staff size up to 99 editorial employees):
REGIONAL/LOCAL MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

• The intended audience is limited to a single metropolitan area or sub-national region; any national audience, while possibly desired, is largely incidental.
• Corporate editing hubs qualify for this category only if their individual publications and websites are all locally or regionally focused.
• The intended audience is consumer-oriented and not mostly limited to membership organizations or employees in a single trade.
• For entries in the individual division, the editor’s work may be for multiple publications if more than half of the headlines are for organizations that fit this category.
• In the event there is ambiguity about whether an entry fits in Category A or B, Category A should be assumed.
• Examples: The Miami Herald, The Des Moines Register, Texas Tribune, Silicon Valley Business Journal, Billy Penn, editing hubs covering a certain region of the country.

CATEGORY C (staff and individual divisions):
INDUSTRY/MARKETING/PR/OTHER

• Most professional content that does not fit in the first two categories and is not solely student-produced goes here.
• The publishers are individuals, corporations, or other organizations operating in the interests of an industry, corporation, interest group, client base, charitable cause, scholarly community, or membership organization.
• The intended audience is not the general public, or is only incidentally so.
• For entries in the staff division, a single, coordinated staff working on multiple publications or for multiple clients can submit a single entry portfolio if fewer than half the headlines would fit in Category A and/or B.
• For entries in the individual division, a single editor’s work on multiple publications or for multiple clients can be treated as a single entry portfolio in this category if fewer than half the headlines would fit in Category A and/or B.
• Examples: Advertising Age, AARP Magazine, HR Professionals Magazine, Plastics News, corporate/nonprofit digital news feeds, corporate/nonprofit blogs and newsletters.

CATEGORY S (staff and individual divisions):
STUDENT MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

• The publication (print or digital) must be managed and crafted solely by students enrolled in a secondary school or institution of higher learning; it must not be subject to pre-publication editing by a non-student professional.
• For entries in the staff division, a single group of students working on multiple publications at the same institution can be treated as a single entry portfolio.
• For entries in the individual division, a student’s work for multiple publications can be treated as a single individual entry portfolio; however, headlines crafted for non-student publications (e.g., a professional newspaper where the student was an intern) are not eligible for entry in Category S.
• Students may enter individual portfolios in Categories A, B, and C if their work is eligible for those categories, and staff portfolios in those categories may include the work of student interns.

Headlines Contest Submissions

Previous winning headlines

2018 headline contest winners announcement

2017 headline contest winners announcement

2016 headline contest winners announcement

Past contest winner announcements

Buy "The Winning Headlines," a booklet featuring recent winning entries

Header Photo by Ariel Besagar on Unsplash